Last night’s game was the perfect example of the difference between a winning team and a losing team.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
In the NBA, just about any team can stick with any other team for three quarters. This often gives fans of losing teams a poor indication of just how far they are to being a winning team. We saw it last night, with the Jazz keeping pace with the Raptors for most of three quarters, last night, before succumbing to lack of talent, youth and poor decision-making.
If you just watched the first half of the game, then what you saw was a Utah Jazz team that might have looked on the same level as the Raptors. At halftime, the Jazz were ahead by three points, were shooting about the same from the field and were more than doubling them in assists (more on that later). In fact, the Jazz really looked like they were in control for most of the game, up until that point.
The clue was the fact that despite the Jazz looking like they were doing everything they wanted and appeared as though they were outplaying the Raptors, Toronto was always hanging around. Because that’s what good teams do.
Raptor fans can probably remember being on the other end of that, when the Raptors would look like they were outplaying one of the better teams in the league, except they could never put the game out of reach, and most of the time the better team ended up winning.
Now the Raptors are one of the better teams.
In my pre-game analysis, there were three things I highlighted to watch for, and all three made appearances in the first half. After a couple of poor shooting games, DeMar DeRozan went 5-8 in the first quarter, including making a very nifty pass to Valanciunas on a drive. And Valanciunas went 3-4 and grabbed five rebounds, playing as aggressively as we’ve seen him all season. In fact, he had, by far, his best game of the season, finishing with 17 points and 14 rebounds while playing a season high 34 minutes.
Casey has apparently attributed Valanciunas’ lack of minutes to matchups and the opposing teams playing small-ball, but my feeling is that Casey too often lets the other team’s coach sets the tone rather than force him to adapt to what Casey wants to do. It obviously helps if Valanciunas is playing well, because when he is there aren’t a whole lot of teams that can match up with him.
While the first quarter did look good for DeRozan and Valanciunas, it was also a continuation of two troubling trends for the Raptors. The first is the team’s penchant for one on one play. We saw that in the just 2 assists on 11 field goals in the first quarter, and the 15 assists on 43 field goals for the entire game, for an assist rate of just 35%.
On the other side, the Jazz had 10 assists on 11 field goals in the first quarter, and 22 assists on 33 field goals for the entire game. That’s 67% of their field goals off of assists.
If the Raptors want to get to that next tier, then that’s going to have to change.
This also brings up the other trend, which is teams driving the ball on the Raptors and getting open shots. At the beginning of the season, one of the things I mentioned I wanted to see on defense is less help and less scrambling, which tends to lead to more open looks, especially from three. And we saw that last night, with the Jazz getting a ton of open looks early before getting cold in the second half.
But the Raptors did end up winning, and let’s look at some of the reasons for that.
As I said, the Raptors’ play for most of three quarters was not all that much to write home about. But like all good teams, when it mattered most, guys like Valanciunas, Lou Williams, Patrick Patterson and Greivis Vasquez all came up big, hit big shots, grabbed big boards and made big plays. And keep in mind three of those four players are bench players.
With the game on the line, the difference between the Raptors and Jazz was glaring. While the Raptors made plays and did what they needed to do, the Jazz too often resorted to forcing plays and trying to do too much. Suddenly the passing stopped and the one on one play began. In fact, in the second half, the Jazz only had 6 assists to the Raptors’ 8.
This is the difference between the teams that win and the teams that lose.
The Jazz may have some nice, young talent (and I was very impressed with what I saw from Dante Exum, despite his turnovers- I think he may be starting by this time next season), but they are still a ways off from being a winning team.
The Raptors are already there.
http://youtu.be/Thee1Y6BynU
