Nick Nurse isn’t going to get a gentle shoulder rub from Drake, and he won’t hug some random front-row fan after a successful coach’s challenge like he did in Los Angeles earlier this year, but the Raptors coach is starting to feel the people around him.
Feel might be a stretch, because they are just faces on video boards on one side of temporary courts, but there is something of a soothing feeling to their virtual presence.
“It’s getting less quiet,” Nurse said this week. “There’s crowd noise. You can see family members and coaches’ family members and players’ family members.