Right now the Raptors are getting kicked to the curb. The success they’ve had getting to the Eastern Conference finals through waves of tribulation has, for the time being, been overshadowed by the complete onslaught the Cavaliers are handing out to them. Once all is said and done, we can somewhat zoom out of this picture to look at the grand scheme of things – the Raptors have been the cream of the 2nd tier of elite teams in the league, have surpassed their franchise-best totals, and have a #9 draft pick looming to boot. But until then, the Raptors are still riding a tumultuous wave they need to see out.
It’s hard to see a comeback on the cards for the Raptors, but you could make a case for them to win a game or two now that they’re back home. One thing you start to appreciate after two games in the voodooed Q Arena is your own home-court. In the past two years, many thought the pressure-popping atmosphere of the Air Canada Center during the post-season was too burdensome for the jittery Raptors. Now, after a couple seasons of growth and added experience, the ACC is a complete God-send. Every LeBron James video-game dunk in the first two games of this series was met with a thunderous raucous, and every run the Cavs made in front of their home fans and bench caused the Raptors to spiral. It broke them. And for the first time all playoffs, the Raptors looked genuinely rattled and demoralized.
“I needed to decompress and find myself again,” Lowry told The Vertical. “I had to reconfigure myself and get back to the grind of competition. Do I think the Cavs are demoralizing us? People can think what they want. I don’t think so.
“We all just need to get back to the grind of the series. We need to grind it out.”
I’ll be nice to be back home.
Being in your comfort zone is one thing, implementing winning basketball against this freakishly-talented Cavs team is another. The Raptors have no answers for pretty well anything the Cavs do. Chase them off the three-point line, and they’ll feast inside. Ditto for playing a defensive scheme which doesn’t allow for help coverage. Right now, as counter-intuitive as it sounds to Dwane Casey’s initial game-plan, the Raptors have to start encouraging the Cavs to shoot in hopes of them cooling.
Even that strategy comes with complications though. If the Cavs go apeshit from behind the arc and start setting records like they did against the Atlanta Hawks, the Raptors will have to live with that. Besides, backing off LeBron James isn’t a completely sure-fire approach. One aspect that’s been so impressive of James’ game this series is his aversion to settle. Giving LeBron space to shoot doesn’t bait him to throw it up, but rather, it’s been an incentive to reset the office and get others involved. At this point though, you really have to pick your poison.
Shane Battier chimed in on this issue in the Player’s Tribune on Tuesday:
If I was tasked with guarding LeBron in this series, my biggest focus would be on keeping him out of the paint. Letting LeBron get into the paint is the quickest way to lose a game. Not only does he score at an unbelievable clip from there, but he also gets fouled and has the vision to create wide-open looks for his teammates after the defense collapses.
Toronto has to play disciplined, which isn’t easy against a team as loaded as Cleveland. The help-side defense has to be where it’s supposed to be on every play. It can’t get caught even a step behind. And the pick-and-roll defense has to be extremely tight, because LeBron is going to run about 30 of those a game. If the defense is tight, you can force him to take some long jumpers, which, as a defense, is your best outcome. If the Raps want a quick ticket to the off-season, then let LeBron turn the corner on a pick and roll and get downhill, where he has a multitude of options that are all bad for the Raptors.
In game 2, the adjustment Dwane Casey made was to insert Luis Scola into the starting lineup and inject rhythm back into his reserve unit. It might be time to get even more unorthodox than that. Norman Powell, after a breakout series against the Pacers, has transitioned out of the rotation, but his defense could help stop the bleeding when it comes to defending Kyrie Irving – an area Cory Joseph has struggled with. If the Raptors shuffle Carroll to the four to check Kevin Love while giving James Johnson more minutes to make LeBron as uncomfortable as possible, the Raptors might strengthen their rotation.
Scola was fine, by the way. On his first defensive test, he stifled Kevin Love into taking a fadeaway jumper that bricked off the side of the backboard. Still, if Dwane Casey wants to bring Patterson off the bench – a situation he’s thrived in – it makes more sense to move Carroll to the four and bring Powell into the rotation, even if Scola’s leash is short. At this point, the Raptors have to try something. The season is coming to an end, and getting roasted in the first two games is enough reason to make an adjustment.
We can focus on stopping LeBron’s onslaught all we want, but the way this is unfolding, the Raptors won’t steal a game in this series if Kyle Lowry doesn’t show up. Cleveland might not stay sizzling, but they don’t need to be if the Raptors aren’t punishing them on the other end. DeMar DeRozan can’t carry the offensive load by himself, and even if he does, he hasn’t been doing it from the free-throw line which the Cavs can live with. Cleveland’s defense is setup to absorb DeRozan long-twos, and so long as he doesn’t attack the rim and punish them for playing the Love-Frye combo, the Cavs will be content.
“We just want to try and protect the paint,” coach Tyronn Lue said post-game, via cavs.com. “That’s why early in the games, we have been going under a lot, to keep DeRozan, Kyle, and those guys out of the paint. We stayed true to our game plan, and then we adjusted in the second half.
James Johnson would help tremendously with attacking the paint, by the way. He gets in there as efficiently as anyone on the roster, so that’s one bonus of having him in the lineup apart from pestering LeBron. The free-throw discrepancy between these two teams in the first two games has been dramatic – a perplexing +37 in Cleveland’s favour – and despite the referee’s whistle leaning towards LeBron’s team, the Raptors aren’t doing themselves any favours by not attacking Cleveland inside.
The worst reality the Raptors are trying to cope with right now heading into game 3 is that Valanciunas has officially been ruled out. If he doesn’t come back by game 4, this could be a sweep. His insertion changes the entire dynamic of this series on a game-to-game basis if he ever makes it back in time. With Valanciunas in the lineup, the Raptors can provide enough threat down-low for the Cavs to reconsider playing without a rim protecter for large chunks, and any chance the Raptors can get to disassemble the Cavs’ go-to lineup will be conducive to getting results.
There is something to be said though about the Raptors’ offence overall – it’s actually been good. It’s not as good as it needs to be, for reasons mentioned above, but at the very least Toronto is zipping the ball nicely around the perimeter which has led to open threes for Carroll, Patterson, and Ross. But the Raptors desperately need those open threes to fall which they haven’t. As a whole, they shot 9-of-33 from behind the arc, with Patterson’s 2-of-4 mark being the most efficient of the lot. The margin of error against this East juggernaut is too tiny to allow that kind of bad shooting to trickle into your offense. If those shots drop – particularly Lowry’s 7 misses from three – the game is much closer than the box score reads. If the Raptors knock down their threes and get to line too, we’re looking at a competitive game, at the very least.
Kyle Lowry needs to find himself, and whatever he needs to do to ‘decompress’ better happen before tip-off tomorrow, because right now the Raptors are in a car with no driver. This is one series where Lowry’s other tangible contributions won’t be enough to squeak by. The Raptors need more.
The only good news regarding Lowry, is that concerns over his jumper having ‘mechanical’ problems have faded. With Lowry it’s mental, and at least we know that he’s been resilient enough to bounce back mentally before. The most recent being his heroic performance when the team needed him most – routing the Heat in game 7.
Heading into game 3, things don’t look good, but if there’s one thing the Raptors have taught us over the past few weeks, it’s that just when they look like they’ve been cornered in with their backs to the wall, they hit back, and surprise us all.
