Raptors 86, Memphis 92 – Box :: Reaction
We shot 31.8% and lost. What did you expect? How may times does a team shoot that low of a percentage and win? Never. Well, 21 times in NBA history to be exact, but that’s just semantics. The Raptors were engaged in this game from start to finish, and the physical effort level was solid on both ends. In key moments, though, the offense was left wanting and the defense failed.
This game can be summed up in one stat: three-point shooting. The Raptors shot 5-28 from three which is good for 18%. The Grizzlies were actually worse, they shot 14% except the difference is that they were 1-7. They knew when to pass on something when it wasn’t working and the Raptors, because of their recently fractured offense didn’t know what else to turn to. That one three Memphis did make was a case of Kyle Lowry begging Mike Conley Jr. to ice the game by playing some horrific Hardenesque defense. BTW, follow us on Vine and Instagram for more game clips.
Memphis is a team that knows what their strengths are. They’re 20th in the league in three-point percentage, and 29th in the league at attempting threes so they don’t rely on it, and they don’t need to since they have an established interior game. The Raptors at the halfway mark of the season still haven’t found a balance on the court where they can switch up their look, and this game was a prime example of just how one-dimensional their offense can be.
I think Dwane Casey may not have thought through the matchups tonight, because with Greivis Vasquez starting ahead of Ross, Memphis switched Mike Conley Jr. on Vasquez, Tony Allen on Kyle Lowry, and Jeff Green on DeMar DeRozan. So DeRozan ended up being guarded by a bigger defender, while Lowry ended up being matched up with their best defender! I’m not saying Ross would’ve made a world of a difference, but at least you would’ve forced Memphis (who I presume would’ve put Green on Ross at the three-spot) to have a think on which one of DeRozan or Lowry to put a great defender like Alllen on. Instead, Casey made it plain and simple for them and unwittlingly helped them matchup their two best defenders against our two best offensive players. FACEPALM!
The Raptors were in this game for two reasons. First, Memphis is not a good three-point shooting team which means the Raptors can get away with murder on defense. The Raptors love to trap, collapse, and then rotate, which they are free to do against Memphis since they can’t make them pay. So, off the Raptors defense went trying to swipe at Randolph and Gasol, drop down and disrupt their screens designed to free up wings for short jumpers or passes to bigs underneath. The Raptors had a lot of success here, and they ended up forcing Memphis into 1-4 clearouts for Randolph against Valanciunas, which the Raptors defense couldn’t help on and ended up paying the price since Randolph delivered. You might’ve heard Matt Devlin and Leo Rautins go on and on about how the Raptors defense had “showed up” without mentioning this key detail – this matchup perfectly suits the style the Raptors defense is designed to slow down.
Second, the Raptors rebounded the basketball which offset some of that shooting. Patrick Patterson, who is now just a taller, blacker version of Jason Kapono on offense, is making a real effort to help out on the boards. Casey’s featuring of him alongside Tyler Hansbrough against the Pelicans saw both of them get overrun by Alexis Ajinca, and this time around Patterson was making the glass his first priority on defense. This was certainly helped with him not having to cover the full width of the court on defensive rotations since Gasol and Randolph never venture out that far, and he made the most of it by collecting 9 rebounds. On offense, 6 of his 7 shots were threes, and he went 1-6. Dwane Casey either doesn’t know how to manufacture points out of Patterson’s excellent mid-range game and off-the-ball movement, or he very strongly feels that Patterson is a player more closer to Channing Frye than Boris Diaw. In summary, the Raptors were +5 on the glass, and won the second-chance point duel 20-14 (they had 21 offensive rebounds). That is what kept them in it.
Of course, being in a game for a prolonged stretch is very different than actually winning it. When push came to shove and the fourth quarter started with the Raptors up 1, Memphis went to Gasol and Randolph in isolation situations and they delivered combining for 17 points on 6/8 shooting – everything going towards the rim. The Raptors big guns? They kept running predictable action where you knew it was just to get Lowry a couple of feet of space, at which point he’d go into hero-mode which works far less frequently than it used to because 1) teams know it’s coming, and 2) he’s usually driving into contact and the refs aren’t buying it. In the fourth, the Raptors and their jump-shooters featuring Lowry, Vasquez, Williams, and Ross shot 5-19. DeRozan didn’t even attempt a shot in 7 minutes of action because Memphis had him covered and there was nothing on Dwane Casey’s clipboard that could free up arguably our most efficient fourth quarter player (although he was struggling on the night). Memphis prevented DeRozan from catching his dribble-handoffs, and pushed him further out so in essence he had to start every touch in a face-up than going with momentum towards the rim.
I thought Terrence Ross and James Johnson’s minutes management was bizarre. Ross came in with six minutes left in the first and left 30 seconds into the second, contributing nothing. At this point I assumed his night was done, but Casey called on him at the 3 minute mark of the third and he didn’t leave the game till almost the 3 minute mark of the fourth. He played a full crunch time quarter and did nothing, while James Johnson rode the pine the entire second half and played a total of 8 minutes. Was Johnson’s 8-minute spell so much worse than Ross’s first-half stint, that Johnson (our best driver of the ball at the three) can’t even get a sniff? This is a guy who has played hard and played smart all season long and relishes a physical challenge, which is the exact opposite of Ross. I get that Casey was trying to spread the court, but at some point maybe you should abandon the three (Raptors were 3-10 3FG in the fourth) and go for something else.
You can insert the general Jonas Valanciunas misuse comment here, after going 3-4 FG for 6 points in the first quarter, he took 4 shots the rest of the game. I get that he was being touched up by Randolph, despite Casey trying to give Randolph and Gasol different looks (fronts, ball-denial, showing help, doubling on the dribble). Does that excuse not establishing an interior game through him? Even the Memphis announcers (great crew, BTW) were infatuated with Valanciunas and perplexed why he wasn’t being used more. I don’t buy the argument that this guy freezes up in the fourth quarter, it’s more that his management has been so bad that the fourth quarter his now become a stigma for him and everyone involved psychologically. Yeah, he tries to look tougher than he probably is and does get shaky at times, but let that not detract us from his actual basketball talent, which needs to be developed with far more diligence than it is.
My favorite Memphis broadcast tidbit was when Lou Williams took a hero-ball end of quarter shot and missed, which prompted them to drop this gem (live call can be seen here): “That is kind of an odd possession, to just hold it and put up a 27-footer. We’ll take it. Lou Williams, with the three-point miss!” So relax Raptors fans, you’re not the only people who think that’s crazy.
DeMar DeRozan had a poor shooting game, ended up going 2-11 and played 33 minutes. Somewhere here there’s a double-standard issue with how Valanciunas, Ross, and James Johnson are on short leashes, but DeRozan gets away with doing all the things that get others benched. Let me be clear, I’m not advocating benching DeRozan, I’m advocating being fair to everyone else as well. This sort of personnel management is what ends up losing the lockerroom, and with the Raptors now firmly in a funk, the last thing we can afford is a chemistry implosion.
Coaches tend to get vilified when specific decisions they make go south (Vasquez guarding Evans), and they don’t get enough credit when their tweaks actually work (Ross coming off the bench in Milwaukee). I get he’s done some smart things this year, and has always gotten good effort out of the squad. With due respect to him, I don’t think I’m jumping the gun or being overly reactionary when I say we’re a very unorganized group on offense, and as discussed on the podcast, making large scale change mid-season is very difficult. So Dwane Casey’s hoping that the problem lies in the execution, not the plan. Let’s hope he’s right because evidence thus far has been to the contrary.
