It’s difficult to argue the merit of a ‘good loss’ for a team that’s been in first place since the season tipped off six weeks ago. It’s even more difficult to make a reasonable argument for being upset or concerned about last night’s loss to Cleveland. I know, I know; there’s little room for calm and reasonable conclusion on the internet. But there were several adjustments made at a team level last night that showed merit, a big improvement from Jonas and Terrence Ross and another very solid contribution from the bench.
First and foremost in taking last night’s loss with a grain of salt, let’s remember this: Lebron James is the best basketball player on the planet. The Raptors played a SEGEBABA (second game of a back-to-back), on the road, against the pre-season consensus favourite, without their leading scorer. Maintaining a lead throughout the game, then losing in the last few possessions is absolutely disappointing, but in no way damning.
The Cavaliers are quickly figuring out their offence. Amir is continuing to struggle to guard players like Kevin Love that drag him out to the perimeter, and Patterson, despite his fantastic shooting, hasn’t fared much better. The Raptors, and Patterson in particular, habit of trapping at the sides has burned them badly against teams like Phoenix and the Cavaliers who spread the floor with four 3-point shooters at a time, and it resulted in Lebron drilling the open 3 that put Cleveland ahead in the final minutes. The Raptors aren’t alone in this struggle. The reason everyone was so bullish on the Cavs early on is because it’s nearly impossible to guard a team that can spread the floor like that having players like Kyrie Irving and Lebron James drive, Kevin Love frustrate the hell out of his cover by either slipping out to the 3 point line or sliding into the post depending on how you position him and spot-up shooters waiting all around them. And then there’s Lebron James doing Lebron James things. The Raptors made some adjustments to better guard him. Landry Fields (PROOF OF LIFE!!) came off of his spot in purgatory to start the game and played 23 mostly very good minutes guarding Lebron. Not that Lebron much cared. His 35 points on 57% shooting included a fair share of easy points on drives where Terrence Ross wasn’t active enough in shuffling his feet, help couldn’t get their fast enough or Jonas, focused on the Hibbertian school of verticality, didn’t step out enough first to take away the space for Lebron to get off his shot while attempting to challenge it. The Raptors have slipped to a below average defence on the season. But, that is not to say that they lost this game by gifting easy buckets to Lebron. Lebron made a lot of very difficult contested shots. Fields guarded him much better than Ross did last week and that paid offensive dividends for the Raptors.
Fields playing in the starting lineup was the most obvious of the adjustment that Casey and his staff made coming into the game. Anytime a player goes from being comically ignored on the bench to starting in a big game, it’s going to stand out. While Landry’s excellent defensive effort on Lebron isn’t reflected in the box score, it paid off in other ways. It allowed Terrence Ross to avoid the physical and emotional burden of guarding Lebron. That’s important because a) Terrence Ross does not have the physical tools to come close to being able to do that, and b) it broke Ross down mentally in the last matchup, taking him out of the game offensively at a time when the Raptors need him to be a much bigger presence without DeMar. And that happened last night. Ross started early with his normal shots, taking a spot-up 3 off of a screen outside the arc. That was followed up by something that we’ve all been waiting to see from Ross for years in him starting to create offence off the dribble. As William Lou smartly pointed out on the last Raptors weekly podcast, the problem with the starting lineup needing to play two point guards without DeMar is that they need two primary ball handlers in order to play out of the horns set and operate their offence. With someone like Landry FIelds or James Johnson starting instead of Vasquez, which is a defensive upgrade, you absolutely need Ross to handle the ball. Ross didn’t really create offence for anyone else as a playmaker, but he made an obvious effort to put the ball on the floor, and he created his own shots. He crossed over Lebron for a pretty step-back jumper, dribbled in for another jumper two possessions later and was even seen taking the ball to the basket and cutting inside for a dunk off a nice pass by Fields. Those are the kinds of things that the Raptors absolutely need from Ross to make their playoff goals become reality. Now is the perfect time for Ross to develop those skills and find confidence in them while DeMar’s absence gives him the opportunity.
Fields starting also allowed Casey to play the plucky bench unit as a group, instead of shuffling through the varied lineups he has been more freely experimenting with in DeMar’s absence and with Vasquez starting. Patterson and James Johnson both benefitted from playing with the Lou Williams-Vasquez pairing, as both saw open shots and had open space to move into with the ball after the defence had been broken down. Johnson in particular was awesome in the first half finding his way to the basket. Lou Williams continues to struggle with his shooting, as streaky volume scorers are wont to do, and his shots are more and more finding their way into the hands of Patterson and Johnson.
Valanciunas stepped up in the kind of way that Raptors need him to do against these kinds of opponents too. Valanciunas got Varajeo back for last week, this time being the aggressor against side-show Bob and either scoring or getting fouled on almost every possession he saw in the post. Besides being necessary as a big body to eat up space defensively, Valanciunas is the one piece that the Raptors have to try and force teams away from going small on them. When he bullies in the post and on the boards, like he did for 18 points and 15 rebounds last night, it lets the Raptors play the lineups they want to. Valanciunas made an obvious focus on the defensive boards, cleaning up the offensive rebounds that the Cavs used to destroy the Raptors last week. The coaching staffs work with Valanciunas on defensive rotations, verticality and taking away space is still very much a work in progress, but he responded to an emphasis on rebounding immediately.
Again, there are positives here. Lowry is starting to look tired, especially in his fg%, and thats fair. He can’t keep carrying this team. Valanciunas and Ross stepping up is the only way to buoy this team until DeMar comes back, and they’re making improvements there. The Coaching staff is figuring some things out too. The offence continues to hum at a truly elite level while the defence slips. Landry Fields is, in fact, alive, which has to be great news for his family to hear. The Raptors lost a really close game on the road, on a back-to-back, against a team that’s punking everyone lately with Lebron James. It’s going to be ok.
