Well, that was a frustrating end to a game.
In the final minute of Friday’s loss to the Orlando Magic – full recap here – the Raptors turned to DeMar DeRozan on three consecutive possessions. That itself is not strange or particularly objectionable, as DeRozan is the team’s go-to scorer in crunch time and is generally difficult to keep off the free-throw line. The issue is that on back-to-back late plays out of timeouts, head coach Dwane Casey opted to clear out and isolate DeRozan rather than get him looks in more creative ways.
The final possession of the game was looked at by Zarar a bit more here, and the two that preceded it were similarly frustrating. Here are the team’s final three possessions:
0:48 – DeMarre Carroll is credited with a lost-ball turnover somehow. It was DeRozan isolating and he was stripped on his foray to the rim.
0:25 – DeRozan isolates and draws the foul on Dewayne Dedmon, Dedmon’s sixth of the game. DeRozan splits the pair. This was unoriginal, but it shows why Casey loves this strategy – DeRozan can get to the line like few others, even when he appears to have died on a play.
0:05 – The Raptors run a much more creative play, getting DeRozan the ball underneath the basket on a baseline cut. He pump-fakes himself into a contested shot, loses the handle, and the ball eventually ends up in the hands of Jonas Valanciunas, who misses a sweeping left-handed hook shot.
Isolations as late-game play-calls always draw my ire. I get it – you’re putting the ball in your best scorer’s hands and trusting them to win a one-on-one game. But in most cases, teams know what’s coming. That’s probably especially true for the Raptors, who have been going to the DeRozan-isolation well in end-game scenarios for most of Casey’s tenure. The opponent can ostensibly put their best defender on DeRozan, get ready to trap if he goes baseline, and get ready to help if he goes middle. DeRozan’s an elite foul-drawer but that’s his primary function, and he doesn’t always do well to create space for shots. His desire to draw fouls actually runs counter to getting himself more open looks, as his approach is contact first, space second.
The final play of the game was a better design, and it raises a question: Why not run ATOs like that on the prior two possessions, too? I can’t decide what’s more frustrating: A complete absence of good play designs, or the presence of good play designs that get ignored late.
I guess that’s my primary issue with the late-game play-calling Friday. (And again, I think the last play was fine. DeRozan messed up and Kyle Lowry probably should have shot instead of dishing to Valanciunas late in the clock. It happens.) Even if Evan Forunier isn’t anybody’s idea of a stopper, there are much better ways the Raptors could have gone about getting late buckets. Here are a few.
1. They could have got the ball to DeRozan in more creative ways. Clearing out and isolating gives the ball-handler no initial advantage. Why not get him the ball on the move, perhaps with some extra space, a seam, or a mismatch?
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2. They could have had DeRozan look to pass. This is easier said than done, especially on a clear out where the opponent is going to be reticent to leave outside shooters, but DeRozan has taken major strides as a passer off the bounce and the Magic were ready to help aggressively on his drives.
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3. They could have relied on someone other than DeRozan. Sure, it takes the ball out of the hands of the guy you trust the most, but sometimes that’s necessary. DeRozan isn’t Steph Curry or LeBron James, and even those players occasionally function as decoys or facilitators, leveraging their gravitational pull on a defense to open up easier looks for teammates. And the Raptors have some quick, creative sets that were effective Friday.
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Casey has his reasons for running things the way he does. He’s built a trust with DeRozan over five seasons, DeRozan was having a good game, and it’s always easiest to turn to your crunch-time scorer (remember the outrage when Rudy Gay passed up a game-winning drive to dish to Amir Johnson for a corner three a few years ago?). Casey is the one has to answer to the team when things don’t work, and I’d imagine most basketball players understand the concept of trusting your top scorer to score one-on-one.
Still, it’s frustrating to watch an otherwise good team that’s shown improvements in terms of offensive creativity and fluidity revert to Byron Scott-style coaching with a game on the line.
