“I have no doubt that Kyle Lowry will come back and play at a level that he’s played at and has made him successful,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “That’s who he is. He’s a guy who plays better with a chip on his shoulder. He’s been doubted all his life since junior high school, so I think he’ll bounce back. I don’t think shooting is where you rate him, I think making winning plays, defensive plays, draw and kick, not turning the ball over, those are the winning plays that he’s excellent at.” But it is those plays where Lowry looks flat, though. He fouled out late in the fourth quarter Saturday on a Bradley Beal jump shot off of a curl, a play Lowry totally misread. On a Raptors’ possession early in the fourth quarter, when they were down by 15 points, Lowry got the ball at the top of the key, trying to ignite his team. Instead of using his killer spin move or finding one of his teammates after drawing some attention, Lowry bowled into two Washington big men and missed a shot. For Lowry, such a calculating and cunning player at his best, it was all very aimless, and certainly flat.
Something was amiss with Raps’ stars | Toronto Sun
Kyle Lowry knew what kind of day it was. The kind he didn’t expect to experience. He knows what he can do. He knows he can change games. He knows he can make a difference. He did none of that in Game 1. And he sat, almost an hour after overtime had ended and the Raptors had lost, with a black towel covering his head and a good deal of his body. It seemed as good a place as any to take refuge after a day like this one. There was some momentary comfort beneath the towel. There was none of that on the court in Game 1 of the NBA playoffs for the Raptors’ best player. There was only layers of doubt. “For me, personally, it’s frustrating,” said Lowry, who didn’t score much, turned the ball over, didn’t establish a whole lot of offence and fouled out with the Raptors down four points with two minutes, 36 seconds to go. “Very mad,” he said of his feelings. “And very upset. “I’ve got to do it. It’s something I’ve dealt with before. It’s not going to keep being like that. It comes with who I am. At the end of the day, a bad game is one bad game. I’ve got another (game) Tuesday.” When asked what it was like to be on the bench in overtime, unable to contribute, he answered: “It sucks. But it’s a situation I put myself in.” Lowry couldn’t find his game Saturday afternoon, which in some ways can be attributed to the kind of defence the Washington Wizards play. But with Lowry off, with DeMar DeRozan struggling, with Lou Williams missing shot after shot, the Raptors had an opposites kind of run in Game 1. Their scorers didn’t necessarily score.
As Pierce did, Lowry must respond for Raptors | Sportsnet.ca
If Paul Pierce is the Wizards’ leader — the last few days have been a delight with him speaking up, backing up his words with a 20-point outing on Saturday, messing with Masai Ujiri after (“I can play the psychological war a little better than he can”) and basking in the glory — Lowry is the Raptors’ engine. It’s his image emblazoned on the side of the Air Canada Centre with his arm on DeMar DeRozan’s shoulder, not the other way around. It’s time for him to hold serve. Lowry knows it, so when the ball goes up on Tuesday, Lowry intends to come out running, if not gunning. He’s not putting pressure on himself to score, but he is putting pressure on himself to lift the Raptors with his energy and pace. The Raptors only had six fast break points on four attempts, which is about half of what they managed in the regular season. The Raptors don’t play at a particularly fast pace this season as they ranked 21st in the NBA, but need to play faster than slower. “Honestly our tempo has to be different,” he said. “We have to play our game. I think yesterday we really bogged down and played too slow. That started with me from the beginning of the game. I should have been pushing more and pushing the pace.”
Toronto Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry determined to bounce back in Game 2 | The Washington Post
But sitting, and losing, is never fun. After the game, Lowry sat alone on the bench, head in his hands. “Super difficult,” Lowry said, when asked to describe what the final minutes of Game 1were like for him. “Just fouling out in general. Not being able to be myself and helping my teammates is definitely more frustrating than I wanted it to be. But that’s Game 1, you learn from your mistakes and you get better. That’s what the playoffs is about, adjustments.” The Raptors have defeated the Wizards six times in the past two seasons, but the two losses have followed a similar pattern: Lowry fouls out, the game goes beyond regulation.
