TORONTO — I think it is OK to say it aloud: These playoffs are going poorly for the Toronto Raptors.
Given the franchise history, this is not fun to declare. It would be nice to revel in the Raptors’ first seven-game series victory ever, and enjoy a close and compelling (if borderline unwatchable) battle against a Hall of Famer-led team. This is more intellectually stimulating than analyzing whether the referees missed a late-game foul call on Andrea Bargnani in a meaningless game in Charlotte, or why Rafer Alston and Jalen Rose will not pass to each other. These are, relatively speaking, the good times.
And the good times still kind of suck, because life is complex like that. The Raptors were dragged down into the mud (or did they swan dive down there willingly?) by the worst offensive team in the playoffs in the first round, and are still alive only by the grace of the basketball deities and Frank Vogel’s Game 5 rotations. They are life and death to escape the clutches of a 48-win team playing without two of its three most important players (remember Chris Bosh?), and with the other one past his prime, Dwyane Wade’s exploits in the past month notwithstanding. Most glaringly, for the second straight year, Raptors fans have watched as a top-five offence in the regular season has given way to an unadaptive mess in the playoffs. Heading into Game 5, the post-season Raptors (96.8 points per 100 possessions) are staving off the regular-season 76ers (96.6) narrowly. Watch out: Isaiah Canaan is lurking.
It would be nice to observe what is potentially the Raptors’ franchise peak without thinking about all of these things, but you do not always get everything you desire. The Rolling Stones had a line about this.
In that same vein, the playoffs have unfolded in a necessarily revealing manner for Raptors general manager Masai Ujiri. His summertime job — every summer, but this summer in particular — is to separate the process from the results. He is getting plenty of ammunition to do just that, with some of it confirming what we already suspected, and some of it a little more unpredictable.
The Raptors cannot survive without Kyle Lowry
It is fair to view the Raptors’ core as Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan and Dwane Casey. Take any one of those three men away, and the on-court product morphs significantly (or likely morphs, in the case of Casey; we can only guess, not know, how a new coach would impact things). If the Raptors want to avoid a huge drop-off, Lowry is the most indispensable person in the organization.
His shooting struggles magnify that. He is shooting 33 percent from the floor and 20 per cent from three-point range. This is worse than even the most pessimistic Raptors fan would have imagined before the playoffs started. And still, in the scant 110 minutes he has been on the bench, the Raptors have been outscored by 26.5 points per 100 possessions. The offence falls apart without him (82.9 compared to 100.2 with him playing), and the defence is not far behind.
Did you see the play where Lowry just ripped the ball away from Goran Dragic under the net in the fourth quarter of Game 4? Did you see him push the pace to find open threes for Patrick Patterson and Terrence Ross in the second half, as the Raptors had nothing going? Nobody else on this team makes those plays.
If Lowry were shooting, say, 40 percent from the field and 30 percent from the arc, we would be talking about maybe the best playoff performance in franchise history. He is not — again, he has been shooting abysmally — and Lowry has to own that. Still, as long as the Raptors want to win, Lowry’s place on this team, at least on his current contract, is secure.
Give DeMar DeRozan a maximum value contract at your own peril
This feels like a rather warm #hottake, and that is unfortunate. DeRozan had to fend off a player seemingly engineered from birth to guard him in the first round, and has had to navigate a nasty thumb injury that has clearly affected his free-throw shooting (and probably all shooting) and ball-handling in the second round.
That is kind of the point, though: He has not navigated it. He has tried to plow directly through those barricades. He had a few decent scoring nights against the Pacers, but for the most part, the results have been brutal. The Raptors are scoring 101.3 points per 100 possessions when DeRozan is on the bench, compared to 95.5 when he is on the floor. And this is a player whose main value is on that end.
Now, it must be pointed out that DeRozan’s options when he has the ball have become limited. Jonas Valanciunas’s absence means opponents can virtually ignore Bismack Biyombo until he is within dunking range. Lowry has already admitted that his struggles are making him turn down shots he usually takes. Space is disappearing by the game as the Heat constrict into the paint. Nonetheless, DeRozan is shooting 5.7 free throws per 36 minutes, down from 8.4 in the regular season, the second playoffs in a row that drop has occurred. His assist percentage is down from 20.8 to 13.4. Those are the things that turned DeRozan from a high-volume, low-efficiency option to a crucial part of a very effective offence.
The conditions have conspired to take DeRozan out of his comfort zone. It is DeRozan acting like that comfort zone still exists is the disconcerting thing.
Jonas Valanciunas is ready for a bigger role in the offence
If DeRozan is not back, the Raptors will not necessarily have to splurge on the free agent market to replace his production and shots. Before his injury, Valanciunas was developing into a big part of a more sustainable offence.
Valanciunas’s usage rate was up a smidge in the playoffs compared to the regular season, and his production was up accordingly. Whereas he could be run off the court by quicker teams in the past, he has shown to be a good enough rim protector to have some value on the defensive end, allowing him to stay on the court even when both the Heat and Pacers went small. Matched up against Hassan Whiteside, Valanciunas was the most reliable producer of efficient offence on the team before spraining his ankle. In 11 playoff games, Valanciunas has turned the ball over more than twice in a game only once, and he was a plus-35 through three-and-a-half games against the Heat, staggering for such a close series.
Valanciunas still has leaps to make as a passer, and he still needs to vary his post moves. Still, whispers about the Raptors moving Valanciunas should die down. He might be the safest bet on the roster.
Dwane Casey is willing to try new things
There have been plenty of controversial moments for the coach, the most recent one of which was keeping Biyombo on the bench instead of removing the struggling DeRozan or the reliably flighty Terrence Ross.
“We were trying to create offence,” Casey said on Wednesday. “That lineup had been successful for us the (game) before.”
Casey’s after-timeout plays remain a legitimate point of contention. His team’s inability to move away from a guard-heavy, jumper-happy offence is mostly damning for his players, but Casey cannot completely wash his hands of the attack’s collapse.
However, the Raptors have forced Casey to search for answers, and he has not stubbornly insisted on cutting that search short. He has mentioned living and dying with Lowry and DeRozan, but DeRozan sat down the stretch in Game 2 and Game 4, only returning in the latter because Lowry fouled out. He elevated Patrick Patterson to the starting unit after being loathe to break up his regular rotations all year. He loves veteran experience, but has virtually removed Luis Scola from this series. He has relied on rookies, Norman Powell and Lucas Nogueira, when necessary.
There is a lot to pick a part in the Raptors’ offensive game plan — frankly, most of that falls on the players — and Casey’s in-game adjustments remain suspect. He is no longer a paragon of coaching conservatism, though.
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All season long, we spoke of the playoffs serving as a referendum on this core. Improbably, despite how poorly Lowry and DeRozan have shot, they still have a chance to make the deepest run in franchise history. They might even play a half-decent offensive game at some point. Dream big.
Just know, Ujiri does not, to borrow a phrase, need to live or die with the result. There is enough evidence already for him to be making decisions in his mind that he will have to formally make in the summer. Now, enjoy the chaos, madness and, yes, the missed jumpers.
