For much of the year, the Raptors have had trouble containing driving opponents. Earlier on, when the offence was operating at a high level, those problems weren’t so magnified because the Raptors were able to outscore opponents. Now, though, with the offence stumbling, that particular area of defensive deficiency is costing them games. “There are a lot of teams running pick-and-rolls on us and they are doing things where we have to help each other and scramble,” Kyle Lowry said. “I don’t think there are any individual or one-on-one breakdowns. I think it’s the schemes they are running, pick-and-rolls, making us tag and scramble and they are doing a good job of figuring out what we are going to do defensively and they are getting to the right spots.”
“Against a team like this,” explains Williams, “you have to move the ball so they can’t get into their rotations, you don’t want to play on one side of the floor against them and I think we did a good job of that.” After the game, the problems outside the paint defensively were woefully apparent to Dwane Casey. “They shot 49 percent, and with ease,” Casey said, voicing his concern over the Raptors inability to keep the Nets’ backcourt out of the paint. “We need to keep the guard’s in front of us on the perimeter for the whole nine yards. If you don’t come in with the mindset that you’re going to outwork that team you’re going to have nights like this.”
And it doesn’t get any easier for Toronto over the next 23 days, facing nothing but playoff contenders the next nine games. The Raptors entered this rugged stretch of 11 games surrounding the all-star break in which the Nets were the only sub-.500 opponent on the docket. Instead, they surrendered a slim two-point halftime lead and are now 9-10 in the last 19. Of course, let’s not forget these same Nets had surprised the Clippers at home on Monday. Look past nobody.
Many of those breakdowns occurred on the defensive end, particularly on the perimeter where they failed to stop Brooklyn’s guards from getting into the lane, an ongoing issue for Casey’s team. For the second time in five days, former Raptor Jarrett Jack went off, scoring 24 points, including several buckets at the rim after blowing by Lowry and Toronto’s guards. The lone bright spot for Toronto may have been Terrence Ross, coming off the bench for the 10th-straight game to score a team-high 23 points. Although the team is 7-3 with Ross as a reserve and Greivis Vasquez starting, the third-year swingman could get his job back as soon as Friday with Casey searching for answers to get his club back on track. They don’t have much time to do it. Their next eight opponents are above .500, including six of the West’s top nine teams and the two clubs – Atlanta and Washington – that accompany them at the top of the East. “We’ve got to play with that chip on our shoulder, honestly, and with that sense of urgency,” DeRozan said. “We have no choice but to automatically correct the things that we know how to do, what got us here. It didn’t happen by accident, it happened by hard work and we’ve got to get back to that.”
So yes, coming in 9-0, the Raptors are no longer perfect against Atlantic Division opponents. Even that sacred mark has been broken by the dismal play of late. Terrence Ross emerged from the shadows to lead the Raptors in scoring with 22 points, shooting 5-for-11 on three-pointers. Kyle Lowry had a double-double with 13 points and ten rebounds, but didn’t score in the second half. More troubling for Lowry was his night guarding Jack. Critics have been quick to point out his fall in play in the new year, but it’s been most noticeable at the defensive end. Regularly a tenacious ball hawk, he had issues simply keeping the 31-year-old Nets guard in front of him tonight. After Lowry carried the Raptors to a 51-49 halftime lead, Anderson and Jack made life tough for the Raptors to start the third. The Nets defence picked up as well, scrambling effectively to force Toronto out of their comfort zone.
Nets stun Atlantic Division-leading Raptors, 109-93 | NY Daily News
With 1:02 left in Wednesday’s game, the Raptors’ frustration seemed to manifest itself when DeMar DeRozan (13 points) was assessed a flagrant-2 foul after he shoved Bojan Bogdanovic (11 points) from behind with Toronto trailing by 15. He was trying to send a message about supremacy in the Eastern Conference, he would say. “They got to rumbling like they were the No. 1 team in the East,” DeRozan told reporters afterward. “I just wasn’t going to let them get away with anything.”
Nets Dominate Raptors In Road Victory | The Brooklyn Game
Most of the attention will focus on the Nets offense, which was among their best performances of the season. But their defense made multiple stops down the stretch, even if you factor in the Raptors rimming out enough shots to call into question what Toronto did to upset the basketball Gods. The Nets have routinely had difficulty getting stops to close out games this season. That wasn’t an issue tonight.
#WetheNets! Brooklyn’s Stellar Second Half Anchors 109-93 Rout in Toronto | NetsDaily
st year, Joe Johnson turned the Nets’ poor season around with a game winning shot against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Judging from his game winning shot Monday, Jarrett Jack may have done the same this season for Brooklyn, a team that’s won just four games against opponents above .500. They did it for the second straight game with a 109-93 victory over the Toronto Raptors. It’s their first win streak since winning a third straight game back on January 2nd. The game was much closer than the score indicated. It was a four-point Brooklyn lead heading into the fourth quarter, but a hefty 25-10 advantage through nine minutes of the quarter saw Brooklyn extend their lead to 17. Bojan Bogdanovic delivered the final blow with two consecutive three pointers to put them up 19 with five minutes remaining.
The Toronto Raptors get pummelled by the Nets | Raptors Cage
It’s tough to win when your opponent is shooting 50% from both the floor and beyond the arc. Jarrett Jack lit up the Raptors yet again, scoring 24 points and dishing out six assists. His fellow ex-Raptor, Alan Anderson, also had himself a game, dropping in 22 points. Aside from some flashes from Ross against Deron Williams, the perimeter defence was non-existent. A very poor showing on that end.
