ICYMI from Raptors Republic
Raptors treating Game 6 like a Game 7, and other practice notes | Raptors Republic
Another factor the team cited in getting DeRozan going and the effectiveness of the closing group was the quality of screens the team set, particularly Biyombo.
“Going into the second half, it was just having a mentality of trying to find a way to get our guys better shots, layups, and all those things,” Biyombo said. “I think we did a very god job setting good screens. It wasn’t just me, it was everybody. We got some layups. I think Kyle drove a couple times and got fouled, went to the free throw line. I think I set another screen on DeMar to open up Cory, 3 points, we went up six. Those were important plays to us and I’m glad we got to complete them.”
And he wants credit.
“I think you can always give an assist in a different way,” Biyombo laughed when asked about screen assists. “There is an assist that shows up on the statsheet but otherwise, it doesn’t show up. So I think when you set a good screen, somebody get an open shot, that’s another assist. I always count it as an assist.”
Biyombo has only dished two actual assists in the postseason so far, but he ranks seventh in the league with 3.2 screen assists per-game, despite averaging just 20 minutes, per NBA.com.
Breaking it Down: The final possession, a DeRozan wrinkle, Carroll duck-ins | Raptors Republic
As DeMarre Carroll continues to get his legs entirely back under him, his offense is understandably secondary to his defense. The lifting of the minutes restriction has helped, as Carroll’s not feeling the need to get touches within a certain time frame, instead sitting back and picking his spots a little more carefully.
“Yeah, of course,” Carroll said at practice Monday. “Because you can pick and choose on the offensive end. when to cut, when to do certain things. My focus has been defense. My teammates have done a great job getting me the ball.”
He’s mostly subsisted off of catch-and-shoot jumpers in the series, but the Raptors ran unfamiliar duck-in plays for him on multiple occasions in Game 5. Those may have been a part of the playbook early in the season, but if they were, they’ve mostly been shelved in the time Carroll was on the sidelines and in the early part of his return.
Carroll’s a smart player and a savvy cutter, one who can make an extra pass off of the cut and really force the defense into some tough decisions as the ball gets moving. The Raptors haven’t gotten the best of that yet, but some of it’s potential impact was on display with these quick-hitting dump-ins, which act as easy, early-clock looks or initial actions to scramble a defense.
Solomon Hill upset with Raptors’ style: ‘It’s not really basketball out there’ | Raptors Republic
I do think Hill has a gripe with George drawing a technical for his reaction to that loose ball with Kyle Lowry, but his general take on the Raptors’ style seems like kind of a convenient non-excuse. The Raptors only took six free-throws in the pivotal fourth quarter, after all, and while the Pacers are welcome to argue that their 29 free-throw attempts over the first three quarters changed how they were defending…why, if it was working? The Pacers committed six turnovers in the fourth, surrendered three offensive rebounds, and shot 26.7 percent. That probably had more to do with the collapse than the Raptors’ 6-of-6 mark at the line, two of which were off of an intentional foul.
And sure, the Raptors definitely do invite contact as one of the league’s most drive-heavy teams. They ranked third in the NBA in free-throw rate during the regular season, and it’s a big part of what DeRozan and Lowry like to do. That doesn’t mean it’s illegal, though, or not a justified strategy – the counter is to defend them differently, and it’s convenient that this gets brought up after a Toronto win and not, say, Game 4, when the Raptors shot just five fewer free throws in a loss.
Links from the Internets
Who is creating offense for the Toronto Raptors and the Indiana Pacers? | Nylon Calculus
George has created more points in the playoffs than the next two Pacers, Monta Ellis and George Hill, combined. Again there is double-counting because each player’s assists also contribute as made baskets for someone else, but it is still startling. Hill and his not-relative Solomon Hill are the only other players producing points at an above average rate. Ellis, Rodney Stuckey, Ty Lawson are Indiana’s other primary ball-handlers and all have been horrible inefficient.
As bad as that spread looks for Indiana, their first round opponents, the Toronto Raptors, look even worse.
Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have been responsible for the vast majority of Toronto’s offense and each has been horribly inefficient in cobbling together those points. Jonas Valanciunas has cooled off some since his strong performances in the first two games of the series. Bismack Biyombo has been effective as a finisher and Cory Joseph has really been the only reliably efficient offensive engine.
The Raptors appear poised to deliver the knock-out blow in Game 6, having thoroughly robbed the Pacers of any momentum. Still, if they’re looking to build on a first round victory, the Raptors still have some tinkering to do on offense.
The Toronto Raptors Are Damn near Impossible to Figure Out | VICE Sports
If Game 5 played out 100 times, the Pacers probably win at least 95 of those games. It took Frank Vogel’s curious rotations, benching all three of Paul George, Monta Ellis and George Hill to start the second and fourth quarters, to give the Raptors the slightest of chances. George sat for 6:55 of the game, and the Pacers lost those minutes by 18 points. Even still, the Pacers probably should have won. It seemed like they all forgot how to play at the same time.
If you are a Raptors fan, then, you have a choice: Cling to what happened in the fourth quarter—that impossible, rather inexplicable series of events—or remember what happened in the first three quarters. If the Raptors had lost that game in the manner in which most of it unfolded, the spotlight would have been on Kyle Lowry.
The Toronto Raptors’ Game 5 Comeback May Have Saved the Franchise | numberFire
A third straight year of being ousted by an under-seeded team in the playoffs? That would’ve meant that the team’s core of coach Dwane Casey, All-Stars Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, and promising young big man, Jonas Valanciunas, would almost certainly have been broken up.
The team has made great progress in the last three years, improving their regular season record in each, but a third-straight upset would make the fanbase rabid and likely force general manager Masai Ujiri’s hand in personnel decisions this coming summer.
The Raptors are not out of the woods yet, but they are a whole lot closer to their first opening-round victory in a decade and a half than they would’ve been had that fourth quarter never happened and they had lost. And, with that, they are a whole lot closer to staying together.
With the 3-2 advantage, our algorithms give the Raptors an 81.67% chance of winning the series, with the most likely scenario being that they close it out in Game 6 in Indiana on Friday night (43.93%).
If the Pacers had held on for the win last night? It would be the Pacers that would have had a 69.33% of beating the Raptors — an outcome that would almost certainly spell the end for these Raptors as we know them.
What a difference a mere 12 minutes can make.
Kyle Lowry on Raptors advancing past first round: ‘We have to do this’ | The Vertical
If DeRozan is the finest talent on these Raptors, Lowry is their most relentless spirit, their leader. He has struggled with his shot in the series, and finally in the fourth quarter of Game 5 he made a series of plays – absorbing a charge from Paul George, a tip-out rebound, passing for assists and defending – that impacted winning. When it was over, Lowry was championing DeRozan’s 34 points and declared that it was time for everyone to back off his co-star and feel free to double-down on Lowry himself.
“Now [DeRozan’s] second all-time in wins here,” Lowry told The Vertical. “For a guy who came to an organization that wasn’t known for winning, that’s really something. The two of us, we want to leave a legacy. We want to be great. We are not OK with just being good players who made a few All-Star games. We’ve wanted this to be our team, our organization.
“And I still haven’t played well. Everyone, they can all keep talking about me. I’ll grab it and put it on my shoulders. I haven’t played well, and I understand that. So keep putting it on me, because I’ve got to play better.”
Which Raptors team will show up for Game 6? It’s anybody’s guess | Toronto Sun
Playing to their identity is something this team has trouble with … at least, doing it consistently gives them trouble. It’s not exactly a secret.
Bismack Biyombo is normally on the bench gauging what is needed before his name it called. He’s well aware of the inconsistency this group has shown at times, but feels things are moving in a better direction heading into Game 6.
“There is a level of satisfaction, because we got the win, but you have to look at the downside,” Biyombo said of the feel around the club on Wednesday. “How did we start the game, how did we play those three quarters? If we play with the same intensity we did in the fourth quarter, we shouldn’t even be talking about us suffering to win a game, and we’ve shown that in the games we won before yesterday. But you always appreciate a win, you correct your mistakes and learn from it and prepare for the next game and that’s where things are going to matter.”
