PHOENIX—You can still count Jonas Valanciunas’s career three-pointers on one hand. But probably not for long.

The Toronto Raptors centre drained a three-ball for the third consecutive game in Wednesday’s 115-109 win over the Phoenix Suns at Talking Stick Arena, a long-distance connection that brought Valanciunas’s career total of behind-the-arc makes to five — not exactly notable considering he’s playing in his sixth NBA season.

But Toronto coach Dwane Casey insisted before the game that the fruits of Valanciunas’s labour on the practice court — where the seven-footer has been attempting to improve his shooting range for at least a couple of seasons now — are finally producing results.

“He works on it … Offensively, he’s getting that three-ball what they call ‘wet’ and ready to shoot,” Casey said. “At some point in his career he’s going to be able to go out there and be a lethal threat for us and really space the floor.”

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On Wednesday night, mind you, the chief long-distance threat was in a home uniform. With the struggling Suns playing the second of back-to-back games — this while the Raptors rested at their Scottsdale hotel on Tuesday — the home team was largely carried by the hot hand of backup shooting guard Troy Daniels. Daniels made seven of 10 shots from three-point range en route to a career-best 32-point outing that helped keep the Suns in the game until the end. And he might have made more if the Raptors hadn’t finally clued into the wisdom of guarding him more closely.

“A lot of it, we were hanging all over (Daniels),” said Casey. “Norm (Powell) was all over him. OG (Anunoby) was all over him … He was in one of those zones that everybody we put on him, even when we switched Serge (Ibaka) or Pascal (Siakam), any of the big guys on him, he was just jumping up and shooting right over ‘em.”

The victory was hardly a masterpiece for the visitors, who loafed through long swaths of the evening before stomping the accelerator at key moments. The Raptors combined for a season-low 16 assists. The bench struggled for the third straight game, the likes of Powell and Siakam looking wholly ineffective in relief. And all-star guard Kyle Lowry, who had 12 points on 12 field-goal attempts, didn’t make his first field goal until the third quarter was more than eight minutes old, the second game in a row in which he failed to score from the field in the first half.

“I’ll be fine. At the end of the day, I’ll be fine and figure it out,” Lowry said. “I’ll keep shooting, though.”

But thanks to a big performance from DeMar DeRozan — who had 37 points in 37 minutes of playing time — and solid contributions from Valancinuas and Ibaka, the Raptors finished their four-game Western road swing with a 3-1 record.

“We needed all 37 (of DeRozan’s points),” Casey said.

The Raptors were scheduled to fly back to Toronto Thursday in advance of Friday’s home game against Brooklyn.

Casey said Ibaka, who had 21 points and 13 rebounds, is becoming more comfortable with his place in Toronto’s new offensive system.

“He’s getting a better feel for what we are trying to do offensively. I think the first few games like all of the guys was kind of a deer in headlights. ‘How do I get my shots, where do I get my shots?’” Casey said. “Serge is kind of like DeMar and Kyle in getting a rhythm within what we are trying to do.”

Casey credited Ibaka’s activity on the glass — including his three offensive rebounds — as a key to Wednesday’s win.

“He was quick to the ball. He had three offensive rebounds, kept it alive. I thought his rebounding was superb,” Casey said. “And I think that’s something we need to make more of, because we need it. We need it as much as we do scoring. And I thought he gave it to us. He was bouncy. He had a pep in his step on the boards.”

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Ditto Valanciunas, who, Casey said, has also been playing better defensively of late.

“He’s doing a good job. He did a good job the other night (in a loss to the Clippers) and there’s a lot of argument he should have been in the game (down the stretch),” Casey said. “But defence wasn’t our issue the other night, it was offence. We felt like getting Serge out and stretching the floor against (DeAndre) Jordan was the better way to go. Jonas was having a good game offensively, moving the ball. Defensively, he got beat on a few offensive rebounds, but we all did. He’s been a really improved defensive player for us and I like what I see.”

The idea that he might become a more modern offensive player — that is, a big man who can do threat from three-point range — has been a dream in Raptorland for some time. Given his prowess from mid-range — he came into Wednesday’s game shooting 90% from the free-throw line — there’s reason to believe he might yet make it happen, even if the relative slowness of his release could prove a hindrance.

“I’m learning. I’m still learning. There’s a lot of things to learn ahead of me,” Valanciunas said after the game. “I’ve been working a lot. I’ve been shooting a lot. Now I’ve just got to find the spacing where I can space out on the three and shoot it. It cannot be early in the shot clock. It cannot be where it’s not the right spacing. But I’m slowly finding it.”

As Casey likes to say about many things in Toronto, call it a work in progress, with plenty more labour required.

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