The Toronto Raptors have fallen in the Eastern Conference standings, as they have failed to keep up with the top four teams in the conference. Losses like the one they suffered on Sunday night against the Phoenix Suns, 120-98, won't do much to help further their cause. In fact, it has to be a huge concern for the Raptors that they failed to show up against a team that was on the second night of a back-to-back, never mind that the game was held in Mortgage Matchup Center.

The whole team wasn't very good on Sunday, with the chief offender being Brandon Ingram. Ingram scored just six points on 3-10 shooting from the field, while the likes of Immanuel Quickley (11 points on 4-9 shooting) and RJ Barrett (13 on 5-8) weren't very good either. But for backup point guard Jamal Shead, another bad game is a continuation of what is already becoming a concerning trend.

Shead has struggled for the entirety of the calendar month of March; the Raptors guard is averaging just 3.3 points on 27.3 percent shooting from the field. Nonetheless, Scottie Barnes has his teammates' back completely.

“[I would tell him to] just keep being aggressive. Our team, we believe in him. He gets downhill and creates so much for us. We know he's going to be able to do that every single night. He's going to come play defense. I think that's what our focus is on,” Barnes said in his postgame presser, via Omer Osman of Raptors Updates.

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“He’ll find it. Got to trust in him.”

Shead has been a huge piece of what the Raptors have been doing this season, and it would be foolish to suddenly lose trust in him over a rough stretch. But with Toronto dangerously close to falling in the play-in tournament picture, Shead and the rest of the squad have to figure it out quickly.