Like a sitcom dad, Raptors coach Dwane Casey gets angry in reverse.
He starts out with the shouting, but it’s when he gets quiet that you need to start worrying.
Casey ended Wednesday night’s sloppy 105-99 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks wrapped in funereal silence.
Afterward, the coach and his team were cloistered inside the locker room for an unusually long time. Casey came out softly again, but his words were leaden.
“I just mentioned to the team that we’ve lost that pride of guarding our yard. What we established in training camp has slipped,” Casey said evenly. “That’s what we started out the season doing, doing a great job of, and somewhere along the line we’ve lost it.”
Losses are one thing; losses aren’t even necessarily a bad thing.
This team was never going to hit the post-season until June’s draft. Losses count as wins in that sort of post-season.
And Casey can live with them. But he can’t live with organizational slippage. This team needs to reach a consistent defensive plateau before it starts switching out moving parts. And lots of moving parts are going to be moving fairly soon.
The emblematic breakdown came when the game was already out of hand. Down six with thirty seconds remaining, 6-foot-1 Milwaukee point guard Brandon Jennings took the second of a pair of free throws. After rimming his shot, Jennings followed his own miss into a thicket of Toronto bigs and came away with the rebound.
It didn’t really matter, but it really mattered.
“It’s frustrating, that situation,” Casey said of the specific play later. “I can understand guys missing shots, guys not getting going in the fourth quarter, but to let a point guard come in and take a rebound, that’s frustrating. Because that’s something you can control.”
Casey started out the game in full throat.
Once again Toronto went with its now-regular three-guard starting rotation, but switched out Aaron Gray for the quicker Amir Johnson at centre.
Led by DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors notched 29 points in the first — a season high. They also led after one by the end of that period — the first time in 15 games they’ve carried a lead into the second. That initial performance was abetted by a refereeing crew that wouldn’t have called a foul in a soccer riot. That would change as the game wore on and the complaints of both benches sunk in.
But the wheels were already getting wobbly.
The introduction of Mike Dunleavy and Stephen Jackson by the Bucks left Toronto’s second unit scrambling to find their assignments on defence.
Casey spent most of the second screaming, “Ed! ED! ED!!” as his wayward four, Ed Davis, wandered around the defensive end like a guy trying to find his way out of the lingerie section.
Dunleavy was sprung again and again. He sank three open looks from beyond the arc in the second alone and finished with 18 points.
Near the end of that quarter, Jennings went on a darting run and appeared to sneak through the legs of most of the Raptor quintet before laying in the reverse dunk.
By this point, Casey had gone from shouting to muttering to himself. Bad sign.
When Stephen Jackson cut through the heart of the Raptors’ defence on consecutive series for a pair of uncontested lay-ups, Casey had gone silent, arms folded.
At several points during the remainder of the game, he would take a seat on the bench.
Worst sign of all.
Nonetheless, Toronto continued swinging — wide, looping punches that missed as often as they connected. The effort wasn’t helped when starting guard and Jose Calderon understudy Jerryd Bayless left midway through the third with a sore ankle. That’s the same ankle that kept him on the shelf for 13 games early in the season.
Rasual Butler entered late and put up a pair of threes that got the Raptors close. Toronto was within two points with six minutes remaining, but their luck could not hold, nor could their defence.
Ex-Raptor Carlos Delfino stuck the knife in with a three with under three minutes remaining, whereupon it became a grinding foul exchange.
This was the first of seven straight games at home. When the Raptors first saw this stretch on the calendar in December, it probably looked like the most relaxing part of the condensed season.
Given the way Casey was left fuming, and his suggestion the pride failure is down to a lack of hard lessons taught in practice, the games themselves may be the easiest part of this stretch.
He starts out with the shouting, but it’s when he gets quiet that you need to start worrying.
Casey ended Wednesday night’s sloppy 105-99 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks wrapped in funereal silence.
Afterward, the coach and his team were cloistered inside the locker room for an unusually long time. Casey came out softly again, but his words were leaden.
“I just mentioned to the team that we’ve lost that pride of guarding our yard. What we established in training camp has slipped,” Casey said evenly. “That’s what we started out the season doing, doing a great job of, and somewhere along the line we’ve lost it.”
Losses are one thing; losses aren’t even necessarily a bad thing.
This team was never going to hit the post-season until June’s draft. Losses count as wins in that sort of post-season.
And Casey can live with them. But he can’t live with organizational slippage. This team needs to reach a consistent defensive plateau before it starts switching out moving parts. And lots of moving parts are going to be moving fairly soon.
The emblematic breakdown came when the game was already out of hand. Down six with thirty seconds remaining, 6-foot-1 Milwaukee point guard Brandon Jennings took the second of a pair of free throws. After rimming his shot, Jennings followed his own miss into a thicket of Toronto bigs and came away with the rebound.
It didn’t really matter, but it really mattered.
“It’s frustrating, that situation,” Casey said of the specific play later. “I can understand guys missing shots, guys not getting going in the fourth quarter, but to let a point guard come in and take a rebound, that’s frustrating. Because that’s something you can control.”
Casey started out the game in full throat.
Once again Toronto went with its now-regular three-guard starting rotation, but switched out Aaron Gray for the quicker Amir Johnson at centre.
Led by DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors notched 29 points in the first — a season high. They also led after one by the end of that period — the first time in 15 games they’ve carried a lead into the second. That initial performance was abetted by a refereeing crew that wouldn’t have called a foul in a soccer riot. That would change as the game wore on and the complaints of both benches sunk in.
But the wheels were already getting wobbly.
The introduction of Mike Dunleavy and Stephen Jackson by the Bucks left Toronto’s second unit scrambling to find their assignments on defence.
Casey spent most of the second screaming, “Ed! ED! ED!!” as his wayward four, Ed Davis, wandered around the defensive end like a guy trying to find his way out of the lingerie section.
Dunleavy was sprung again and again. He sank three open looks from beyond the arc in the second alone and finished with 18 points.
Near the end of that quarter, Jennings went on a darting run and appeared to sneak through the legs of most of the Raptor quintet before laying in the reverse dunk.
By this point, Casey had gone from shouting to muttering to himself. Bad sign.
When Stephen Jackson cut through the heart of the Raptors’ defence on consecutive series for a pair of uncontested lay-ups, Casey had gone silent, arms folded.
At several points during the remainder of the game, he would take a seat on the bench.
Worst sign of all.
Nonetheless, Toronto continued swinging — wide, looping punches that missed as often as they connected. The effort wasn’t helped when starting guard and Jose Calderon understudy Jerryd Bayless left midway through the third with a sore ankle. That’s the same ankle that kept him on the shelf for 13 games early in the season.
Rasual Butler entered late and put up a pair of threes that got the Raptors close. Toronto was within two points with six minutes remaining, but their luck could not hold, nor could their defence.
Ex-Raptor Carlos Delfino stuck the knife in with a three with under three minutes remaining, whereupon it became a grinding foul exchange.
This was the first of seven straight games at home. When the Raptors first saw this stretch on the calendar in December, it probably looked like the most relaxing part of the condensed season.
Given the way Casey was left fuming, and his suggestion the pride failure is down to a lack of hard lessons taught in practice, the games themselves may be the easiest part of this stretch.
If this year is all about culture change and pounding that rock....... well, they have some work to do.
I have no questions or doubt about Casey. If these guys can't play hard under him, so much for continuity, I hope the roster is gutted. Who would have ever thought this time last year that Bargnani was the heart and soul of the team?
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