The Toronto Raptors are on a seven-game winning streak. It hasn’t been flashy or against elite competition, but you can only beat the teams put in front of you. The Raptors have done that seven times in a row. Let that sink in for a second – it’s only happened two other times in franchise history and hasn’t occurred since the nine-win Vince Carter-less playoff push at the end of the 2001-02 season. A win on Sunday would give this Raptors team the second-longest winning streak in Raptors’ history, one off the all-time mark. That’s really cool.
Game Eight on a potential winning streak is likely to be the most difficult yet, as the 28-15 Los Angeles Clippers visit for a 6 p.m. tip-off on TSN 1 & 4. The game should end just in time for you to flip over to the WWE Network in time for the Royal Rumble match (here’s how an all-Raptors Royal Rumble would play out, by the way).
The Clippers have been on quite a run of their own, and while it’s not carrying the weight the ’02 Raptors one did, it’s coming without a marquee player. L.A. has gone 11-2 with Blake Griffin on the shelf with a quad injury. That stretch has come against pretty manageable competition, but given how thin the Clippers run as is, it’s a nod to the strong play of Chris Paul, J.J. Redick, DeAndre Jordan, and the others (except for Josh Smith). More on all of that shortly.
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To help set the stage, we traded emails with Roscoe Whalan of ClipperBlog.
Roscoe Whalan: Kyle Lowry is in the All-Star Game for the second year in a row. Is he approaching Raptors’ folklore?
Blake Murphy: He has to be, really. He’s only the third Raptor to make two All-Star Games and the second to be voted a starter twice, and his announcement with the starters at this year’s game, in Toronto, projects to be one of the most memorable moments in Raptors history. Beyond the accolades, in less than four seasons he’s vaulted to eighth in franchise scoring and should rank sixth by season’s end (he’ll likely be fourth in Win Shares, if you prefer that measure), and he’s about to lead the team to three consecutive playoff appearances, something that’s only ever happened for the Raptors once before. Right now, Lowry’s battling a few other luminaries for third behind Vince Carter and Chris Bosh. If Lowry can lead the team to just their second series victory ever, or even their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance, fans would be justified ranking him just about anywhere.
Keeping on the All-Star front, the Clippers will probably only end up with two (maybe just one), even if you could make a strong case for as many as four. One of those, as far as we know, remains sidelined. Despite Blake Griffin being an elite power forward and a bonafide star, the Clippers have thrived (11-2) without him. I’m of the mind this isn’t an “Ewing Theory” thing but instead a combination of an easier schedule, the team hitting their stride some, and Doc Rivers being forced into more sensible rotations. What have the Clippers done to be able to withstand his absence?
Roscoe Whalan: You’re right. It’s a total culmination of these circumstances. That being said, members of Clipperblog and I have spent a lot of time musing about what this weird thing is where the Clippers perform better when either of Blake or Chris are out. You’ll remember last year when Blake went down with that staph infection the team went 9-6 and the year before that Griffin carried the load in the absence of Paul. While solving that equation is harder than explaining what happened in The Leftovers, these particular instances can be somewhat instructive.
In the early goings of this season, the Clippers were playing pretty flat. The one outlier to that? Griffin. He was straight up ballin’. However, there was a lot of standing around watching Blake shoot jumpers. How Doc reintegrates him will be fascinating. Once he went down Doc didn’t try to replace him with another traditional power forward, instead sliding Paul Pierce into the line up as a stretch four. What that did was create a whole lot more room inside for DJ to work with either in pick-and-roll situations with CP3 or otherwise. It also helped that the rest of the team’s gunners started to catch fire.
Beyond that, effort seems to have played a part as well. I mentioned before that the team looked lackluster to start the season. We’ve seen some of the offseasons big acquisitions fall out of the rotation (Stephenson) or fall off of the team completely (Smith — but more on that later) and you’ve seen a pick-and-roll game with Prigioni and Aldrich (I can’t believe I’m writing this either) come to life. You know when you’ve got a deadline and your busy but you get it done whereas more time is sometimes the enemy? The Clippers are kind of like that with talent. It’s supreme at full-strength but constantly disappoints, but when this team’s backs are against the wall they always seem to do more with less.
Blake Murphy: DeAndre Jordan’s defense has been taken to another level and Chris Paul is Chris Paul, but it’s J.J. Redick’s performance that’s stood out to me of late. He’s shooting 49.5 percent on threes and rarely, if ever, stops moving, making him a terror of a matchup for anyone tasked with chasing him and creating havoc for team defenses, who have to be hyper-aware at all times. Is he the greatest man that ever lived, and is their any reasonable means of slowing him down?
Roscoe Whalan: Well, the Great Blizzard of 2016 didn’t stop him from getting to Toronto so maybe you’re out of luck. Here’s a guy who’s on the wrong side of 30 with a history of back injuries that’s putting together a career year. I think your greatest man that ever lived is by no means hyperbole. He’s just one in-game dunk away from completely eradicating Kyle Korver’s 2014-15 season from everyone’s memories forever.
Redick is having an incredible season — and he’s doing it in 27.2 minutes per game — his lowest total since his last year in Orlando. His shooting percentages, as we all know, are beastly. He’s beautiful to watch. Okay, bring the gushing back a bit, your here for analysis not fandom. Truly though, what’s made Redick even harder to guard this year is how he’s expanded his repertoire to include more drives to the basket and the occasional floater. This — combined with the Clippers spreading the floor more with the likes of Paul Pierce and Wesley Johnson playing a small-ball power forward has given him just a inch more room to operate in, which is all J.J. needs to fire off another bomb.
Getting back to All-Star talk from earlier, which shooting guard do you think is more deserving of the coaches’ nod: DeMar Derozan or J.J. Redick?
