If some of the Raptors' offense seemed similar to much of the Rockets' style in recent years, that was not a coincidence. First-year Raptors coach Nick Nurse brought much of that style with him to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, the Rockets' G League affiliate, and then developed his offense to work with the Rockets' philosophies.
"One of the reasons I ended up there is they crunched the numbers on my coaching style from Europe and the D League already," Nurse said. "So I was pretty closely aligned to what they were thinking already. Just took it another three steps, the shots we were trying to take, the driving, spacing, kicking.