The Toronto Raptors gave the Washington Wizards the business last night.

Armed with a strong rebounding game and a relentless interior attack, Toronto completely exploited Washington inside the paint.

The box score reads the Raps scored a mere 32 points in the paint but don’t let that fool you.

Jonas Valanciunas had a statement game. His production alone on this night warranted him getting more touches not only in the contest but possibly for the remainder of the season.

[Also read Reaction: Wizards 78, Raptors 88]

He isn’t always the most aesthetic looking player, but he gets the job done. According to Synergy Sports, the big man came into last night’s game converting 49.4 percent of his shots in post up situations.

Obviously, context is important in this setting. He doesn’t necessarily score that well against every opposing big man, but last night was one of those nights. Valanciunas owned Emeka Okafor and Nene.

He had a few post ups as well as a couple of drives — always to his right! — that allowed him to score.

But JV’s biggest contribution last night on offense was his toughness. Every time he was given an open shot in the paint, he pump faked himself (took him a few seconds to realize how open he was) and then used the landscape at his disposal to attack the basket.

Routinely he was met with resistance, but he kept drawing whistles. His aggressive and physical play resulted in a 16-of-18 free throw shooting night.

Valanciunas’ scoring in the half-court helped the Raptors overcome a sloppy game. The majority of their 15 turnovers on this night were unforced. On a few occasions, players tried threading the needle with passes and instead coughed up the ball.

DeMar DeRozan was on his game in this contest. Dwane Casey’s regular sets were favorable for Toronto’s starting 2-guard on this evening.

One of the Raptors’ pet plays has DeRozan curling off a screen on the left side of the floor for an open jumper. If the big man defending the action on DeRozan steps out to contest his jumper, the shooting guard can essentially drive past him and get into the paint.

DeMar mixed up his game by attacking the paint and nailing his midrange jumpers. According to Hoopdata, DeRozan converted 6-of-12 shots from 16-to-23 feet against the Wizards. He also got himself to the basket and into the paint where he put pressure on Washington.

DeMar DeRozan shot cart against Washington Wizards.

His final tall by night’s end was 25 points.

Valanciunas and DeRozan did a great job of taking whatever Washington offered them in this contest. But it can also be said that Toronto removed whatever available options the Wiz had, especially in the second half.

Indeed, Casey’s group held the Wizards to 28 points on 7-for-35 shooting from the floor in the final two quarters of the game. They kept John Wall out on the perimeter and the few times he wandered into the paint, he was met with resistance.

He managed 12 points in the second half, but was 3-for-11 from the field.

With the team hitting the road for their three next games, winning at home prior to leaving the friendly confines of Toronto is always a good thing.

Raptors 99, Wizards 92

No sense sugar-coating it: this was a dud. A win’s a win, unless you’re a Draft-obsessed fan and a win’s a loss, but this was not an inspiring effort from the Raptors against a Wizards team without its starting power forward and center. There were defensive lapses all over the place, there were some very, uh, strange offensive possessions throughout, and Toronto let Washington back in the game in the fourth quarter when a stop or a bucket here or there would have put it out of reach.

Talking about the absence of energy in the building in the fourth quarter, Jack Armstrong hilariously said it was “one of those days you don’t want to get out of your pajamas.” I think this can be said for the players, too. It’s been a grueling season with a ridiculous schedule and it’s tough to get amped to play Washington on a Sunday on the first day of April. I’m not going to kill Toronto for this because it’s actually been remarkable how few of these less-than-entertaining games there have been this season. The opponents are almost always more talented, but the Raptors have been competitive way, way more often than not.

It’s Dwane Casey’s job from now on to try to get these guys to play with the same effort and focus they did earlier in the season — in his halftime interview, he said the team’s defensive concentration had “gone the way of the buffalo.” Curious to see if there’s an improvement against the Bobcats on Tuesday. If you’re wondering, Charlotte is 7-43.

Some notes:

