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Raptors need to have ‘short memory,’ potential brain drain, and other shootaround notes

Other organizations wanting your people sucks if they get them, but it says a lot of good about your organization, too.

The Toronto Raptors will look to rebound from an ugly Game 1 loss when they visit the Cleveland Cavaliers once again on Thursday night (8:30). The team had yesterday to practice, regroup, and refresh, and attitudes seemed pretty positive, as far as post-31-point losses go.

Here are notes and quotes from shootaround.

Short memory

How does a team turn the page, exactly? Step one is to learn from it, but step two is to quickly get over it.


For Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, who are surely a little worn out by this point, that meant relaxing just a little bit.


It’s hard to imagine Lowry doing something like watching TV, so here’s guessing he just watched old game tape or ESPN Classics or something. Also, photos of Diar at the zoo, please.

The Raptors aren’t tipping their hands at potential changes, but they’re confident they’ll bounce back once again, somehow.

Casey’s game recap is succinct

I guess this is more efficient than the 7,000 words or so I’ve written on the game.

Adjusting rotation, fouling, more

Casey isn’t revealing specifics, but expect the rotation to look a little differently in Game 2.


I’m not sure what the answer is. You can’t really bring Patterson or Biyombo off the bench unless you get small right away, so Casey may have to sub them both out in staggered fashion early – or make Ross a quick sub, pulling ahead DeRozan’s rest period – in order to get that Lowry-plus-reserves group together. With Valanciunas out and Scola and the other bigs mostly unplayable in this matchup, the easy answer would be to shorten the rotation, and those groups will play together more as a result, anyway, but that’s tough to do going on Game 16 of the playoffs and Game 9 int he last 17 days.

(By the way, I was asked in the comments about Norman Powell starting and Patterson moving to the bench. I don’t see it. It’s possible, but it’s really just shuffling mismatches – Powell would be best on Irving, which would mean DeRozan is on James or Love, and the Cavs would attack him in 3-4 pick-and-rolls. Plus, Patterson was mostly fine in Game 1, and the Raptors got a lot of really nice looks from Patterson pick-and-pops early on. I think moving him to the bench to get the bench going would amount to cutting your nose off to spite your face, but I’ve always wanted Patterson starting, anyway.)

Outside of rotation tweaks, the Cavs are ready for a fundamental change to the defensive approach.


A day after Casey kind of worked the officials for Lowry and DeRozan failing to get to the line, he was defending the physicality of some of the fouls that were called.


The Cavs are ready for that, too.

Valanciunas non-update

Your daily Jonas Valanciunas watch has him not on the court for the portion of shootaround that media got a peek at. He’s out for Game 2 and based on Masai Ujiri’s comments yesterday, it’d be surprising if he makes it back if the Raptors don’t extend the series.

Some thoughts on potential brain drain

In Zach Lowe’s awesome annual missive from the draft lottery, he passed along two notes about potential Raptor poaching:

Speaking of the Raptors: Bobby Webster, their vice president of basketball management and strategy, is among the candidates interviewing for Milwaukee’s assistant GM job, according to sources familiar with the matter. Webster, a former cap and CBA expert for the league office, is considered a rising front-office star.
…
Speaking again of the Raptors: Nick Nurse, one of Dwane Casey’s lead assistant coaches, might get a look from the Pacers for a leading offense-focused assistant spot alongside Nate McMillan, sources say. (Dan Burke would run the defense as usual, assuming the Pacers bring him back). Whether Nurse would view that as a lateral move worth taking is unclear.

This is both good and bad. Obviously, you don’t want to lose talented people from your organization, but similar to how Raptors 905 developing talent and seeing it thrive elsewhere it still a positive indicator of what you’re doing, other teams wanting to hire away your staff for more prominent roles sends the signal you’re finding and developing people the right way.

I’ve long heard Webster was a popular name, from the minute the Raptors plucked him from the league office, and Nurse is someone I have suggested should be on a head-coaching shortlist (and at one time, when it looked like Casey may not be long for Toronto, I suggested Nurse would be a suitable successor). On top of those two, I’ve heard nothing but good things about VP of basketball operations Jeff Weltman, Andy Greer is a Tom Thibodeau disciple who could conceivably head to Minnesota, and Rex Kalamian is a Scott Brooks guy. There are a few other names in the organization that I could draw a pretty clean line from Point A to Point B to based on some other offseason changes, too.

Losing so many names would hurt, to be sure. What these kind of rumors should assure you of, though, is that Masai Ujiri and company have done an excellent job stocking the organization with assets off the court. There’s no reason to think they won’t be able to find the next wave of coaching and front office talent, too.

Assorted

*Luis Scola getting up threes. Pardon me, backup center Luis Scola (??) getting up threes.


*The Cavaliers have Lil Kev shirts. I can’t. This is too damn funny.

#nightcap with @thereal94feetofgame thanks to my guy @officiallilkev for the shirt

A photo posted by JR Smith (@teamswish) on

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