Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

Rockets-Raptors: A Tale of Two Halves

It was the best of basketball, it was the worst of basketball.

The Chicken Littles of the Raptors world were given plenty of ammunition tonight as the team blew a big second half lead at home to a Houston Rockets squad that came in below .500 and on the second night of a back to back.  I had three paragraphs of this pre-written by the middle of the second quarter about how the Raptors found Luis Scola a fountain of youth and took advantage of a rare good appearance from Good James Johnson to convincingly beat a Rockets team that seemed out of sorts and unenthused. There was going to be a shout out to Scola’s transition game and Lowry’s pull up threes and Norman Powell getting some minutes again and it was going to be almost all positive. By the middle of the third I knew I would have to rewrite it and by the time we got to about 4 minutes left in the game I knew I’d have to take some time before doing so lest every sentence contain the kind of four letter words that I doubt our fearless editor wants us using.

The Rockets comeback had a lot to do with James Harden making some tough plays on the offensive end but there seemed to be something more happening there, and I fear that the Raptors FARTDOG contingent may be taking a prominent place on the team again. For those who are unfamiliar, FARTDOG is the Friendly Alliance of Really Terrible Defenders for Opposing Guards – a group first discovered on Mike Woodson’s 2014 New York Knicks but with suspected agents operating all over the league who put in diligent work to help opposing guards put up huge point totals. Terrence Ross and Greivis Vasquez were confirmed members for the Raptors in 2014 and 2015 but this year, probably afraid of what DeMarre Carroll, Cory Joseph and Bismack Biyombo would do to them if they were discovered, the Raptors FARTDOG members kept a low profile and made those of us who actively track membership around the league believe that they may be gone for good. I am now skeptical that this is the case and will be monitoring the situation carefully over the rest of the season.

Over the last two months the Raptors overall defensive efficiency has steadily slipped – a little fluctuation is normal so this could be expected up to a point. They fell out of the top 10 and it was shrugged off because they were in the middle of a winning streak and everyone was high on success. Instead of regaining their footing they slipped a little further but this flew under the radar because of the joy that was Toronto’s first all-star weekend. Well after last night’s performance the Raptors sitting at 14th, barely above the median for the league, and since the calendars switched to 2016 they’ve been 20th which means we’ve seen them drop from being a top 10 defensive team in 2015 to a bottom 10 defensive team in 2016. That’s suspicious FARTDOG activity, especially when you look at how this is happening. Damian Lillard gets 50 one game before Harden gets 40-14 and Corey Brewer hits 5 threes. Reggie Jackson, Kentavius Caldwell-Pope and Steve Blake shoot a combined 16-25. Non-scoring Ricky Rubio scores 12 points on only 3 attempts exactly two weeks after scoring 19 points on 9 attempts. Doug McDermott goes off for 30 points on 17 shots while Derrick Rose shoots 60% despite posting horrible scoring efficiency numbers for the last two seasons. Randy Foye, whose primary skill is his ability to exist on a basketball court without ruining everything, scores 16 points on 7 shots. One or two of these performances would be an acceptable coincidence but all of this happening over a span of a few weeks suggests that FARTDOG is making a comeback in Toronto. If Dwane Casey wants to keep his coaching job he needs to investigate this, find the culprits and put a stop to it immediately. I strongly suggest employing Norman Powell as some kind of anti-FARTDOG superhero.

 

That $@#% I Like

 