Game Rap: Raptors 93 Nets 109 | Toronto Raptors
Former Raptors Jarrett Jack and Alan Anderson led the way for Brooklyn. The duo combined for 46 points on 16-for-22 shooting. This is the second time in less than a week that Jack has torched the Raptors. In Toronto’s overtime victory against Brooklyn last Friday, Jack scored a career-high 35 points to go with 13 assists. “I thought we saw some things that we had some success with over the course of that game we last played against them,” said Jack post-game. “Coming back and getting some more healthy bodies back in helped us as well.”
Lou Williams Is Reaching His Full Potential With the Toronto Raptors | numberFire
Through 49 games for the Raptors, Williams is averaging 24.6 minutes per game off the bench, playing 99 percent of his minutes at shooting guard. Williams is averaging a career-high 15.4 points per game, shooting a career-high 5.3 three point attempts per game, and has a Player Efficiency Rating of 20.0, the second-highest of his career (in 2011-12 with the Sixers it was 20.2). Among other guards in the league, Williams also has a nERD efficiency rating at 6.2. nERD indicates how many wins above or below .500 an average team would win with a player as starter, so if the rest of the Raptors were average, they would be about six games over .500. John Wall’s is just 5.0. In addition to personal bests, Williams has been a huge addition to the Raptors, and the team is averaging 4.8 percent more points per game this season than last season. In 2013-2014, the Raptors did not have one bench player averaging over 9.5 points per game. Williams has yet to start a game for the Raptors and is the third leading scorer on the team and is third in win shares per 48 minutes at .168. While on the court for the Raptors, Williams adds 3.8 points to the offense per 100 possessions, while Lowry adds 3.1 and DeRozan decreases points scored by 2.4.
Kyle Lowry became an All-Star by stealing from them | USA Today
So he’s an All-Star, a deserving one after being snubbed last season. Lowry got a late boost from Bieber, the Canadian pop star who urged his 60 million-plus Twitter followers to vote (but forgot to include the proper #NBABallot tag in his tweet). That pushed him past Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade in the final days of the balloting. “It’s still shocking,” Lowry said. “It’s still pretty cool. I’m still kind of getting used to me being in that position.” Lowry put himself in that position through dramatic improvement. He’s always been a remarkable athlete, his speed and power offering a difficult to defend combination. But this season brought a new level out of Lowry, particularly when shooting guard DeMar DeRozan, the Raptors’ All-Star last season, went down for 21 games. Lowry averaged 21.8 points and 8.7 assists during that stretch, as the team went 12-9 to stay among the East’s top teams.
Chat With Nate Duncan 2/3/15 | Basketball Insiders
I wouldn’t give up on it quite yet. They defended well last year, and it’s the largely same guys. Lowry in particular was burnt out by carrying the offensive load with DeRozan out, and once he gets back up to speed he might help improve the D. They also are playing guys like Vasquez and Williams a lot, and you’re not stopping anyone with those guys. James Johnson is nearly out of the rotation, as seems to happen to him everywhere he ends up despite showing flashes. So if Casey won’t play him, maybe a trade to upgrade on the wing defense is in order, perhaps for someone like Afflalo (although his rep probably exceeds his effectiveness, at least he’s not going to get bullied). They are going to need someone to deal with big wings in the playoffs anyway if Johnson isn’t playing, since you’ll recall they were destroyed by the likes of Joe Johnson last playoffs. Long-term, Caboclo sure seems like a possible answer. The Raps need to invest all available resources in getting him ready sooner rather than later, because if he can just hit 3s and be a quality defender that would really help them in the next couple years.
Toronto Raptors’ Schedule Breakdown and Record Predictions for February | Bleacher Report
They’re 9-5 in their last 14 games, although just two of those wins came against winning teams (Milwaukee and Washington). They’ve proved they can handle the riffraff of the NBA, but with an 11-12 record against teams above .500, hanging with the best of the best on a consistent basis is something they’re still trying to achieve. A mere six games separate the No. 2 and No. 6 seeds in the Eastern Conference. Competition is heating up as teams jockey for position near the top of the standings with the playoffs not too far off in the distance. It’s going to be tough. As resourceful as the Raptors have proved to be over the course of the season, emerging from February with their heads still on their shoulders may be easier said then done.
Why the Rudy Gay Experiment Failed in Toronto | Baller Mind Frame
When Gay played in Toronto, and anywhere I’ve seen him play, he is a selfish player. He looks for his opportunities first and the pass second. That isn’t good or bad, it just is. Kobe Bryant is the same way. When you work an offense around such a player, assuming this player can make more than he misses, you can win with it. The Raptors employ a team game, and the fit didn’t seem right. While the Kings have been sliding of late, Gay is still putting up good numbers. The Raptors as a collective are doing much better. They somehow managed to re-sign Lowry, Patterson is playing fantastic in his limited role, and the team is playing as a unit. Please don’t get me wrong here, Gay is a heck of a player and the Raptors appeared to be a formidable team. This isn’t so much a case of someone being a bad teammate, a coach not being able to manage a player or an ego, or anything other than a bad fit. To put it simply, Rudy Gay was not the last piece of Toronto’s championship puzzle – he didn’t even belong in the box with the rest of the pieces.
Image: AP Photo/Canadian Press, Nathan Denette
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