Biyombo said the only way to go into Game 6 is to treat it like the Raptors are the team on the verge of elimination. Anything less than that and you can pretty much predict a Game 7 will be necessary.
“The next game is going to be pretty much a Game 7 because we’re looking to close the series and it’s going to take the same intensity,” Biyombo said. “We have to be able to come out and play with the same intensity (as that fourth quarter in Game 5).”
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Coach Casey’s tweaks have Raptors in driver’s seat: Feschuk | Toronto Star
It’s unlikely DeMar DeRozan would have unleashed his vital 34-point performance, for instance, if Casey hadn’t veered from his habitual substitution pattern at the beginning of Tuesday’s second quarter. It was a small tweak, but by forgoing the all-star’s usual breather Casey left DeRozan on the floor with Paul George on the bench. Freed from the long arm of George’s defensive reach — a considerable force that had helped hold DeRozan to 30 per cent field-goal shooting in the opening four games — DeRozan finally did some damage. After shooting 1-for-3 in an opening frame in which George played the duration, DeRozan went 4-for-5 from the field and racked up 10 points in the 3:31 in which George sat. During that span the Raptors whittled a 15-point deficit to three before George could return.
There were other adjustments that allowed DeRozan to finally find his groove. At the coaching staff’s behest, the usual high screens were set a little higher to create more space for both DeRozan and Kyle Lowry to operate. And those screens were set at different angles, too — this, said DeRozan, to allow for more “downhill motion.” If the jargon got a little technical, let’s just say the adjustments to the scheme coincided with the first time in the series DeRozan looked truly dangerous.
Casey deflected any credit for outmanoeuvring Frank Vogel, his Indiana counterpart, chalking up DeRozan’s success simply to shots that finally fell. And certainly Vogel helped Toronto’s cause with his stubborn insistence to stick to his wont of resting George at least six minutes a game — even if those rests were seemingly the only thing keeping the Raptors in the game. Toronto outscored Indy 19-1 with George out in Game 5.
Casey, for his part, said he “wouldn’t doubt” the prospect of George playing all 48 regulation minutes in Game 6.
“That is going to be a chess match within itself — how many minutes certain guys can play, when they are in (the game), and who they are in there against,” Casey said.
DeRozan stays even-keel despite Hollywood drama unfolding around him | Sportsnet.ca
The trick to surviving the post-season – basketball’s ultimate reality series – is to find a way to make the days after one of the best games of your life not much different than the ones following perhaps the worst game you’ve ever played.
Call it staying even-keeled or managing your emotions.
DeRozan says it’s important to stay mellow. It’s boring, but for DeRozan it works.
“You can’t [get too high or too low], you can’t,” he said on Wednesday, as fans, media and players alike were trying to parse out exactly how the Raptors pulled off their once-in-a-lifetime 23-2 run that turned a potentially franchise-shaking loss into one of the greatest nights in Raptors history.
“Especially being in the league for awhile now, you’ve really got to stay level. You have to, because it can always change that quick, anything can happen, so you’ve got to stay humble, stay mellow and understand you have another opportunity to do more than what you did.”
Scrape away all the doubts and all the questions – fair or otherwise – about DeRozan’s ability to lead a team deep into the post-season and that may be the best insight you can get into how DeRozan has arrived at this point in his career.
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Bismack Biyombo tirelessly committed to getting better every day | Toronto Sun
“This series is not about scoring,” said Biyombo, averaging 6.6 points and nine rebounds in less than 20 minutes of play a game. “It’s about who plays the most physical.”
In the first three games of the series, Jonas Valanciunas seemed the dominant Raptor at centre but in the past two, and especially Tuesday’s Game 5, the Pacers adjusted to Valanciunas. They haven’t been sure what to do about Biyombo, whom they tried to foul and he came back by hitting all four free throws in the fourth quarter.
“In the three games we have won, we were able to compete at a high level,” he said. “When we played in Indiana (Game 4), nobody was happy. (The Pacers) came out and played physically, out-rebounded us. It just didn’t feel right. Going into (Game 5), it was a mindset. We’re going to leave it all on the floor. That was a big accomplishment.”
A huge win. An amazing comeback. The accomplishment part can be debated on another day.
