Collin Murray-Boyles Reveals Raptors' Shooting Goal for New Season

The Toronto Raptors scored 148 points against the New York Knicks in Tuesday's preseason game, but what caught my eye was how many of their shots came from deep, with Toronto making 17 of its 44 tries from three.

The players said this week that all of those threes were part of the plan.

Toronto went 51 of 89 from the field in a blowout win over a short-handed Knicks team, which means close to half of its shots were threes.

The team wants to take at least 35 threes per game this season after averaging 32.1 last season, which was one of the lowest marks in the league.

Forward Collin Murray-Boyles took just 0.9 threes per game as a rookie, and he said his summer was about building the confidence to shoot more rather than fixing his jumper.

He went 2 for 2 from deep against the Knicks and spelled out the team's target in his comments this week.

"We want to shoot more threes. We want to get to that 35-ish per game number. So I'm just helping the team out with that as much as possible," Murray-Boyles said.

Head coach Darko Rajakovic said making threes takes pressure off the offense, since better shooting should open up space and lead to more touches in the paint.

I agree with him, and forward Kawhi Leonard helps a lot here because he went 4 for 8 from three against the Knicks, which means defenses will have to stay close to him.

I do worry about who ends up taking these shots, because forward Scottie Barnes made 30.4 percent of his threes last season and guard Immanuel Quickley missed all five of his attempts on Tuesday, even though he hit 37.4 percent of his threes last season.

Taking 35 a night only helps if the right players are shooting, so I would rather see Leonard and Quickley get most of those looks than watch the team force shots just to reach a number.

Murray-Boyles could decide how far this goes, since he has been building toward a bigger role, and a forward who defends the way he does while also hitting open corner threes would give Rajakovic more freedom with his lineups.

Barnes said he did not expect things to be as easy when the teams meet again in New York, because the Knicks did not have their regular players on the floor Tuesday.

Toronto visits Madison Square Garden on Thursday night before closing the preseason against the Pistons in Detroit on Friday, and the regular season opens at home against the Chicago Bulls on Oct. 21.

Thursday should be a better test than Tuesday was, and if the Raptors keep shooting from deep in New York with the right players taking those shots, I will believe this is a real change in how they play.

There is plenty of pressure on this group heading into the season, and I want to see those 35 threes show up in games that count, starting with the Bulls on Oct. 21.