Raptors ‘in disbelief’ over Scottie Barnes’s costly last-minute ejection in loss to Nuggets

DENVER—It was a game that deserved a better ending than it got.

A controversial finish to Toronto’s 118-113 loss to the Nuggets here Monday, a nail-biter marred by the ejection of Scottie Barnes in the final minute put a damper on what had been a tremendous game and one of the best all-around Raptors performances in weeks.

“I think it was a great game that looked like it was coming down to a great ending, it’s a little bit unfortunate that we didn’t get to see that ending, at all,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.

“Especially on the one Scottie got ejected on. There was absolutely nothing there — nothing.”

Barnes was tossed by officiating crew chief Scott Foster with 28.3 seconds left and the Raptors trailing by one.

Officials had a called a foul on Toronto’s Jakob Poeltl which set Barnes off and Foster threw the second-year Raptors forward out of the game.

“He was ejected on one technical foul because he used verbiage which directly questioned the integrity of the crew,” Foster told a pool reporter.

Barnes was adamant he was talking only to himself and did not direct any comments to Foster.

Barnes tweeted after the game “I’m in disbelief.”

Jamal Murray made the technical free throw, Aaron Gordon made the two foul shots from the original call and Denver had iced the game.

“I just thought it turned into a replay-fest, arguments every call here, there, everywhere,” said Fred VanVleet, who led Toronto with 21 points and 14 rebounds. “I’m going to save my money (and not publicly criticize officials) but I just thought it was otherwise a very smooth, high level game then down to the last couple minutes it went off-schedule there.

“But give them credit, they made a couple more plays, if you want to call ’em that but (it was a) tough way to go out for sure.”

There are no moral victories and the Raptors missed a chance to move into eighth place in the Eastern Conference but their overall performance was impressive.

It was one of Toronto’s most thorough performances in a while, a combination of patient, effective offence and a solid defensive effort in the most difficult arena for road teams in the NBA.

“We know what we’re capable of at this point,” VanVleet said. “Again, it doesn’t really count for much. We’re past the stage of moral victories but I thought we performed very well given the circumstances.”

There were blips — a rash of turnovers to start the third quarter and bad closeouts to the first three quarters — but there was more than enough good to take away from the night.

And since the goal is incremental improvement over the last month of the regular season, some major steps were taken.

“We play like that and we can beat anybody, doesn’t matter if it’s home or away or where they are in the standings, etc,” Nurse said.

“Probably outplayed ’em, to be honest and think we executed very, very well.”

Denver’s defending two-time MVP winner Nikola Jokić wasn’t brilliant Monday — 17 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists isn’t anything to laugh at though — but he was able to figure out what the Raptors were doing with him.

“He seems to have an answer for just about everything,” Nurse said. “I’ve only been in this league for 10 years. There are not a whole lot of guys that I can count on my fingers that have had that answer to it all.”

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