Soon after he was old enough to get a driver's license, he realized that good and bad were inevitably intertwined.
As a teenager, he attended the University of Kentucky, signing to play for one of the top NCAA basketball programs with a fanatical fan base. He didn't have to wait too long to learn that public work had some disadvantages.
“I learned about it at a young age because when I was in Kentucky, my (direct messages) were people like, 'Kill yourself,'” Quickley told me in an interview when Toronto Raptors were preparing for Wednesday night's game against the Charlotte Hornets. “I thought, 'Damn it, why would anyone say that?' And then you find out it's work related. There's nothing crazy about this. But then when you play well, everyone kind of goes, “Ahhh.” This way you will learn to never get too high and never get too low.”
It's a hard-earned perspective. This was time-tested when he made it to the NBA with the New York Knicks. He always took it upon himself.
“Sometimes it’s hard, but he has that mentality,” said R.J. Barrettwho played three seasons for Quickley with the Knicks before they were traded to Toronto just over two years ago. “Coming from New York, it's like, 'Who cares, man, just keep filming.'
So it appears Quickley is unlikely to be alarmed by his recent play, which included fourth-quarter ejections in two of the Raptors' last four games before his start against the Hornets on Wednesday.
He wasn't even alarmed after going 1-of-7 from three through the first three quarters.
At that point, Quickley had shot just 25.6% (10 of 39) from three over his last 19 quarters of basketball.
And it's a good thing he didn't internalize criticism of his play or questions about his contract, which was considered too rich at $32.5 million a year for three more seasons after that for a player still learning the nuances of being a point guard. It's good that he's still willing to take hits even when they don't land.
It was this willfulness that played a decisive role in the Raptors' highly unlikely 97-96 victory over the Hornets. The victory improved their record to 23-15 and allowed them to play the third-place Celtics in the East, with the Raptors heading to Boston on Friday.
There were countless reasons for the loss, but Quickley, who scored eight of his 21 points in the fourth quarter as the Raptors came back from a 10-point deficit, was still willing to hit shots so they could win.
After all, it would be possible to get in, right?
He wasn't the only Raptor struggling. As a group, Toronto shot at the rim like it was a moving target. Heading into the fourth quarter, the Raptors shot 3 of 27 from deep, which is difficult to do. It's even harder to do this and still have even the slightest chance of winning the game. But somehow the Raptors trailed by just six points.
Their defenses kept them there, but for how long?
And that was not the most important thing. Raptors leading scorer Brandon Ingram (six points on 2-of-7 shooting), played just 11 minutes after pinching his thumb early in the first quarter. X-rays were negative, but that good news didn't help the Raptors' offense. And then Scotty Barnes (17 points on 6-of-14 shooting), who led the Raptors' offense most of the night, was limited to just over four minutes in the fourth quarter as he left briefly to have his knee checked.
Everything worked out, but he didn't return to the court until there was 1:48 left in the game.
But somehow, with Ingram gone and Barnes gone, the Raptors were able to fight their way back against a Hornets team (13-24) that was fresh off a stunning road win over the Oklahoma City Thunder and was 9-9 in its last 18 games, including two straight wins over the Raptors.
Quickley helped get the ball rolling when he hit a triple early in the fourth and broke through the defense for a layup to cut the Hornets' lead to three.
“Honestly, that’s the game,” he said of his willingness to stick with it when he gets stuck. “This is my sixth year, so you realize that sometimes you literally just miss, and sometimes you can't miss at all. So you know it has to balance out at some point.”
After that, it was Barrett who did most of the heavy lifting. Without Ingram, any notion of a minutes limit as he played after a five-week absence with a knee injury evaporated.
Instead, the goal was to create offense, which Barrett did by dropping his shoulders to the rim and not stopping until he got into the paint and was able to get up, often through contact. That side of his game hasn't been seen as much this season as the Raptors' roster has expanded and the offense has diversified. But it was desperately needed, and Barrett was happy to provide it.
“I've always said I'm here to do whatever the team needs to do to win,” said Barrett, who scored 16 of his 28 points in the fourth quarter while adding seven rebounds. “So tonight (it was) to make these games more efficient. Other nights I'd play defense and cut. Other nights I'd get a lot of assists. Like, whatever the team needs it to be, I'll do it. I'll try to do it every night.”