But a Biyombo dunk electrified the Air Canada Centre crowd and reduced the Pacers’ lead to 90-83. Within minutes the score was tied 92-92.
“After (that) timeout, Cory, me, DeMar (DeRozan), Kyle, were telling each other we have to run this out if we want to win the game,” said Biyombo. “We have to leave it all on the floor. We just have to do it.
Bismack Biyombo brings intangibles Raptors desperately need | Toronto Star
The NBA playoffs would be the perfect storm for Biyombo to have a major impact on a game or a series. It is not a time for fancy or for athletic; it is a time for tough and physical and, yeah, a bit overly-aggressive when the opportunity arises.
“I think that’s some of the fight we have,” Casey said. “It starts with him. He’s the spirit of our team, he’s kind of the soul of our team. He starts the toughness of our team. He’s probably not the most talented on our team, as far as other things he can’t do, but what he does do far outweighs what he can’t do.”
That’s often the case with players like Biyombo — the focus is on perceived shortcomings in their games rather than the positive attributes they possess. He does precisely what the team needs and doesn’t care what people see overall.
“It’s just knowing how I can impact the game,” he said.
“I always say scoring is not a problem with us and this series is not about scoring. It’s just about who plays the most physical. One thing we have done a very good job of in the three games we’ve won is being able to compete at a high level and this series has just been about who has played more physical than the other.”
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Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan Have Been Terrible in the NBA Playoffs | numberFire
In the past three postseasons, Lowry has averaged a whopping 37.3 minutes per game in 16 games. He’s averaging 17.1 points per game, which isn’t awful if you care about points per game without regard to efficiency.
You can bet your bottom dollar that we care about efficiency.
Lowry has shot just 35.6% from the field in these 16 games. He’s been a 28.6% three-point shooter on 6.1 attempts per game, ultimately yielding in an Effective Field Goal Percentage of 41.5%.
Let’s throw in some context here.
Only four players in the 2015-16 regular season averaged at least 25 minutes per game and had an Effective Field Goal Percentage of 43.0% or worse.
PlayerMinutes/GmFG Attempts/GmeFG%Offensive RatingnERD (Rank)
Ricky Rubio30.67.742.71101.1 (69)
Kobe Bryant28.216.941.795-10.1 (146)
Kyle Lowry*37.314.841.5102—
Marcus Smart27.38.740.5101-0.9 (89)
Emmanuel Mudiay30.413.340.488-13.6 (147)And just to be clear, 147 players were qualified for a nERD rating, so Lowry’s not exactly in great company when it comes to shooting efficiency.
Believe it or not — DeRozan has been even worse.
DeRozan’s three playoff seasons have yielded an average of 20.9 points per game over 16 games. And if you thought Lowry’s marks were bad, just know that DeRozan is shooting 37.2% on 18.1 field goal attempts per game (38.6 minutes) in these playoff games. He’s also a 28.9% three-point shooter on 2.4 attempts per game.
His Effective Field Goal Percentage? 39.1%. And that’s on a Usage Rate of 28.6%, which would have tied John Wall for 19th in the regular season. You know who used that many possessions this year with so little efficiency? Nobody. Nobody had a Usage Rate of 28% or greater and an Effective Field Goal percentage worse than 40% this season.
DeRozan’s marks make Lowry’s playoff numbers — 41.5% Effective Field Goal Percentage on a 24.7% Usage Rate — look, well, never mind.
Little things made big difference for Raptors: Arthur | Toronto Star
In the giddy emotion after the Toronto Raptors came back to win Game 5, nobody was sure what happened. One Raptors employee said, “I can’t believe we won that game.” Another just shook his head. Asked for an explanation, one Raptors executive grinned and said, “There’s no explanation.”
There was, sort of. Toronto had won 102-99 after trailing the Indiana Pacers by 15 late in the third quarter. They outscored Indiana 25-9 in the fourth. It was made, mostly, of little things.
To start, it needed Bismack Biyombo. Late in the third, with Toronto down 15, he shoots two free throws. Biyombo shot 48.3 per cent from the line as a stone-handed rookie, then 52.1, then 51.7, then 58.3. This year, he was at 62.8. His free throws dive at the rim, but they both go in.
