The Toronto Raptors played the second game of a back-to-back without two of their star players against a very good Indiana Pacers team last night, and lost. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who was in attendance for the game, was not treated to good basketball. Sorry, Adam.
The Raptors started the game on a commanding 26-5 run, as DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry confidently knocked down jumpers from all over the floor, but the wheels fell off quickly. The Pacers followed up with a 39-4 run, led by a defense more intense than the what they played in the first quarter. The Raptors simply couldn’t react well enough to Indiana’s perfect, hard hedges on pick-and-rolls and excellent rotations, which resulted in sloppy, forced passes around the perimeter, many of which ended up being turnovers.
In fact, the Raptors only had four turnovers in the first quarter. But in the second quarter, they had seven, and by the end of the game, 21. Only three of the eight players with 18 or more minutes and 20 or more touches had fewer than two turnovers: James Johnson (18:58, 24 touches, zero turnovers), Luis Scola (18:27, 26 touches, zero turnovers), and Terrence Ross (30:41, 35 touches, zero turnovers).
Turnovers aren’t necessarily a killer unless the opposing team converts on the other end, and unfortunately, the Pacers did just that. The Pacers scored 22 points on the Raptors’ 21 turnovers. That is not good.
But even that wouldn’t have been so bad had the Raptors been able to score. They shot just 36.7 percent from the field last night, well below the Pacers’ 47.7 percent. While the Raptors did get a number of good looks last night — 36 of their field goal attempts were considered open, via NBA.com — they simply could not make shots. They only converted on 12 of their open looks, which interestingly was worse than what they shot on contested shots (17 of 43).
(By the way, don’t dwell on the Raptors gross assist total of 10. Assist totals don’t mean much if players don’t make shots.)
Only three Raptors shot better than 40 percent from the field last night: DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, and Patrick Patterson. This can and should be chalked up to fatigue; remember, the Raptors played the Philadelphia 76ers last night. The team was sluggish, and more often than not could not sustain a high level of energy on offense. Even when the Raptors mostly ran a play to perfection, some player would not be in sync and an error would be made, whether it was a bad pass, foul, or a rushed or contested shot.
We can actually see this in some of the NBA’s player tracking statistics. For example, Terrence Ross, on average, moves at a speed of 4.44 miles per hour. Last night, that figure was 4.26. Cory Joseph moves at an average speed of 4.44 miles per hour as well, but he too moved considerably slower last night with an average speed of 4.06 miles per hour. That might also have something to do with why Joseph didn’t hit any of his six shots last night.
That isn’t to excuse the Raptors from their poor play. Beyond fatigue, they were just plain bad. Patterson’s box score numbers might look decent, but he missed several key defensive rotations and many of his shot attempts were wide, wide open. For whatever reason, the Pacers did not respect him from behind the arc. Luckily, that was reflected in his team-low plus/minus of -29. That’s not good, by the way.
The Raptors are in an unfortunate, precarious position. Two of their stars are out, two guys from the D-League are playing spot minutes, and the rest of the Raptors’ players are racking up huge minutes. Lowry and DeRozan are both in the top-10 in total minutes this season, and while they both turned in a decent performance last night, this is definitely not sustainable.
When a team’s starters play significant minutes, its bench needs to step up. But that didn’t happen last night. The Raptors’ bench was -29 against the Pacers, while the Pacers’ own bench was +42. Last night’s loss was the culmination of all of the bad things that could have possibly happened.
Things don’t get much better, either. The Raptors have two days off before heading to North Carolina to play the Charlotte Hornets before taking a bus down to Florida for a game against the Miami Heat the following night. Both teams are very good, and if the Raptors are unable to find some energy, they could face two more losses. Let’s hope they get some much needed rest over the next couple of days.
