After a disappointing Game 1, the Raptors are looking to bounce back by attempting to tilt a myriad of factors in their favour. Both teams are banking on aspects of the first game not replicating themselves in the second game of the series, such as Ian Mahinmi’s foul trouble, which only allowed him to play 17 minutes. Similarly, the Raptors, a team which ranked in the top ten in regards to limiting turnovers, made some careless plays that lead to an admittedly good defensive team to capitalize when they gave the ball away.
Norman Powell and Cory Joseph, two guards heralded for their calm demeanour, made incredibly poor passes that were not necessary at all. Two turnovers won’t change a game, but if the Raptors do a number of other things differently, they might be able to influence a positive outcome in Game 2
Defending Paul George – A Tale of Two Halves
In their four regular season meetings, the Raptors made it very clear how they were going to defend Paul George when the playoffs came around. If you missed out on my playoff preview, I broke it down in more detail here, but the gist of it is that the Raptors are going to send two defenders at Paul George when he uses any screen. Toronto wants to minimize his impact and force the ball out of George’s hands and into the control of the Indiana bigs, coercing them into uncomfortable scenarios as decision makers.
Toronto created two scenarios when defending; one in which George takes difficult shots with a guard trailing on his hip and a big man contesting in his lap, or George passing the ball off where big men had to make smart passes while the remaining Raptors defenders recover. That lead to George shooting 2-9 in the first half for a total of 6 points, an outcome where the Raptors have to be happy.
However, the second half did not prove nearly as fruitful for the Raptors defense.
That compilation starts off with two decently defended shots, but the issue arises before the shots are taken. The entire point of aggressively showing with the screener’s defender is to not allow George the opportunity to even take a shot off the catch. He should have to probe with a dribble or two and then force a shot or pass off, similar to what was shown in the first half. While the first two shots were defended, the scheme wasn’t executed as DeRozan (unfamiliar with acting as a primary help defender) and Patrick Patterson (uncharacteristic mental slip up) both failed to “show” aggressively. The examples that followed were ones where George got into the middle of the floor and dumped the ball of to Turner on a roll. As a result of George getting in the middle of the floor, there were no weakside defenders that could rotate to stop the Turner roll. Finally, the Raptors weak side defenders failed to rotate over after Turner slipped as the screener.
In the first half, the rotating defenders of the Raptors were on a string more times than not. The Raptors just made more mental mistakes than are afforded to a team which is looking to stop a superstar.
DeRozan & Scola
Plenty attention has been paid to the Raptors’ star guards who failed to live up to expectations after registering a 8-32 shooting performance. To single out DeRozan specifically, he was more than responsible for his share of poor offensive choices. Forcing up shots and draining precious seconds from the shot clock to try and find some sort of mismatch against George, an other-worldly defender, was inappropriate and a poor choice to say the least.
In certain instances, DeRozan’s shortcomings on the offensive end were tied to those of Luis Scola. More specifically, the Argentine’s lack of “legitimate” range. Yes, Scola shot 40% from deep this season, but teams are more than willing to test how real his shooting is and how quick the Raptors’ guards are to actually pass to Scola. With that being said, actions involving DeRozan as a ball handler allowed Indiana to completely sag off the Argentine forward and clutter driving lanes. The Pacers used off-ball defenders, who were assigned to Scola, as tertiary defenders who were either responsible for “bumping” the roll, or to block off the paint so DeRozan didn’t have a clear path to the bucket.
Make sure to look out for where Scola is on the floor, how his defender disengages with him and how that affects DeRozan’s ability to run the offense.
DeRozan was forced into mid-range jumpers because he could see where the help defense would rotate away from Scola in the event he made his way to the rim. Other times, his initial lane was completely blocked as a result of Scola’s defender clogging the lane and when DeRozan did attempt to combat the Pacers lack of attention to Scola, the veteran power forward made no positive contribution to the offense. Should DeRozan have forced opportunities that weren’t really there? No, and that’s a serious knock on him and where he should take the blame. With that being said, the option for DeRozan to even make those decisions in a playoff game shouldn’t be there. Superior players to Scola that play the same position could have alleviated so much pressure from DeRozan, who is usually a tremendous pick and roll ball handler.
Sounds like Casey may cut 10-man rotation to 9: “Someone will be affected. We’ll figure it out for tomorrow. We have it figured out now”
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) April 17, 2016
Casey implied the day after the game that the rotations are likely going to drop from a 10-man unit back down to a more familiar 9-man grouping. Raptors fans and media have clamored all season for Patrick Patterson to be the starter, both in name and in role, and it seems logical that Scola is the odd man out. Whether it ends up being Scola, or one of the Raptors’ guards in Powell or Ross, Casey has a big decision in front of him prior to Game 2 against Indiana.