“This is the first season I haven’t taken a day off,” said Biyombo Wednesday. “I come back in the gym on every other day off, I come back at night, I come before people get to the gym, I stay after. The key was, how can I improve not getting all this Hack-A-Player that’s been going around the league? In the summer, I worked a lot on my free throws and try to improve, and it was a matter of repetition and getting my confidence high. In the fourth quarter, you don’t want to give the coach a reason to take you out of the game.”
A photo posted by Toronto Raptors (@raptors) on
A minute-by-minute breakdown of one of the best quarters in Raptors history | Raptors HQ
In desperate times, sometimes you just have to throw things at the wall and pray. Dwane Casey did that to great effect in the fourth quarter. Instead of doing something that’s worked all season and rolling out the Kyle Lowry & The Bench Mob unit, Casey opted to take advantage of Indiana’s slight interior and embrace the small-ball options his roster affords him.
With a unit of Lowry, Cory Joseph, DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell and Bismack Biyombo, Casey managed to ignite the fluid drive-and-kick cadence the Raptors have mastered all year. The second minute of the quarter was scoreless on both sides, but a couple examples of rhythmic ball-movement and a brutal Stuckey miss were the warning tremors for what was about to come. 90-79.
Foul calls, officiating a hot topic in Raptors-Pacers series | Toronto Sun
ASSISTANTS IN DEMAND?
The Raptors season is still going, but that hasn’t stopped the NBA’s rumour mill from churning.
The recent arrival of Tom Thibodeau in Minnesota and Scott Brooks in Washington has led to speculation that Dwane Casey could lose some of his assistant coaches this summer. Casey’s option year has not yet been picked up by the Raptors, so the talk is logical, seeing as Thibodeau and Brooks just signed lucrative long-term deals.
Andy Greer, Toronto’s defensive chief, worked many years under Thibodeau (2010-2015 and they were on the same staffs earlier in other cities) and Wolves beat writer Jerry Zgoda, of the Minneapolis Star Tribune tweeted Wednesday: “expect Greer to end up here.”
Rex Kalamian, another Toronto assistant, was in Oklahoma City from 2009-2015 with Brooks and NBA.com’s David Aldridge said last week that Brooks will likely take a run at reuniting with the 20-plus year coaching veteran.
Raptors assistant Nick Nurse drew interest from Golden State in the past and is regarded as a head coach in waiting in NBA circles.
Pacers’ bench once again pedestrian in playoffs | Indy Star
Did Vogel consider leaving George and the other starters on the court to start the fourth quarter?
“I did,” Vogel said.
Then he chose to trust his bench.
“Those guys have been good for us,” Vogel explained.
That trust, the trust Vogel has displayed time and time again during his tenure, failed him and the Pacers, who, now trailing 3-2 in the series, are on the brink of elimination.
The Pacers’ reserves did not maintain the team’s 13-point lead at the start of the fourth quarter, which usually is the top priority for most teams once the starters create positive separation on the scoreboard. Instead, the Pacers’ implosion started with George, George Hill, Monta Ellis and rookie Myles Turner on the bench.
The Raptors went on a 21-2 run, stole the game in dramatic fashion and left the Pacers wondering how they scored a franchise playoff-low nine points in the fourth quarter.
“We just didn’t start the fourth quarter off well enough offensively,” Turner said from his perspective on the bench. “Of course we gave up some buckets on the other end, but offensively we got real stagnant and didn’t score for I don’t know how long.”
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DeMar DeRozan rebounds with a huge Game 5 for Toronto Raptors | ESPN
“It’s not surprising,” DeRozan said. “I think just with me being older, maturing and going through a lot basketball-wise, I never got frustrated. It’s easy to complain or make excuses when things are not going your way the previous games, but I know how hard I work, how much I put into the game, and I’m not who I am for no reason. I knew it was going to come. It’s all about being patient and when my team needed it most, I came through.”
The Raptors have a chance to close it out on Friday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The hope is that DeRozan, an impending free agent who could command a max contract over the summer, can put together back-to-back solid games.
