Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

,

No Lowry, No DeRozan, No Problem

Raptors fans who have been searching for a good omen with the playoffs on the horizon got their wish tonight, as the Raptors sat three regular starters and the recently returned DeMarre Carroll and still managed to come away with a convincing victory 111-98 over the Indiana Pacers, their possible first round opponent. Without Kyle…

Raptors fans who have been searching for a good omen with the playoffs on the horizon got their wish tonight, as the Raptors sat three regular starters and the recently returned DeMarre Carroll and still managed to come away with a convincing victory 111-98 over the Indiana Pacers, their possible first round opponent. Without Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan to chew up possessions the Raptors experimented with a few new looks and spread the ball around a bit more than usual, blindsiding the Pacers who likely(and justifiably) thought they had an easy win based on the Raptors history without Lowry. Instead they got Norman Powell doing his best DeRozan imitation, Delon Wright using his herky-jerky drives to get inside the defense at will and a solid overall defensive effort that kept the Pacers from generating any kind of consistent offense. The game was almost entirely about the emerging talent so it’s only fitting that this will be almost entirely about them as well.

Powell continued his solid outside shooting, going 3-4 from deep and upping his post-all star three point percentage to 41% on three attempts per game. He pushed the ball hard in transition and curled aggressively off screens, exploding to the rim and leaving defenders with little choice but to reach in and strip the ball as he flew by. The kid still has a lot of stuff to work on but his play over the last couple of months has shown a very solid base to build on and his improvement over the course of the season suggests that he’s willing to put in the work to improve and is receiving good direction from the organization. Coach Casey is now faced with a dilemma: keep Powell in the starting lineup, where he has been very effective, or slide DeMarre Carroll back into that starting spot? It’s a tough decision, but it’s what would you call one of those “good problems”.

While Powell was pushing the pace and simply exploding past Pacer defenders Delon Wright was showing off a subtler game. He’s not going to just blow by anybody at the NBA level – he’s just not that type of athlete – but he uses change of pace and body fakes like a veteran. There are advantages to approaching the game at medium speed – while the defense has more time to react to him he also has more time to react to them. He’s shown a knack for slithering past big men who think they’re in position for a charge and he knows exactly when he should shift gears to split double teams. Once he got inside the Pacers defense he showed a knack for finishing contested layups high off the glass, impressive because their interior defenders are no slouches. He still needs to work

The Raptors spent the early part of the game experimenting a bit with giving Jonas Valanciunas the ball in the high post with mixed results. He has a soft shooting touch from out there but, like some other Raptors, seems a little too comfortable shooting those shots when he’s not really open. They had a little motion going around him and took advantage of his big body on some high post handoffs but it looked like nobody was really comfortable executing those looks. The effort to introduce some new wrinkles is appreciated but it’s might be a little late to start introducing things like that now. It may be a look ahead to a possible matchup with the Detroit Pistons, which could be made a lot easier if Valanciunas is able to pull Andre Drummond away from the hoop.

After that the offense was very guard driven. Wright and Cory Joseph would take advantage of the slow footspeed of the Pacers big men, regularly snaking into the lane on sideline pick and rolls. When they’d kick it out the ball didn’t stick, pinging around the perimeter until one of the Pacers failed to keep up. The offense was about as cohesive as you could expect from a team sitting 4 rotation players and had no trouble picking apart the normally stingy Pacers defense.

It didn’t really matter if the Raptors won or lost this game but it was encouraging to see the youngsters play so well. They could end up being a wildcard for the Raptors in the playoffs, effective players who are difficult to gameplan for because there isn’t much of a sample size available on their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies. Wright has shown enough at point guard that I’m perfectly comfortable occasionally throwing him out there alongside or even instead of Cory Joseph to give the team a bit of a different look and Powell may have spent the last month solidifying that starting job and making Carroll a luxury who can be brought back slowly instead of a necessity who needs to be played major minutes immediately. Lowry is obviously the teams MVP and workhorse but Powell’s emergence after the all-star break may have saved the Raptors season, giving them some much-needed shooting in the starting lineup and making Carroll’s long recovery more of an annoyance and a long term concern than a season-ruining catastrophe.

That @#$# I Like

The JV-JT Combo – another solid defensive 1st quarter backed by the pairing of Jonas Valanciunas and Jason Thompson kept the Raptors in the game as the offense struggled. That pairing remains among the better Raptors big men duos on the defensive end, though the sample size is still small. The fact that it doesn’t seem to be changing much as the sample size grows is very encouraging and it’s mind-boggling that Scola was probably just rested for a game instead of removed from the starting lineup entirely. There is little doubt in my mind that if Scola had started this game the Raptors would have been down after 1 quarter, and who knows how the rest would have played out had the Pacers gone into the 2nd with some momentum. Thompson is undoubtedly the player who should be starting alongside Valanciunas when the playoffs open up assuming Casey is determined to keep Patrick Patterson in a reserve role.

Norman Powell Pushing the Pace – one of the things I love the most about Powell is how quickly he pushes the ball up the court off of rebounds and turnovers. When DeMar DeRozan gets a rebound he tends to walk it up the court – actually, most things that he does tend to be very methodical – but Powell sprints the ball downcourt, immediately looking for an opening to attack the rim. It doesn’t always result in a layup for Powell but it does tend to get the defense scrambling earlier in the shotclock than is typical of the Raptors offense. On a team who rarely gets any early clock offense and frequently sacrifices two-for-one opportunities at the end of quarters seeing his urgency is a welcome change.

Cory Joseph Running the Offense – This may have been Joseph’s best offensive performance of the season, and it couldn’t have come at a better time with so many rotation players out against the 3rd ranked defense in the league. His point guard skills and his shot have both been inconsistent – on a few occasions this season he’s gone multiple games without making a notable contribution on the offensive end. It was great that he didn’t miss a shot on his way to 18 points but his most important contribution was the season high 9 assists. If the Raptors are going to make the deep playoff run they’re supposed to make they’ll need someone other than DeRozan and Lowry to create easy shots in the pick and roll.

That $~&@ I Don’t Like

I honestly can’t find anything to complain about. The Raptors shouldn’t have been able to win this game but they won it handily and even when they messed up – like that James Johnson between the legs save that sent the ball sailing in front of the Raptors basket – it was more amusing than anything else. The only thing I didn’t like was not getting to see any minutes for young Bruno Caboclo, who has put in a lot of work for Raptors 905 this season and deservesto be rewarded with some minutes. At this point it doesn’t matter if the Raptors win or lose so give the fans what they want and let the young man get a few somewhat meaningful NBA minutes against teams that are trying to win games.

 

Three games left and everything is all decided for the Raptors except whether they play the Pistons or Pacers in the first round. This upcoming week will be spent living for the weekend, counting down the days to the start of the real test for the best team in franchise history.