Blake Murphy: When I published my hypothetical All-Star ballot last week, I gave Redick the nod in the final West spot over Jordan (and a few other deserving names). The West is so tight at the team and player level that it really comes down to personal preference, and I took the unpopular route of giving a player thriving in a somewhat lesser role the edge over someone playing well in a larger role.
Redick got my vote because he’s so damn handsome because his arms are on fleek because his watch game proper because those tats because he’s been terrific this season, especially when the Clippers have needed it most with Griffin shelved. Some may find DeAndre Jordan more deserving overall, and I wouldn’t argue – he’s had more of an impact based on advanced metrics, he’s a fun fit for an All-Star Game, and his two-way play has been just as, if not more important than Redick’s offensive contribution. But Redick’s leading the league in 3-point shooting at 49.5 percent on 5.5 attempts per game, and he creates a ton of issues for defense as an ever-moving off-ball catch-and-shoot terror. He’s averaging 16.4 points in 27.7 minutes with an insane 65.3 true-shooting percentage, and while his role may not be that of an All-Star, he’s filling it like one.
I still say DeRozan’s more deserving for playing the No. 2 role on a comparably good team, improving as a driver, scorer, and playmaker, and really reaching a level few though he’d ever get to. His annual incremental improvements continue to impress, and I think DeRozan’s additional volume and playmaking give him the nod over Redick (though admittedly, by that same logic, I probably shouldn’t have given Redick a nod in the first place, shrug).
You know who hasn’t been as good as Redick and DeRozan? Josh Smith. That experiment is mercifully over after 32 games, with the Clippers’ would-be offseason bargain providing little other than headaches. Rivers is generally considered a good coach, but with how small the margin for error is in the West, how much do you think his performance as a general manager over the last two years has cost the team?
Roscoe Whalan: Sigh. Another one gets away, right? So what happened? The Clippers have wanted to move Smith almost since the moment they signed him or so it seems. In the end, this is one of Doc the GM’s less formidable blunders. It may be more of an indictment of Doc the Coach though, who couldn’t every properly integrate Smith. Dan Woike gave some good insight, which raised questions about what role Smith was actually sold on when he decided to sign with the Clippers. It’s a miscommunication that may’ve occurred were coach and GM two separate entities but, alas, this is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Maybe, as a Clippers fan, I’m just used to this and that’s why this one doesn’t feel so bad. Last season we bid adieu to Chris Douglas-Roberts and Jordan Farmar before the deadline and we’ve seen the backs of Byron Mullens and others before we really knew them. However, what makes the Smith situation a little more palatable was that the cash-strapped Clippers (Again, leaving aside who’s to blame for that), went out and secured the best remaining player on the market for a bargain deal. It didn’t work. Smith has been out of the rotation for weeks (Again, leaving aside, whether or not the failed integration is coach or player’s fault) and was not going to play again. Doc the GM cut his losses and obviously believed an unknown roster spot could be more impactful down the line. There obviously weren’t a ton of takers for Smith, who ended up right back where it started in Houston.
Your broader point, in terms of how this effects the Clippers this year is key, though. I can only imagine the writing is on the wall for Lance Stephenson as well. That means the two marque acquisitions this offseason have tanked again (Arguably, Pierce was the big name acquisition but at his age, you could argue either way on that). Moreover, the Clippers ended up with Stephenson in a trade dump of Spencer Hawes’ contract another player that didn’t work out — at the expense of losing Matt Barnes. You could go on for days chasing the mistakes and the covering of mistakes. All that aside, the Clippers now retooled with Pierce, Johnson, Prince Luc, Aldrich and Pablo (and lost Barnes) — it doesn’t really hold a candle to the Spurs bringing in Aldridge and, on paper, you can’t say that’d get them over the line against the Warriors. We’ll see, but the past couple of offseasons have seen the Clippers run out of steam because too much burden was put on their stars to carry them — with the apparent failures of two enigmas in Smith and Stephenson, you have to wonder where that x-factor that tips them over the edge will come from.
Care to say a few words?
Blake Murphy: Only that there’s no accounting for personality and chemistry at the margins. Talent rules at the end of the day, but for teams with an established core and established level of play, finding the right fit can mean just as much as maximizing talent. I get why the Clippers went after Stephenson and Smith given how few means they had to improve and given their own faith in Rivers’ “leader of men” abilities, but it serves as a warning to players that the grass isn’t always greener and to teams that culture can’t be assumed to fix everything.
And also, the Clipper should have signed Ronald Roberts instead of Jeff Ayres.
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Clippers Updates
Blake Griffin (quad) was present at shootaround Thursday but sat out games on Thursday and Friday. He’s traveling with the team but Sunday was considered the earliest he may return.That was on the optimistic end, as he was ruled out early Saturday afternoon, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.
The other 13 players on the roster are healthy, meaning the rotation will look something like this:
PG: Paul, Rivers, Prigioni
SG: Redick, Crawford, Wilcox
SF: Mbah a Moute, Johnson, Stephenson
PF: Pierce, Ayres
C: Jordan, Aldrich
Raptors Updates
It’s all quiet on the Raptors front. DeMarre Carroll remains out, Norman Powell, Lucas Nogueira, and Bruno Caboclo remain snowed in on assignment. The rotation will look like this as a result:
PG: Lowry, Joseph, Wright
SG: DeRozan, Ross
SF: Johnson
PF: Scola, Patterson, Bennett
C: Valanciunas, Biyombo
The Line
As of this Saturday afternoon writing (I’m living my best life, really), the line is off the board. That might have something to do with Griffin, potential travel issues changing the rest level of the Clippers, or the fact that it’s 29 hours from gametime. If I don’t double back early AM, assume the Raptors are a slight, maybe 1.5-point favorite.