Playoff Stat Hits: Where Art Thou, James Johnson? | Raptors HQ
Paul Pierce torched the Raptors with 20 points on 7-for-10 shooting (4-for-7 from downtown) in Game 1 and six of those shots (five makes) were uncontested. Johnson plays the same position as Pierce and is known as a defensive stopper, yet the matchup wasn’t “special” enough to get him on the floor? And Johnson might be known as a specialist on defence, but his driving game is also an important part of the Raptors’ offence and is often overlooked. He led the Raptors in both field goal percentage (63.7 percent) and points per 48 minutes (8.4) on drives this season, easily one of the league’s best in both cases. With the Raptors “having trouble with outside shots” (6-for-29 from downtown), putting him into the game to facilitate attacking the basket wasn’t even considered? Throw in the fact that Johnson grabs 10.8 percent of available rebounds when he’s on the floor, compared to Ross’ 6.2, and Casey’s explanation for gluing Johnson to the bench goes from head-scratching to simply infuriating. When you lose a game because you couldn’t contain Paul Pierce, you got embarrassingly out-rebounded, and your offence was inefficient, you can’t say that your team’s best wing defender, rebounder, and most efficient driving option didn’t fit the matchup. Casey’s adjustments from Game 1 to Game 2 will be heavily scrutinized. Ross’ development is very important to the team and its future, but it’s not worth losing in the present. If he doesn’t have it during the playoffs just yet, the Raptors will simply have to find someone that does.
Toronto Raptors: No Country For Stubborn Men | The Runner Sports
By pretty much any advanced metric, James Johnson was one of the 5 best Raptors this season. The entire reason he was brought to this team last summer was to guard big wings that Terrence Ross couldn’t handle (like, oh…I don’t know…Paul Pierce?), but he’s contributed in more ways than ever imagined. Look where Ross is on all of those metrics. Now look at where James Johnson is. Ross started yesterday and got 22 minutes. James Johnson had 0. When asked about it after the game, Casey shrugged it off by saying that he’s a “Matchup player”. It’s sad when a coach doesn’t know who his best players are. The only time I can remember where my opinion on a player or coach changed so much over a year as it has with Dwane Casey is when Andrew Bynum flagrantly took out JJ Barea in the playoffs several years ago. I loved Casey last year. The defensive mindset that he instilled was great and he seemed to be a good leader. Now his inflexibility is putting a ceiling on how far the Toronto Raptors can go in the playoffs. I don’t like calling for anyone’s head, but if he can’t properly evaluate the talent he has on the floor, then the team needs to get a coach that can
Why the Toronto Raptors struggled against small ball | The Garbage Time
There is another way of defending Washington’s small ball lineup. PLAY FREAKING JAMES JOHNSON. It seemed like Dwane Casey decided before the playoffs to shorten the rotation and not play James Johnson. I get that Casey didn’t think Johnson would’ve made a difference in this game, maybe he’s right. But don’t you have to see if he can play? The Raptors were down by 15 at some point. At that point, you just have to try stuff. I’m not saying Johnson would’ve been a difference maker in Game 1, but Casey should have considered playing him at power forward, and see if he could make a difference. Luckily for the Raptors, it was only Game 1.
Raptors feel Game 1 mistakes are fixable | Toronto Sun
“We need to make some adjustments and we will,” head coach Dwane Casey said. “But we’re not going to scrap the offence and go to a different offence. We’re not going to scrap the defence and go to a different defence. “It may be a matchup. It may be which way we force a guy. It may be a subtle way of changing the size of the floor with our offensive plays to get better spacing. Different things, little subtleties like that.” But to try to do more would be a panic move and Casey is not panicking. He knows his team got pounded on the offensive boards during their series-opening 93-86 loss to the Wizards at the ACC. He knows his team got caught over-helping on a few plays. All of that was addressed Sunday and, as the Raptors have shown both this season and in the playoffs last year, they are a team that is good at making adjustments. As for coming up with an answer to the Wizards’ impressive job of holding Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Lou Williams to a collective 26% shooting night from the field on Saturday, the answer lies in setting the pace. “We have to get out and get in transition and shoot the shots we normally take,” Lowry said. “For me, I have to start off the game with a faster pace and getting up and down a little bit more.”
