The Raptors got themselves in trouble against the Nets with a poor offensive effort that was missing any of the aspects that makes their scoring effective. They weren’t able to get on the paint for kick-out passes and there was precious little side-to-side ball movement.

“We want to be more of a free-flowing team, playing with really good spacing and creating open chances for each other,” Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic had told reporters at a New York practice Monday. “We’re constantly watching and showing guys on the film: ‘That’s a tough, contested, off-the-dribble shot without any ball movement, we don’t want those.’

“We work so hard on the defensive end to get a stop (and we don’t want) to just go in iso and take toughs shots early in the shot clock. We need to go with ball movement, we need to be aggressive, we need to touch the paint. If the ball is kicked out and you have a wide-open shot, you’re an NBA player, you have to be ready to shoot those shots.”

The open looks, and the kinds of shots they need to take and make in rhythm, were few and far between in Brooklyn. It was the same in a Sunday loss to Cleveland that had followed three good games.

“You’re working on those shots every single day so you got to step on the line and make those shots,” Rajakovic said. “It’s a part of development, it feels like every time when you’re making strides forward, it happens a game like (Sunday) that we take one step back.

“It’s never going to be perfect … It’s finding the balance: How do we connect with each other and how do we find the best available shots?”