  • Luis Scola(Lewis Cola to Leo Rautins, apparently) finding the fountain of youth and carrying the Raptors through a tough early stretch, even hitting his first three since February 10th. Luis, if you can do that on even a semi-regular basis I will take back every unkind word I’ve ever said about you this season and I will bake you my famous Oreo cheesecake. It’s really good – I only have one cheesecake that I make because I decided to perfect one kind instead of trying a bunch of different ones. I’m basically the Kyle Lowry of Oreo cheesecake, so go out there and earn that cake.
  • Kyle Lowry was still really good, all things considered. Eventually the Rockets just started packing the paint and while that stifled a lot of the Raptors offensive attack Lowry still managed to find seams consistently. His strength is a big help in situations like that, allowing him to bust through slightly late help defense without slowing down while the rest of the Raptors guards need to divert and find a different route.
  • Piggy-backing off talking about Lowry’s performance it can be tempting to talk about how they could have used a little more from him or DeRozan but the offense was fine – it’s hard to be unhappy with scoring 107 points, shooting 48% from the floor, generating 27 assists and getting 27 free throw attempts. Considering the lack of shooting with Terrence Ross having an off night and DeMarre Carroll still injured that’s a fantastic offensive performance. Tonight’s assist totals aside the Raptors offense is still not designed to generate a lot of open looks off of passing and could use a lot of improvement in that area but it’s steadily becoming more fluid and the ball barely sticks anymore. It’s far from ideal but at least the eye test says that it’s much improved in that respect.
  • Good James Johnson finally making an appearance. He set the tone for the first half with that early block on Harden and by getting a couple of assists on some nice drives through the Rockets defense. Even at his best he’s going to be a mixed bag and do some things that will infuriate the inner coach in all of us but as long as the good outweighs the bad like it did tonight it’s hard not to give him minutes.
  • Norman Powell first half minutes. It’s a shame that he was only a foul trouble last resort because he did a pretty good job and is exactly the kind of defender that could slow down Harden. He’s clearly an NBA-caliber defender and he hasn’t really hurt the offense in his last few appearances so it may be time to find him some regular minutes in the rotation, at least until DeMarre Carroll returns to the lineup.

That $#&@ I Don’t Like

  • The Raptors defense, especially in the second half. I was holding off criticizing it heavily for weeks in hopes that it was just a brief step back and the team would return to form but they’ve actually been getting progressively worse, sliding further and further down the league rankings. They have discipline issues which have them closing on shooters too hard, overplaying passing lanes and gambling at inopportune times and some of the coaching decisions still don’t make a lot of sense, like doubling a great ball-handler 35 feet from the hoop to get the ball out of his hands but doing so with slow defenders who can’t possibly rotate in time once the pass is made. This kind of defense just isn’t going to cut it in the playoffs.
  • DeMar DeRozan’s crunch time performance. He decided he was going to be the hero and then threw a little tantrum when the refs didn’t gift him points. He had a couple of forced drives when the game was still within reach where he actually created an opportunity to dump the ball off to teammates for easy scores but opted to keep the ball to try to draw a foul. Clint Capela bothered those shots with clean contests and DeRozan got so frustrated with the refs not bailing him out that he opted to put the game out of reach for the Rockets with a frustration flagrant foul that looked very similar to the one he got last year against the Nets. It’s not always this extreme but these outbursts are not really uncommon for DeRozan and they really need to stop. If you want to be that guy who takes over at the end of games you need to find ways to score consistently that don’t involve the foul line and if you can’t do that then you need to give up the ball and if you want to be the team leader at $25 million a year you can’t throw fits like that. And yes, other max players like Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul and Lebron James have gotten away with displays of frustration like that in the past but let’s be real: DeMar DeRozan is not on their level and,  fair or not, that matters.
  • Sitting Jonas Valanciunas against small lineups. On some level I get why Coach Casey decides to do this but it will always bother me because he’s letting other teams decide when he will or will not play one of his key offensive players. If the Rockets insist on playing Corey Brewer at PF then run some quick hitters where JV screens for whoever Brewer is guarding; chances are either the screen springs someone for an open look or they have to switch, and then JV has Brewer on him in a huge size mismatch. Have plays with built in duck in options for him to get quick shots in the paint against smaller defenders like Capela. Let him rack up free throws as he tries to bust through double teams. I know he’s not a perfect offensive player but he manages to get pretty clean looks against the likes of Roy Hibbert and Rudy Gobert so I’m pretty sure he can handle Capela in the post. Coaching is about finding ways to use your weapons in ways that favour your team, not matching up to stop the bleeding while you wait for your star to bail you out. If you find that teams are successful when they go small against you give your big man a chance to punish them and make them question whether it’s actually a good idea.

What’s Up Next?

 

The Raptors homestand continues Tuesday when the Brooklyn Nets roll through. The Nets still have a pretty sorry record but have picked up 6 wins in their last 13 games and have had some tight losses against decent teams over that span. 6-1 is still on the table for this homestand and it’s probably a good thing that the Raptors have this game to get back on track before the Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls – all possible playoff opponents – come knocking.