Well, that was a curious game to have watched. Last night’s effort in Boston was somehow a display of all the different down the final stretch of the regular season coaching strategies at once. The Raptors rested DeMar so he would be healthy and fresh for the playoffs. But, the Raptors also played the still recovering from a back injury Kyle Lowry 36 minutes. The Raptors looked like they wanted to win the game for the most part, which makes sense, since the 3 seed was on the line. But they also started Tyler Hansbrough and ran him for 23 minutes and let the aforementioned Lowry shoot anything he wanted early on in an attempt to help him find some rhythm. It was a little worrying to see Lowry play so many minutes, Amir Johnson play any minutes if his ankles were restricting him to a reduced role off the bench, James Johnson still play so few minutes, the Raptors struggle this much to initiate their offense against a team whose inside presence is Tyler freaking Zeller and for them to ultimately drop the game and slip into the 4th seed, where they will most likely finish the season.
The last minute of the game was certainly entertaining, even if not ultimately a satisfying result. The Raptors and Celtics went back and forth trading Kyle Lowry isolation drives to the basket for Brad Stevens drawn-up plays. Ultimately, it felt like it came down to the fact that Boston just got the last shot at it, a well-contested heave from Jae Crowder at the buzzer. If that’s the shot that beats you, then so it goes.
The game wasn’t without some positives to take away. Vasquez, who has struggled more often than not while playing in the starting lineup this season, was effective in his role playing more point guard than shooting guard. He facilitated the ball well, something that was necessary with Lowry looking more for his own shot, and was able to create open shots for his teammates against what turns out to be a lousy Boston defense if you can get the ball past Marcus Smart and Avery Bradley. Patrick Patterson was the sometimes beneficiary of this, and though still hesitant to shoot from deep, he was 2 of 3 from beyond the arc, at least temporarily busting out of his protracted shooting slump.
There are two questions that everyone in Raptorland wants to know the answers to from Dwayne Casey. 1) Are there any photographs anywhere in existence in which Dwayne Casey is smiling? And 2) Why do you not play or trust James Johnson so? Despite his recent spat of DNP –CDs, the red menace did get 19 minutes of effective play last night. In that time he played solid defense and put up 10 points on 5 of 6 shooting. Whether this means that it’s more likely that he gets these minutes in the playoffs or that we’ll all continue to scratch our heads and pull out our hair trying to figure out why Casey won’t play him, the answer is yes.
It’s hard to look at last night’s game as anything other than a loss. This isn’t exactly deep analysis, since they, you know, lost the game and all. But besides slipping a spot in the standings, if the Raptors intended to use last night’s game as a kind of intense practice or opportunity for rest it didn’t really work on that front either. Lowry got to the basket at will down the stretch, but he didn’t look at all in rhythm and played a relaxed game on defense that would have made sense if the only goal were rest. If rest were the goal though, it would have made sense to me for him to have actually gotten some. Valanciunas couldn’t get in a rhythm either or figure out the inconsistency of the way the refs were calling and not calling an alternatively physical and then ticky-tack game inside. Any opportunity for him to be a focal point and work on his inside game heading into round one was also lost. And final, just from a perspective of playoff readiness, every timeout, end of quarter play and lineup choice between the two coaches made me feel like Stevens was playing chess compared to Casey’s checkers. The Raptors will never figure out their defense; we know this. But it’s troubling to watch them still unable to get their offense rolling without 10 seconds already have rolled off the clock, continue to rely on Lou and Lowry to bail out half of their possessions and for them to simply fall back on isolation whenever a bucket is needed or time is running out. No 3 seed, no rest and no momentum. Bring on the Wizards!(?)