• The Wizards’ offense looked a mess. This shouldn’t be surprising if you’ve watched them this year. With Nene and Trevor Booker both out with plantar fasciitis, it was a bunch of young guys plus Brian Cook, Roger Mason and Cartier Martin running around, basically.
• Not really sure how a lineup of Shelvin Mack, Mason, Martin, Jan Vesely and Cook is supposed to score points. That group played together in the second quarter.
• Cook is my favorite NBA player. I love nothing more than to watch him jog up and down the floor and shoot jumpers. It’s a treat when he puts the ball on the floor, too. He doesn’t make me completely lose my mind and want to throw things at my TV at all. Nope. Not one bit. Promise.
• Andrea Bargnani had 18 points on 6-for-15 shooting, plus eight rebounds. Yay, eight rebounds! But he could have done lots more. He was 2-for-10 after the first quarter and, sorry Wizards, but I’m not giving the defense credit here. Bargnani is more than capable of shredding them.
• John Wall had a case of the Bargnanis himself. He had no trouble getting in the lane, but he didn’t appear interested in taking over the game. A modest 13 points and 11 assists for Wall, who made Kevin Seraphin look good by continually setting him up for dunks. No reason he couldn’t have looked for his offense more, however.
• Amir Johnson had two big plays down the stretch when Washington was in striking distance: a screen for DeMar DeRozan and a putback dunk.
• Credit DeRozan for repeatedly attacking the basket. He isn’t exactly going to get a ton of love from the national media for putting his body on the line in a game like this. I’d almost forgive him for settling for jumpers at this point in the season, but he got to the line nine times and took a couple of bumps. Good for him. It’s starting to feel like he’s been around for quite a while, so it’s easy to forget he’s still 23 and the organization still wants him to get stronger in the off-season so he can absorb more contact and be more physical defensively.
• Vesely had the play of the game.
• Ben Uzoh dunked, too!
• This game was ugly, but I’m still enjoying the Alan Anderson experience. Aren’t you?

There’s losing a tough, competitive game that came down to the wire; there’s losing a nasty one to a better team where you weren’t really expected to make any noise; then there’s that once a year performance that would cost a coach his job. Clearly Casey is in no danger of losing his job, and shouldn’t be, but if Triano was still around, this would have been the nail in his coffin.

Last night was the result of a perfect storm that was bound to happen. Not only to the Raptors, but we will see a lot of fugly results like this across the league:

Injuries It says a lot about the state of your team when missing Jerryd Bayless in the lineup is cause for concern. Look, he’s not the worse thing that has ever happened to the Raptors, but at least he gives Calderon some rest (70 minutes in two nights, and he didn’t play the entire 4th quarter), and is aggressive off the bounce when he has the ball in his hands. It would also be nice to have Kleiza (again, I only weep for myself that I’m hoping Bayless AND Kleiza get back in action asap) force both Butler and Johnson into playing a combined 15-18 minutes a night.

Scheduling & Player Management The Raptors have played five games in the last seven nights, with little time for rest, and more importantly, practice. It’s tough to really work on things when you’re either on a plane, at the airport or sleeping. Top that off with heading into the 2nd night of a back-to-back, and things don’t look good considering the Raptors aren’t the most fit bunch. What made things even worse was Bargnani and Calderon played 45 and 41 (DeRozan played 38, but that shouldn’t be as big an issue) minutes respectively the night before against the  Wolves. I questioned Casey for riding those two for so long, but at least they got the win out of it.

Scoring The Raptors couldn’t put the ball through the hoop; it was tough to watch.

Now to the game…

The game started ugly for both teams; it took two and a half minutes and a combined five shots before Bargnani put the ball on the floor and got things rolling. The key during that two-minute stretch of ass was that the Wizards were missing off the bounce and in the paint, and the Raptors were clanking jumpers. This set the tone for the entire night where the Wizards were just monsters in the paint, scoring 38 of 46 points in the paint in the 1st half. That’s a big deal since it isn’t like the Wizards have a dominant front court that had it’s way with our boys. They attacked off the dribble with Wall, Young and Crawford taking their man, and making some difficult shots.

Aside from Calderon getting his second wind a minute into the game (it was downhill after the first quarter for the guy), three things stood out for me in the quarter: offensive rebounding and defense kept the Raptors in the game early; the Wizards had a grand total of 2 assists in the quarter; and DeRozan wasn’t actually playing any basketball. Given that the Raptors had just played the Wolves the night before, I expected some tired-lazy shots, but it was nice to see the defense do its job. The Wizards scored because their guys took the game into their hands and instead of running plays, made super aggressive moves off the bounce to get a shot off. This made me me happy heading into the second because when you control the boards, and are forcing a team to score off of broken plays and zero ball-movement, good things will happen.

I was wrong, the 2nd quarter was a warm, tightly curled pile of doo-doo (I actually used the word doo-doo six times in my game notes). If I could take back 40 minutes of my life, it was witnessing the 2nd and 3rd quarters of this game. Yes the Raptors were tired, but the worst team in the NBA managed to set the pace of the game, and capitalize. Eighteen of the Wizards first 20 points were transition buckets in the paint.

There was also a two-fold problem of turning the ball over (9 turnovers in the quarter), and when they managed to protect it, scoring the bloody thing.  DeRozan, Butler and Johnson were a combined 1-15 from the floor in the 1st half. To compound things, each and every shot they took, and missed, was early in the clock and obviously forced. In all fairness, DeRozan isn’t getting the ball in his sweet spot: catching the ball after curling off the high screen. He’s getting the ball on the wing, with no weak-side action. Unfortunately, his shot isn’t there quite yet. Butler and Johnson are just brutal; makes me miss watching Mike James go 1-on-4 for a bucket five-times a night.

