It was an odd time for Brandon Ingram to fade into the background on offence.
The Toronto Raptors‘ scoring leader was limited to just nine shots from the field — with only one in the second half — in the team’s 126-113 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal on Saturday.
Ingram, who was five-of-nine for 17 points, finished just three games this season with single digits in field-goal attempts.
When asked why he barely shot in the second half, Ingram said: “Coach wanted to use me as a screener. Also he noticed that my man wasn’t coming off of me, so he wanted me outside of the action a little bit and being a receiver. But at the end of the day, me shooting nine shots is not going to win basketball games, so I’ve just got to figure out ways where I can still be effective while they’re doing whatever defensively.”
Ingram did get to the foul line 10 times (hitting seven), so his field-goal attempt total could have been higher.
But it was still unusually low usage for an All-Star who averaged 16.7 shots from the field this season with a 21.5-point scoring average.
“They tried to deny me the ball every time that I went down the floor. Obviously, they knew most of the stuff that we’ve been running all year. I think that’s just a part of the playoffs,” he said. “We got to figure out how to make the adjustment next game, and let that not be too effective.”
Coach Darko Rajakovic, meanwhile, sounds like he wants to try to get more out of Ingram in Game 2 on Monday.
“We’ve got to do a better job of executing, freeing him up, playing to our standard of ball movement,” he said. “We did not do a good enough job of running our stuff with pace. We did not do a good enough job to involve Brandon. Some of that is on me.”