With a league-best net rating of 12.1 heading into Tuesday night, the Toronto Raptors statistically feature the best bench unit in all of basketball.

Second-year big men Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam have emerged as key cogs in Toronto’s second-unit machine and they say the success of the Bench Mob – as they’ve been nicknamed – all comes down to the rapport the Raptors’ reserves built up with each other.

“I think it’s gotta be a chemistry thing,” Poeltl said on Prime Time Sports Tuesday. “It’s just so fun to play with these guys. What we developed over the summer was just a way of playing together, a way of playing hard together, and it just worked out so far.

“It shows. We move the ball, we pass it, there’s not one person taking all the shots, it’s always somebody else playing really well and everybody else is contributing and helping out each other and I think that’s really what makes us so good right now.”

Prime Time Sports Prime Time Sports - November 28th - 5pm November 28 2017 Your browser does not support the audio element.



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Though he’s putting up a modest stat line of 6.3 points and 4.5 rebounds per game, Poeltl is enjoying a very successful sophomore season by averaging 15.2 points and 11 rebounds per 36 minutes.

He says the team’s new offensive philosophy has played a big role in his leap in production, in addition to the bench’s early-season prowess.

“We’ve for sure noticed [the new offensive philosophy], especially for us in that second unit. That’s all we do,” Poeltl told Prime Time Sports hosts Bob McCown and John Shannon. “It’s what we worked on in the summer and really what the coaches want us to do is move the ball. Never have it stick in one spot for too long.

“We pretty much have no isolation with us in the second unit. It’s all just dribble drive, pass out, drive again, pick-and-rolls. It’s just flowing really.”

The new approach on offence predicated around whipping ball movement and the three-point shot has been a major success for the Raptors, who are generating more than two possessions per game compared to last season and boasted the third-best offence in the NBA entering Tuesday’s action.

However, as great as the team’s offence has looked at the quarter pole, the players haven’t completely embraced all-analytics hoops.

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“I mean, you can’t say [the mid-range game is] gone because one of our best players, his mid-range game is incredible,” Siakam told Prime Time Sports. “I think you can’t take that away from him.

“We try to limit it, but it’s basketball. When you have the opportunity to shoot that, you’re going to shoot it. We try to limit it and not take it as much, but we all know it’s part of the game and it’s going to happen.”

The player Siakam is referring to is, of course, DeMar DeRozan, whose 22.9 points per game is good for 13th in the league entering Tuesday meaning he’s probably doing something right, even though he’s only shooting 29.6 per cent from three.

Toronto is 12-7 having just played what will likely be the toughest part of its season, so it’s also safe to say that the entire team is probably doing something right.

The Raptors next play Wednesday night at home against the Charlotte Hornets.

You can check out Poetl’s and Siakam’s entire appearance on Prime Time Sports in the video at the top of this post.