, ,

Notes and Quotes: Kyle Lowry’s OK, Everything Else is Not

We've at least stopped blaming Jonas Valanciunas, and now can't seem to put a finger on what's wrong. At least, Lou Williams can't.

It’s time for another “Notes and Quotes” segment, which is basically where I sift through 8 reporters tweeting out the exact same thing and condense it into one somewhat-readable post.

Before we start, check out Andrew’s fantastic post-game report, Blake’s epic Breaking It Down piece, and me and Sam podcasting it up.

We start with the under-fire Dwane Casey, whose powers of deduction have reduced the cause of the 0-2 hole to transition defense and blow-bys:

The Raptors haven’t been able to stop blow-bys all year, and they’re not going to fix them now, especially not against Washington who have John Wall and Bradley Beal, two pretty quick guys I’d say.  Might want to focus on what happens after you blow-by, or reduce your chances of getting blown-by rather than asking players to stop blow-bys.  This is especially the case if said player is Greivis Vasquez.

He also revealed that the team generally blames Jonas Valanciunas for their pick ‘n roll woes on defense, but concedes it wasn’t the case this time.

I’ll be honest.  I have no idea what he’s talking about.  We have trouble defending pick ‘n rolls because we rarely sag back and instead hedge hard, and our bigs aren’t mobile enough to prevent guards from stepping out and then turning a corner after the hedge.  Essentially, we stretch our defense out by pressuring and then fail to recover back and get into sound positioning, leaving us scrambling.  I’m quite positive I’ve written that exact same sentence about 10 times this year.

The update on Kyle Lowry is that he’s fine:

https://twitter.com/RaptorsMR/status/590925736640319488

A bruised leg isn’t going to keep him out of a playoff game, c’mon.

DeMar DeRozan feels that he’s been hounded by Washington defenders, and something needs to be done about it:

Yes, other than the first 5 minutes of Game 2, DeRozan saw multiple defenders and varying looks.  Problem is that his approach to them was the same as it was in the first 5 minutes of the game.  Theme here: Washington adjusted, Toronto didn’t. What does he have to do to fix this?

Really? Physical? Can we ever come up with a tactical solution to things and not continually reduce them down to saying “let’s just do what we’re currently doing, only better”.  We’re not going to out-physical Washington, we have to make them make decisions they’re uncomfortable with making.  As an example, I don’t see why we can’t put a bigger guy who sags off of Wall, so he’s not picking us apart on drives easily.  I don’t get why we’re still chasing Beal across screens instead of playing a zone variant, or switching 1/2/3, or giving him something other than the same look on defense.  Actually, I know why.  Because to do that you have to instill those habits over the course of a season, and we simply haven’t done that, and are thus unprepared.

I’ll leave you with Lou Will, the greatest beneficiary of this season, who was given a chance to shoot whenever he wanted in a contract year, and has made the most of the opportunity:

He hit the nail on the head here: “It’s not only one thing we can pinpoint”.  The Raptors defense and offense is busted, it’s like trying to put together a shattered vase.  You don’t know where to start, and in a moment of honestly, Lou Williams admitted that.

As I said on the main Twitter account last night, the Raptors still have a chance in this series, but they just got to get hot.  No strategy, no tactics. Just get hot and hope the shots fall. That’s what we’ve been doing all year, and that’s what needs to miraculously repeat itself within the vacuum of a playoff series.

Photo Credit: Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press

Previous: Breaking it Down: The Wizards score 13 times in 15 trips
Next: Don’t go quietly into that good night, Raptor fans