For a team that’s 42-20, the Toronto Raptors sure haven’t been playing their best basketball of late. An ugly loss to the Detroit Pistons as Kyle Lowry sat, a defensive collapse in a loss against the Houston Rockets, and one of the worst quarters of the season Tuesday against Brooklyn have all occurred in the last week-and-a-half. Quality wins against Utah and Portland happened in that span, too, and the Raptors were able to assert their dominance late against the Nets, but this isn’t a No. 2-seed firing on all cylinders right now.
They better start firing on those unused cylinders. The Atlanta Hawks are in town Thursday for the fifth game of this seven-game home-stand, and Miami and Chicago follow. There’s no turning in 12 or 24 or 36 minutes against any of those teams, and each is a potential playoff opponent, for as much as that matters to you. I’m guessing the Bulls, at least, matter to you.
But Atlanta comes first. The Raptors beat Atlanta 96-86 back on Dec. 2 in one of the team’s best defensive efforts of the season. The Hawks have been pretty steady in the time since, only once winning or losing more than three games in a row (a holiday six-game winning streak). They enter having won three in a row and five of their last six, against a pretty difficult slate – this is the fifth game of a five-game road-trip that included an overtime loss to Golden State and wins at the Clippers and Jazz.
The game tips off at 7:30 on TSN 2.
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To help set the stage, I reached out to a lion cub in a Braves hat Bo Churney of Hawks Hoop, and he was kind enough to answer a few questions.
Blake Murphy: The Hawks have slid from what they were a year ago, but in my mind, they remain an absolutely terrifying playoff matchup for the Raptors, employing two of the exact big-man prototype that gives the Raptors fits, flanked by a lights-out shooter, and head-manned by a very good coach. The Hawks are too good to slide to seventh in the East right? Everything’s going to be OK?
Bo Churney: It seems like they should be too good to fall to 7th. They are second in the league in defensive efficiency, and it looks like the offense is starting to pick back up a little bit after a horrid January/February stretch. I think they will finished 4th or 5th by the end of the season, which will be respectable.
Blake Murphy: Kyle Korver’s 3-point percentage has dropped from 49.2 to 39 this year. Part of that is probably regression, part opponents gameplanning for him more. But do you think any part of it has to do with the loss of DeMarre Carroll? The Raptors haven’t really seen what Carroll can offer when healthy yet, and it makes sense to me that Carroll’s presence as a second barrel would force tougher decisions on opposing defenses, especially in transition, than Kent Bazemore and Thabo Sefolosha.
Bo Churney: I think it has to do with his injury. (Thank you, Dellavedova.) One of the things that has devastated Korver this year is that he has been missing a TON of open shots — shots that he usually makes with ease. He has really been in a groove recently, though, so it will be interesting to see if he gets hot at the season comes to a close.
Blake Murphy: Dennis Schroder has developed to the point that the Hawks may be open to moving Jeff Teague. I know the on-off numbers leap off the page, but are you comfortable with the 22-year-old being The Guy late in games yet?
Bo Churney: As fun as Dennis is to watch, he still has a lot to learn. He has definitely made leaps this season, even when compared to last year, but he still has a tendency to go a little too Iso at times. That said, he has been performing better than Teague for most of this season, and at some point, you’ve got to give the young gun the keys. Maybe trading Teague at the deadline wasn’t the answer, but moving him in the offseason might be necessary.
Blake Murphy: Ballpark, what would the Raptors have had to offer to get Al Horford at the deadline?
Bo Churney: In terms of talent, they probably would have wanted JV and several picks. It’s difficult to make up a trade, though, as the two teams are constructed weirdly for a trade with each other. Reportedly the asking price was super high, so I wouldn’t be too shocked if the Hawks wanted Drake and skinny Kyle Lowry.
Blake Murphy: Which Wrestlemania match are you most looking forward to this year? I was going to come up with Canada and Atlanta teams for a hypothetical 10-man tag match, but geez, Georgia has produced a boatload of good wrestlers. We’re both probably in the wrong industry, then, as natural-born wrestling talent.
Bo Churney: Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose should be amazing. (Assuming that still happens.) As for the second part, I’m pretty sure Churney vs. Murphy at Mania would sell out the biggest stadium in the world, haha.
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Hawks updates
The Hawks come in more or less healthy, albeit a bit thin at center. Tiago Splitter is still recovering from surgery and Lamar Patterson, Walter Tavares, and Tavares’ enormous hands are in the D-League. But they’ve also added Kris Humphries (!!) for depth and landed Kirk Hinrich at the trade deadline, so they’re in pretty decent shape.
The rotation should look something like this:
PG: Teague, Schroder, Hinrich
SG: Bazemore, Tim Hardaway
SF: Korver, Thabo Sefolosha
PF: Paul Millsap, Humphries, Mike Muscala
C: Al Horford, Mike Scott
Too many bigs who can shoot. Too many.
Raptors updates
The Raptors are likewise mostly healthy, save for DeMarre Carroll, who was in regular practice gear on Wednesday. Head coach Dwane Casey said at that same session that more rest days could be coming for the starters (Luis Scola sat Tuesday and Lowry against the Pistons), though this game would seem an odd time to do it. At some point, Lowry probably sits out again, as do Scola and DeMar DeRozan, and maybe even Jonas Valanciunas, just because.
The Scola-Valanciunas frontcourt is probably in for a tough night, and while Jason Thompson’s now around to help out – and has shown himself to be solid already – keep in mind that Lucas Nogueira had a pretty good showing against Atlanta last time out. Valanciunas was injured, and Nogueira put up four points and seven rebounds with a plus-22 in 16 minutes, completely changing the energy of the game from the end of the third quarter to the final buzzer. Nogueira’s minutes were limited in the D-League on Saturday in case he was needed against Clint Capela on Sunday, and though he hasn’t played since a momentum-shifting second-quarter stint against Utah eight days ago, I continue to be of the belief he’s going to get minutes down the stretch. Maybe I’m crazy. I’m probably crazy. Bebe’s definitely crazy. But on nights that Valanciunas doesn’t have it – a little too often the last week or two – he’s a fun middle ground between the Lithuanian and Bismack Biyombo in terms of an offense-defense balance, and he’s usually a good, if risky, bet for energy.
In any case, here’s what the rotation will look like, assuming James Johnson draws back into the starting lineup for the Korver assignment. I doubt the Raptors want DeMar DeRozan chasing Korver around, and they may deem Norman Powell too slender for the array of bone-crunching screens the Hawks’ bigs will set. I’d probably give Powell a shot, still, given how well he’s defended other off-ball threats, but the Raptors still see him as more of a one-two defender than a three-position one.
PG: Lowry, Cory Joseph, Delon Wright
SG: DeRozan, T.J. Ross, Powell
SF: Johnson, Bruno Caboclo
PF: Scola, Patrick Patterson, Thompson
C: Valanciunas, Biyombo, Nogueira
The line
The Raptors stand as four-point favorites, the line having shifted slightly from Raptors -3.5 last night. The over-under has also moved, from 200 to 199, and I think it could nudge even further by tip time. To be completely honest, I’m not all that confident in this one, even with 78 percent of the early action going Toronto’s way. The Hawks are playing really well, and the Raptors aren’t. Maybe Brooklyn woke them up (why didn’t Houston, though?) or maybe a good test will get them going, but I’m a little concerned. This is the first time I’ve picked against the Raptors (straight-up) in a while.
Hawks 99, Raptors 96
