The Raps have an extra first-round pick in the bag (thanks, Knicks!), a bunch of midlevel expiring contracts to throw around, and a close relationship with one team — the Nuggets — that appears to be nearing the realization it cannot make the playoffs this season, per several league sources. “You read about it and hear about the East, the East, the East,” Ujiri says. “And you have to think about it sometimes. Is this a rare time? Is this period — the next year or two — something we have to take advantage of?” Would the Raptors deal their first-rounder in exchange for someone who could help today — an extra dose of rim protection for a bottom-10 defense, a hybrid forward, or some scoring juice to slot ahead of Amir Johnson at power forward? “That’s a question I can’t answer,” Ujiri says. “It depends on what’s there. But I won’t make decisions that are going to shorten our growth and help us only this year.”
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey summed up the mood at the end of the trip rather succinctly. “I think we’re mentally flat,” he said. “Some of the mistakes we’re making are just mental flat mistakes. All the yelling and screaming in the world is not going to change that. It’s a byproduct of a long season, you’re going to have stretches like that in an 82-game season. “Some of the mistakes we’re making have nothing to do with the pace of the game — getting to your spots, making sure you get into the gaps defensively, what we call rear-view challenging shots, going under when we should be going over. Just mental things that we went through yesterday in practice that we were just flat on. We’ll get back to basics and we’ll get it corrected. It’s a long season, no time for panic.” In short, the Raptors hit a bit of a wall. It might have been different if they had got that game in Portland, the one they lost in overtime, but that wasn’t the case. They come home with their first three-game losing skid of the season.
Together at home in Toronto for the first time since Dec. 21, the travel-weary Raptors had a short but intensely competitive practice, focusing on defensive fundamentals. The team has played a more offensive style while trying to manage without DeMar DeRozan, who has been out since he suffered a groin injury on Nov. 28. But as the star swingman works to return to the lineup this week, the 24-10 squad is recommitting to defence, and coach Dwane Casey hopes the team will show off its tougher side. “If we’d compete in games the way we do in practice, we’d be a much better defensive team, so we’ve got to carry that over to the games,” said Casey. “We had to adjust [without DeRozan], and the way we did that was playing a little faster, which in turn affected our defence. So we have to get a little more deliberate, play a style that will travel, a style that will produce in the playoffs. I have never seen it yet – an up-and-down, fast-break style team that wins a championship.”
“No, no, not at all,” Lowry replied when asked if he thought it was a successful trip as, despite the losses, the Raptors took some very good teams down the wire. “We had a losing record. When you have a losing record on a road trip, it’s generally not successful. We won a couple of games, but we wanted more. We wanted to win them all.” Lowry carried the load, like he has in DeRozan’s absence, but that can’t be expected of him all the time. The Raptors defence was also exposed because, without DeRozan in the lineup, they were forced to play a different kind of ball. “Since DeMar has gone down, our offensive style has changed a little bit, we’re more of a running team, we play a little faster and, again, I think that affected our defence somewhat,” Casey said. “DeMar coming back will give us more of a slow-down, semi-postup game which in turn will help our defence. “We had to survive (without DeRozan) and our offence stepped up and carried us in the games we won on the road trip and before that. We had to adjust, and the way we adjusted was playing a little faster which in turn affected our defence. We have to get a little more deliberate, play a style that’s going to travel (work on the road), play a style that’s going to produce in the playoffs.”
Raptors open six-game homestand with a couple more chips on shoulders | canada.com
“The last time I checked, we beat them here at our place,” Casey said, in reference to the Raptors’ 104-100 win over the Suns on Nov. 24 at the Air Canada Centre. “Those types of things put a chip on our shoulder. Kyle being fourth in voting, that should put a chip on our shoulder. (Hornacek) saying they should have beat us, how weak the Eastern Conference is, that should put a chip on our shoulder. “Because the last time I checked, we beat them at our place, and they beat us at their place, no matter what the score was. Karma is something in this league. We’ve got to play with that edge, and that type of edginess to make sure that we prove that we’re for real.”
Quick Stat Hits: The Defence – What Happened? | Raptors HQ
First, the difference between the first 14 games and the most recent 20 games is pretty stark. In the first 14 games, the defence gave up a paltry 97.8 points per 100 possessions. That would be good for second best defence in the league right now. In the 20 games since, 109.1, good for third worst in the league. So, where are those 11.7 additional points coming from? First, we have to look at who they’ve played. In the first 14 games, their opponent’s average Offensive Rating (ORTG) was 102.8. Since, it has been 104.1. So, applying that difference to a league average Defensive Rating (DRTG), that means they’ve actually performed as a 98.6 DRTG team in the first 14 games, and a 108.6 DRTG team in the last 20.
Stephen Harper backs Kyle Lowry’s All Star campaign | RealGM
All right I’ll vote Conservative
Stephen Harper tweets support for Kyle Lowry’s All-Star game candidacy | Eh Game – Yahoo Sports
Between his play on the court, Harper’s backing, and Raptors head coach Dwane Casey’s threat to fight opposing coaches should they leave Lowry off the All-Star team, expect to see Lowry take his deserving place next to the Eastern Conference’s elite next month in New York.
Canadian prime minister urges his nation to vote Kyle Lowry to NBA All-Star Game | For The Win
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper took to Twitter on Tuesday to tell his countrymen and women to log their votes for Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry for the NBA All-Star Game. Harper also used the hashtag #NBABallot so his vote would be logged on Twitter.
Raptors’ Unsung Hero | Raptors Rapture
No one thinks of Johnson as an offensive player, and he’s not. But he does enough to make an impact. Most big men are taught to run to the rim in transition to get early deep position for easy buckets. For example, Zach Randolph of the Memphis Grizzlies is one of the best at scoring easy layups by running the floor in transition and posting up. What I love about Johnson is that he knows what he cannot do. He’s not a post scoring threat like Randolph. You don’t give Johnson the ball in the post and let him score using post moves. That is not the type of player he is. He is an agile athlete who can outrun most big men in the NBA. In this play, Johnson simply outruns Brandan Wright to put himself in a better position to grab an offensive rebound or score an uncontested layup.
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