Barrett's three goals midway through the fourth quarter gave the Raptors their first lead since the opening minutes of the second quarter, but they still needed more. He must.
Mississauga, Ontario. Native fouled, finished the play and made a free throw with 56.4 seconds left to tie the game, and then his sharp pass over several defenders tied the game again with 20.1 seconds to play.
But it all looked like a wasted effort, every effort on defense for 48 minutes — the Raptors stayed in the game, holding Charlotte to 39 percent shooting and forcing 18 turnovers — all seemingly undone when the Hornets' LaMelo Ball burst past Quickley and through the paint for the go-ahead layup with 1.6 seconds to play.
Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic developed a scheme that the team had used before. He had several options, but trailing by two with less than two seconds left, the first option was to open up Quickley for a three. A hard screen from Barnes allowed the Raptors point guard to get open, and a deft pass from passer Sandro Mamukelashvili created a passing lane on target and in rhythm.
What about Quickley? Running to the left in a narrow semicircle, taking him beyond the three-point line, he thought of only one thing, calculating the moment of catching:
“I didn’t take as many shots as I wanted, but I told (myself) if I get it, I’ll try to put an end to it.”
He did just that. The 26-footer never touched the rim. There was never any doubt. Quickley was playing in his 361st NBA game and knew, even as the ball rose, that he had hit the first game-winner of his career.
“When he got up, I thought, 'This must be good, because I haven't fired a shot all night.'
Then bedlam ensued as he was devoured by his teammates. Later in the locker room there was a traditional water bottle shower and chain for the players.
“I mean, being on that NBA stage to hit the game-winner is like nothing else,” he told me afterward. “…Celebrating with my teammates is probably the coolest part.”
And yes, he talked on the phone later. He called his friends. He was talking to his girlfriend. SMS and DMs rolled in. Vibrations? Ideal. He put off calling his mom so he could keep quiet later.
Everything was exactly as he had imagined. The questions, doubts, ups and downs that come with being an NBA point guard when your every move, good or bad, is in the spotlight, can wait another day or two to come back around.
For one night everything was perfect.
Barrett puts it this way: This was vintage Barrett in issue four, although he hasn't had to dust off that version very much this season. He entered Wednesday's game averaging just 14.2 shots per game, his lowest since his rookie year. He did, however, play some of his best basketball, with his 37.5% 3-point percentage (through Wednesday) and 59.3% shooting percentage being career highs. He made 10 of 25 shots in the fourth quarter, making seven.
His teammates were grateful: “He had a lot of success, he had a lot of success,” Quickley said. “The way he can get to the rim so easily and create things for his teammates, he just nailed it.”
Imagine if he had two good thumbs: Still a rookie Raptors Colleen Murray-Boyles On December 23, he worked out for the Miami Heat and had nine offensive rebounds. He dislocated his left thumb, which is a problem because he is left-handed. He's wearing a pretty strong cast – he described it as a cast when I talked to him about it on Wednesday morning. You can see how he sometimes prefers this during games. But whether he has good fingers or not, Murray-Boyles continues to wield the basketball quickly. He grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds, including six offensively, against Charlotte, one of the league's best rebounding teams.
The Hornets are the closest NBA team to his hometown of Columbia, S.C., and about 20 of Murray-Boyles' friends and family made the 90-minute drive north — fewer than the 40 or so who showed up for his first game in Charlotte — to watch the Raptors rookie do what he does best: grab a basketball, whether he sprained his thumb or not.
No more Bamba: The Raptors were considering bringing back backup center Mo Bamba on a 10-day deal that was scheduled to begin Thursday or Friday in Boston. They waived him on Tuesday to remove his contract guarantee for the rest of the season if he had been in the lineup against Charlotte.
This timing also opened up the possibility of returning it after the 48-hour opt-out period had passed. But with Jakob Poeltl on the road to recovery from back problems (he practiced with trainers again Wednesday in Charlotte and is scheduled to practice with the team in Boston on Thursday), the Raptors decided not to bring back Bamba, in part because the $140,000 they would have to pay him for 10 days would add to their luxury tax bill.
One name to keep in mind is Tony Bradley, who was recently waived by the Indiana Pacers. But overall, it looks like the play of Murray-Boyles, Barnes and Poeltl's expected return means the Raptors will be selective about when and how they use 10-day contracts, at least until the trade deadline, when they look to reduce their luxury tax bill for the season.
