76ers 76, Raptors 96 | Box Score | Quick Reaction
The Toronto Raptors blew out the Philadelphia 76ers, 96-76 on Sunday.
To look only at the score, it would seem the Raptors did their job, handling the league’s worst team at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But to say the Raptors took care of business as they should have Sunday would be to undersell the difficulty they had in putting the woeful Sixers away, a credit to the fight in the 1-24 squad to be sure but a growing indictment of the Raptors’ inability to end games early as well.
“We’re not in that stratosphere,” head coach Dwane Casey said before the game of potentially looking past Philly. “We can’t overlook anybody in this league and for us to win, our margin for error is very small. I know guys get bored of hearing that, I know you guys get bored of hearing that, but it’s the truth. Nobody wants to hear the truth anymore, I guess.”
The Raptors opened up a 12-point lead in the second quarter but let Philadelphia keep it within single-digits at 52-44 at the half. Then the Raptors came out a house afire in the third quarter, as they’re wont to do, surging to a 69-49 lead thanks to a 17-5 run over an 8:45 stretch. The Sixers had gone beyond bending and appeared at their breaking point, the Raptors with a comfortable enough margin to finally get their starters some rest.
After all, Kyle Lowry was yet to play less than 28:59 in a game and DeMar DeRozan less than 27:24, with each playing fewer than 30 minutes in a game just twice all season. Sweeping the leg has been an Achilles heel of the Raptors, who have a great deal of mental toughness when it comes to hanging in and even stealing games against tough odds with stiff competition but who have comfortably ended a game by the end of the third quarter once all season. Whether it’s a lack of killer instinct, a lack of depth, or simply a talent level that plays up against the league’s elite but can’t compensate as well when it’s time to go for the throat against lesser opposition, playing every game to a tight finish is exhausting.
And so it was Sunday, with Casey sitting DeRozan down shortly after the 20-point margin was achieved. The offense sputtered and the Sixers were able to close the quarter on a 9-0 run as a result, cutting the lead to 11 for Lowry’s usual rest period to start the fourth.
Ideally, the T.J. Ross-plus-bench unit that started the fourth quarter would have held serve, keeping the lead in double-figures for the stretch run and allowing Casey to keep DeRozan and Lowry shelved for the game. With the Indiana Pacers looming on a travel back-to-back Monday and both backcourt stars averaging closer to 40 minutes than 30, rest is eventually going to become paramount, lest fatigue start to chip away at this team’s impressive start to the season.
Ross and the bench unit couldn’t get it done, as the Raptors’ second unit continues to lack offensive punch. This, despite the presence of the always always effective Cory Joseph and a solid offensive showing for James Johnson. For as much as Joseph tried to distribute, a feisty Sixers team proved annoying and his shot proved wayward, Ross was unable to knock down clean looks, and Patterson grew strangely gun-shy. Over an 8:10 stretch from late-third to mid-fourth, the Raptors were outscored 22-8, shot 3-of-14 from the floor with a turnover, and secured but a single offensive rebound. As the offense waned, the defense began to sleep some, with Johnson failing to pick up his man in transition for a three, the Sixers sharing the ball well, and Lucas Nogueira unable to shake off the rust from his three-game absence opposite Jahlil Okafor.
The lead was down to six with 7:09 to play, and Casey had to stick with his usual rotations, bringing DeRozan and Lowry back in off the bench to close things out.
“I think human nature, you think the game is over. And a couple threes and it’s a new ballgame,” Casey said after the game. “Again, any NBA team, and I’ve said this, we’re not good enough to mess with the game because the game will turn around and mess with you if you do that. So you’ve gotta make sure you tend to business for 48 minutes.”
The Raptors are shorthanded right now. DeMarre Carroll and Jonas Valanciunas are hurt (both will travel with the team but are uncertain to play on the three-game road trip), which means two members of the team’s second unit have been forced into starting. The trickle-down of those injuries would be a fair excuse for the bench struggling, had they not been struggling before, too. Ross’ play is up-and-down, and while his defense has been better over the last week, his shot remains uncharacteristically inconsistent this year. Patterson has stepped up his defense in a major way of late but is a minus on the glass and appears unconfident amid a season-long shooting slump. Johnson should get more minutes than he does but still provides a nightly lapse that frustrates Casey and negates some of the good he provides. And Joseph, great as he’s been, hasn’t shown an ability to carry the unit’s offense without Lowry by his side to assist.
There are different ways to look at a 16-9 record. It’s a record that came with a heavy road scheduled early, one they’ve achieved despite some injuries and with some marquee victories under their belt. It’s also one they’ve spent a great deal of energy to achieve, never once able to get their two stars (or Carroll, when healthy) adequate rest and failing to close teams out regularly. Of the 16 wins, only four came by more than 11 points and only two of those, early-season meetings with Milwaukee and Philadelphia, were reasonably in-hand by the fourth quarter. The Raptors rank 12th in the league in Net Rating in victories, a fair middle-of-the-pack position, and they’re fifth in fourth-quarter Net Rating in wins. In other words, they’re winning games by enough to be moderately convincing, but they’re requiring huge finishes to do so.
That’s the benefit of having Lowry and DeRozan, two players who can close games out on offense. It’s not a great long-term approach to have to lean on them so heavily, but it’s necessary when it’s necessary and Casey isn’t going to sacrifice a win for a few additional minutes of rest.
Both players checked in at the 7:09 mark of the fourth, the lead back down to six. It took all of one play for the ship to right, with DeRozan immediately getting to the free-throw line. That’s what he does, and what he’s done exceptionally well of late, providing a nice safety valve when the offense stalls out, however displeasing it may be aesthetically. He’d finish with 25 points on 14 field-goal attempts, adding eight rebounds and playing a to a plus-30 in 34 minutes. Lowry, meanwhile, didn’t score from the field down the stretch but cracked down for three defensive rebounds and blocked a pair of shots late, helping settle the defense and push play back the other way quickly, then slowing things down in the half-court and letting DeRozan go to work. He finished with 35 minutes.
The backcourt pairing helped lead a 13-3 run – DeRozan scored 10 – over 5:39, effectively ending the game and making way for Norman Powell (a big dunk!) and Anthony Bennett (a corner three!) to see action for the first time since Ross was still Terry.
The Raptors closed out strong, and the tidy final score makes it look as if they handled their business. They did, eventually, but it required far too much energy than is ideal, a recurring trend that may eventually catch up to them. DeRozan and Lowry rank fourth and seventh, respectively, in total minutes on the season, trailing only the Marcus Morris-Kentavious Caldwell-Pope pairing in Detroit for total minutes by a duo. It’s not a sustainable workload, but it’s one that appears necessary until the bench figures out how to close out games.
Whether that costs them Monday against the Pacers is a question for Tuesday.