The third was more of the same, and Casey threw in the towel in the 4th, trying to conserve some energy for tonight’s affair against the Kings.

After turning in an ugly effort against a lesser squad, I’m still happy with how the season is going. The reality is that the Raptors should have won this game and lost to the Knicks – net change is zero. Regardless of the outcome, some really good things happened last night:

• The Raptors defense was pretty decent; a 93 point performance where the starters didn’t play the entire 4th quarter isn’t something to hang your head low on. The Raptors were rotating on defense fairly well, but you have to give the Wizards some credit for hitting shots with next to no ball movement until the second half of the second quarter
• Bargnani weathered through his fatigue and managed 22 points on 16 shots in 29 minutes
• The Raptors out-rebounded the Wizards 44-38, with their offensive rebounding keeping them in the game, 14
• The zone defense worked until it didn’t, and by didn’t, I mean they didn’t use it enough. Still, it’s nice that they can throw out different looks that are effective

I really hate to say it, but the Wizards were due for a win, and the gods conspired to set the stage for them to capitalize. It’s an easy one to put behind you and prepare for the Kings at home.

If you don’t know, watching the game while keeping track of things on Twitter makes things a bit more interesting. The highlight for me last night was this exchange with some random dude (start at the bottom and read up the thread):

Photo Credit: Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images

The Wizards have been awful this season. They’ve lost all eight of their games, half of them by 18 or more. John Wall’s shooting percentages have dipped across the board. Rashard Lewis may or may not have had an altercation with assistant coach Sam Cassell. Flip Saunders may or may not be on the hotseat. One thing we know for sure: this team ruined its owner’s birthday. For shame.

Does this feel like a trap game to anyone else?

Point Guard:

By almost any statistical measure, Jose Calderon is outperforming John Wall this season. Calderon is, against all odds, having the best season of his career. The numbers are ridiculous, but you probably already know them. Wall is, against all odds, experiencing a bit of a sophomore slump. Going into this season, he was supposed to break out. He was finally healthy and wanted to face the guys who took advantage of him when injured. He had worked on his jumper. He had a year of pro experience. None of this has mattered so far. Watching Wall, it seems like he’s trying too hard and he’s letting missed jumpers affect him. Washington’s lack of an offensive plan isn’t helping.

Despite all of this, I don’t see how I can give the Raptors the edge in this matchup. Calderon played 40+ minutes last night, Jerryd Bayless is still day-to-day, and Wall is the fastest basketball player I’ve ever seen.

Advantage: Wizards

Shooting Guard:

Name that player: An offensive-minded shooting guard from USC with lots of athleticism and smaller rebounding numbers than you’d like.

TRICK QUESTION. It’s Nick Young and DeMar DeRozan. These guys are very similar basketball players, even though they have differing styles and personalities on the court. You want DeRozan to be more aggressive; you want to reign Young in a bit. Young is a better defender than people give him credit for and DeRozan is making strides on that end, too. I’ll give DeRozan the edge, as I think he’s too good for his slumps to last longer than three games.

The backups: Jordan Crawford is shooting 31.6 percent on the year for Washington. This makes Leandro Barbosa’s 36.5 percent mark look nice.

Advantage: Raptors

Small forward:

James Johnson will kill your fantasy team in the points category, but he’ll help you almost anywhere that doesn’t involve shooting. Rashard Lewis can pretty much only provide points/shooting, but hasn’t even been doing that this season. I haven’t seen anything about his sore knee keeping him out this time, but rookies Chris Singleton and Jan Vesely should see some floor-time regardless. For me, that’s fun. Kleiza is still day-to-day for Toronto.

Advantage: Raptors, barely. Unless Rasual Butler shoots 1-8 again. 

Power forward: 

Andrea Bargnani and Andray Blatche have been similarly frustrating for years, but this year it’s different. Bargnani has impressed on both ends of the floor, while Blatche has been the same poor defender he’s always been… with poorer shooting!

If you ask me, Raptors also take home the win in the bonus lefty power forward matchup: Ed Davis vs. Trevor Booker. Davis hasn’t been the most consistent person in the world, though.

Advantage: Raptors

Center:

JaVale McGee is longer than Amir Johnson. He’s taller than him. He blocks shots far more frequently and his highlights are more fun to watch. Problem is, he routinely puts his team at a disadvantage defensively by attempting the spectacular play instead of the proper one. Johnson isn’t as flashy, but he is far more productive at this point in his career on both ends. Now, he needs to get those turnovers down.

Advantage: Raptors

The line:

The Wizards are favored by two. They haven’t won a game yet, so this seems weird to me. I’d take the Raps, but I’m no gambler.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Nick Wass