Nick Nurse Continues To Get Aggravated With His Players, Still Calling Them Out Publicly

The Toronto Raptors have been trending downwards as of late and it hasn’t looked pretty. At 15-20, they’ve gone 2-8 in their last ten games and are eleventh in the Eastern Conference. Their only player who you can truly say is giving it his all is Pascal Siakam. He leads the team in points, rebounds, and assists so far this season. As for the other players, head coach Nick Nurse has publicly called out Siakam’s teammates for their lack of effort and intensity. It’s a bad look for the head coach to be blaming losses on his players. You just can’t do that. 

Toronto lost to the Grizzlies on Thursday night 119-106 and Nurse was not happy after the game. He once again ripped into his players publicly in front of the cameras and media. Has it ever crossed his mind that this may not be the way to approach things? Besides the championship that his team carried him to in his first season as a head coach, what has Nurse really done for the Raptors?

NBA betting sites have the Raptors at (+6000) to win the Finals this season.

I’ve never seen Nick Nurse rip into his own team like this. pic.twitter.com/xDKJBiT4th

— Sid Seixeiro (@Sid_Seixeiro) December 30, 2022

Is Nick Nurse approaching this all the wrong way?

There’s been multiple occasions of Nurse calling out his players publicly this season. He’s accused Gary Trent Jr. for his poor defensive efforts and has called out Chris Boucher for his ineffective player overall. You don’t need to be a genius to know that this is not the right way to communicate with his players. Have the conversations one the side when a camera is not recording every word you say.

After the loss last night, Nurse had these comments about his team.

“It was about as bad as it could get… We would make a free throw & they’d throw ahead & dunk it on the other end. Plays that can’t happen, or they could happen once every 7 years. We have to get focused & connected & get serious about playing harder.” – Nick Nurse

It’s possible that the Raptors coach is living up to his standards as well. Toronto used their eighth starting lineup of the season last night in 35 games played this season. That’s just over half of their games when they have a different starting lineup. Injuries have surely attributed to that and Nurse can’t take all the blame for that, but what about the starting five he put out last night that had logged any minutes together as a group this season?

Nurse continued his rant about his team with this.

“Lately we’ve been lacking playing to our identity. We’re a bit disjointed right now. We’ve gotta hang in there, get to work & keep showing them what we’re talking about. Hopefully they’ll go out there & execute it. They should get tired of this pretty soon & start playing.” – Nick Nurse

Another reason the Raptors have been struggling is because Nurse refuses to adjust the system they are used to running. There’s a chance that teams have been watching the film and have keyed in on the little hints that give the tells the other team needs to win the game. Nurse may just need to go back to the drawing board and come up with an effective strategy to help get the Raptors as win.