“It’s not about Xs and Os,” DeRozan said. “It’s about the mentality that once we leave tomorrow and head to Indiana that we have to fight like hell to make sure we’re not going back home to play (Game 7). I told all the guys that we really have to treat it like it’s our last game. If we go in there understanding, having that feeling and emotion like it’s our last game, we should be fine.”
How the Raptors pulled off their greatest comeback ever in Game 5 | Eh Game – Yahoo Sports Canada
Powell was the primary defender on George in the fourth, aggressively guarding the Pacers All-Star with the knowledge he could do so fearlessly because he had the help and support of his teammates. George went 1-for-3 and committed two turnovers in the quarter as Toronto’s stifling pressure forced the ball out of his hands.
“It was team defence,” said Casey. “I thought our defensive help was there. One guy is not going to stop Paul George, he’s such a great scorer … It wasn’t a one-man show.”
Raptors’ bench production leading to playoff wins | Raptors Rapture
As Biyombo and Powell defend well off the bench, Cory Joseph has brought an offensive spark to the reserve unit. The former San Antonio Spur has averaged more points per game with more efficient shooting in the playoffs compared to his regular season. Particularly in the first two games of the series, Joseph ranked among the Raptors leading scorers. After struggling and failing to score in game 4, Joseph played the entire fourth quarter of game 5 and contributed to the Raptors victory with a plus/minus score of plus 12.
Conversely, the Indiana Pacers’ role players have largely failed them in the playoffs. Paul George leads the entire NBA in points per playoff game, yet his teammates have largely failed to match their regular season production. C.J. Miles, for instance, has seen his scoring decline from almost 12 points per game in the regular season to 4 points per game in the playoffs.
Backup guards Ty Lawson and Rodney Stuckey have struggled to score from both efficiency and quantitative standpoints, as both average 30% or worse from the field and combined they’re scoring less than 8 points per game.
When the Pacers leading scorers, Paul George and George Hill, rest, the game starts to get away from them. Credit Toronto’s bench, but also recognize that the Pacers can’t trust their role players to score.
Raptors’ DeRozan finally finds his game | TSN
Knowing that Paul George would be draped all over him – he has been this whole series – the goal was to get the ball to DeRozan with more space to operate, according to Dwane Casey. The head coach credited DeRozan’s teammates, particularly the bigs – and especially Bismack Biyombo – for setting better, harder screens to give Toronto’s leading scorer a bit more breathing room on his jumper.
DeRozan echoed that sentiment, also crediting the point guards – Lowry and Cory Joseph – for setting him up, but the 26-year-old guard is among those who believe in another, simpler explanation: he was due.
“It’s not surprising,” he said after scoring a career playoff high of 34 points in Toronto’s 102-99 comeback win. “I think just me being older, maturing, going through a lot basketball-wise, I never got frustrated. It’s easy to complain or make excuses when things are not going your way the previous games, but I know how hard I work, how much I put into the game, and I’m not who I am for no reason. I knew it was going to come. It’s all about being patient and when my team needed it most, it came through.”
“We had a couple new wrinkles in our offence but again, at the end of the day, it’s about what he did: He made shots,” Casey said. “I can put a million new plays in, wrinkles in, but he’s gotta [make shots], and he did. That’s the key. It’s a player’s league and we did a couple things to help him, but he did his part.”
True to his word, Casey put DeRozan in more advantageous situations on the floor. His most basic adjustment, tweaking the rotation, may have been the most effective. When George rested, Casey had DeRozan on the floor in lieu of the Lowry and reserves lineup that usually starts the second and fourth quarters. Without the Pacers’ star forward out there to make his life difficult, DeRozan feasted, as you might expect. In the 3.5 minutes George sat to begin the second, the Raptors outscored Indiana 13-3 and DeRozan was responsible for scoring eight of those points.
Raptors Should Start Norman Powell In Game Six | Pro Bball Report
“The only thing I told him today when we were sitting on the bench is that you have to do one thing for all of us to be able to win this game,” Patrick Patterson said after Game Five. “We all have to do one thing and right now we just have to play defense. You’ve got Paul George who is an All-Star. You have to take one thing away from him.”
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