For Raptors, it’s about going back to the basics against Wizards | Toronto Star
“When people say making adjustments is when I laugh,” Casey said yesterday after the Raptors had a film and relaxed work session at the Air Canada Centre. “Going all the way to the championship (as a Dallas Mavericks assistant in 2011) we changed very little, maybe a substitution and we still won. “That’s when I laugh when people say, ‘He beat him because he made 50 adjustments.’ You can’t do that. I’m not that smart by the way. I don’t know what coach is.”
Wizards’ Pierce backs up his words vs. Raptors | Sportsnet.ca
After the game, Pierce let it be known that he was happy to embrace the role of “villain” in this series for the Toronto fan base but he added that he has a ton of respect for the crowd – and noise – north of the border. He said the Raptors’ faithful are among the best and loudest he’s ever had to deal with. But the outcome of this game was about far more than Paul Pierce. Toronto’s defence held Washington to just over 39 per cent from the floor. It was finishing plays. It was offensive rebounds (19-10 for the Wizards) and second-change points. It was decision-making. All of that did-in the Raptors. “They had 20 second-chance points. That’s the game,” said Raptors head coach, Dwane Casey. “It’s not just our big guys, it’s everybody. We start watching when a shot goes up. We have to get in and clean up the boards. We know that. “Until we make it a priority it’s going to be hard for us.”
Raptor says: Enough already with The Truth | Toronto Sun
“What he’s doing is motivating his team, talking trash, so why would we talk trash?,” Vasquez asked. “We don’t have any trash-talkers in our locker room. So, you know, he does what he does. We respect that. We give him a lot of credit. He’s got big balls.” “Good for him,” Vasquez said. “We love his game. I’m a big fan. I’ve got a picture of him, too. He’s an animal. So that’s it. We’ve just gotta play. Paul Pierce is going to be Paul Pierce. I think that you guys have gotta stop asking all of us questions about Paul Pierce. Let him do the talking, and we’ll see at the end who’s going to win the series.”
Kelly: Wizards veteran Pierce winning psychological war with Raptors | The Globe and Mail
Pierce would refer to Ujiri as “Yuri.” Last year, he confused him with former GM Bryan Colangelo – who’s a tall white guy from Arizona, while Ujiri is a tall black guy from Nigeria. No one’s that stupid. Least of all Pierce. After he’d won the first encounter for the Wizards, Pierce was told about Ujiri’s comments. He smiled. “I think I can play the psychological war a little better than him.” He’s right. Few have ever played it better. Pierce is a great player, and a much greater provocateur. At 37 years old, the latter is compensating for any slips in the former. By Sunday, the Raptors were furiously trying to defuse the figurative bomb in their midst.
Raps fare a little better in Game 2s | Toronto Sun
While a 3-4 record is not outstanding, two of the defeats came by a single point and it sure beats the 1-7 mark in openers, following Saturday’s loss against Washington. Toronto is 2-0 at home in the second game of a playoff series. Here is how every Game 2 has gone down:
Five things Raptors must do differently in Game 2 | Toronto Sun
Nene and Marcin Gortat are beasts in the paint. And yes Drew Gooden is a wily, old veteran with size on his side as well. But giving up 19 offensive boards in a game and finding a way to win are pretty much mutually exclusive events. Unless the Raptors rebounding improves, not even a solid defensive effort like Saturday’s is going to save them. The good news is the Raptors talked about it ad nauseum after the game and again Sunday and are tweaking things to ensure that the second and sometimes third chances these offensive boards led to are cut down drastically. It’s going to start with the Raptors bigs but the guards are going to have to do their part too. Keeping themselves between the basket and their man or as Casey describe it Sunday: “It’s about putting your forearm in somebody’s chest, getting your butt in their knees and going to get the ball.”
Raptors’ Masai Ujiri fined – again – for swearing | Toronto Sun
“I have the deepest respect for Commissioner (Adam) Silver and the NBA, and while showing passion for our team and fans I will choose my words more carefully in the future so as not to indicate otherwise,” Ujiri said in a statement. “I apologize and have acknowledged the fine with the Commissioner. I consider the matter closed.”
Masai Ujiri fined $35,000 for profane Paul Pierce comment, apologizes | ProBasketballTalk
Ujiri’s salary is about $3 million a year, and these fines are probably worth it to him for how much they endear him to the Raptors’ fanbase. You want a GM who will stick up for your team publicly. It was also the absolute right move for the league to fine him for it.
Photo Credit: Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP
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