So, this past week sucked. There really aren’t many ways around that. The Raptors went 1-4, and all four games felt winnable, at least for portions of the game. A quick recap…
Tues. Nov. 15 – 121-117 loss @ Cleveland
Wed. Nov. 16 – 127-21 loss vs. Golden State
Fri. Nov. 18 – 113-111 OT win @ Denver
Sun. Nov. 20 – 102-99 loss/tie @ Sacramento
Mon. Nov. 21 – 123-115 loss @ L.A. Clippers
There’s no silver lining in a 1-4 week. It’s a poor result, and the Raptors surely would have like to get at least two. The Sacramento loss, in particular, was egregious, as despite the Terrence Ross buzzer-beater call I still disagree with that could have changed the game, the Raptors played poorly and squandered an opportuniuty.
That, I think, is the only loss that presently looks or will continue to look bad later in the year. The rest of this subsection of scheduled hell, however, appears to be a short-term blip that could lead to some short-term over-reaction. To be fair to the Strawman I may be at risk of building, I haven’t seen a great deal of doomsdaying or disappointment, but doubts about the overall quality of this team seem to be creeping in. They’re now 8-6, their defensive effieincy has fallen to 24th, and they still have two road games (one against a tough Houston team) before they return home and things get better.
This 1-4 stretch, though, would look much differently if it came later in the year – because we’re only 14 games in, four losses swing things dramatically. If the Raptors were, say, 29-21 (their current win-percentage projected out over 50 games), it wouldn’t move the needle much at all in terms of evaluating the whole of the season. We only have the games that have been played with which to evaluate the team, of course, so consider that a reminder that even weeks in, our general samples are quite small.
When we control for things like the difficulty of the schedule, a drop from 7-2 to 8-6 isn’t all that bad – in terms of adjusted net rating, the Raptors actually remained in fifth. Seriously – that stretch of schedule was so tough, and the Raptors played three elite teams so closely that they actually came out looking roughly as good as before the 1-4 stretch.
And that makes sense. Even ignoring the travel and fatigue, @ CLE, v. GSW, and @ LAC are three of the toughest games you could have on the schedule this year. Those teams are a combined 35-6 and rank fourth, second, and first, respectively, in adjusted net rating. And the Raptors lost those three games by a total of 18 points. This isn’t an argument for moral victories – losing narrowly to very good teams, especially on the road or in a back-to-back scenario, is a really good sign. Great teams don’t get blown out, they show up to play most nights, and they give the other great teams a really tough time. Yes, it would have been awesome to win one or two of those, and the Raptors would look even better if they had, but there’s very little shame in losing those three games by those margins.
Again, that’s before factoring in the recent schedule around those games. When you do that, well, it’s pretty tough to get all that upset. The five-game, seven-day stretch was about as hellacious as they come. The Raptors lone home game in a five-cities-in-five-games-in-seven-days stretch was against the freaking Warriors on a back-to-back. They traveled almost 6,000 kilometres during that stretch, played in three different time zones…you can go on.
The stretch is fine. Everything is fine. I mean it, I’m not even just trying to reason my way around disappointment at watchng a handful of sloppy games, some of which ended poorly.
What’s not fine, though, or what is but may not be extended over a longer period of time, is this:
This is a tough week. pic.twitter.com/DhLTKL41fy
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) November 22, 2016
That is just an obscene workload for a week. I’m not pinning that on the Raptors necessarily – we’ve all done the Kyle Lowry workload discussion so many times by now, I’m not sure what the point would be in rehashing it, as you all know where I stand – it’s just a reality of the schedule and the fact that they played exclusively close games during that stretch. It’s not ideal, but the Raptors have been clear they’re going to try to win games, and the team is back to playing incredibly poorly with Lowry on the bench. They probably should be getting Lowry and DeRozan more rest – I would, anyway – but they have a sport science staff and a win-now edict, and yeah, I wrote about all of this enough last year. It’s a heavy load on everyone, and I think it might at least partially explain the other concerning part of the stretch…
The defense has been really bad lately. The Raptors have dropped to 24th in D-Rating, and it only improves slightly (19th) when controlling for the quality of opposition. It always seemed logical that the defense would struggle early given all the youth in the rotation and the limitations of DeMarre Carroll, but the degree to which it appears to be true is at least a little worrisome. The Raptors have jumped to 20th in pace, too, which would be the highest they’ve ranked under Dwane Casey – they can be really good pushing in transition, especially with some of their smaller lineup iterations, but this team has been at its best grinding out games and only picking their spots to get out and run. Chaos does not work in their favor, at least against most teams (I’d still suggest trying to embrace entropy against the Cavs).
But again, things aren’t so bad. The defense should improve as the younger guys continue to get up to speed and as they perfect Carroll’s routine to maximize his production (which has been pretty solid offensively, at least). The second unit playing better without Lowry would go a long way toward easing his workload, and scaling back the time for Lowry and DeRozan while continuing to protect Carroll all means more minutes for Norman Powell, sometimes the team’s best option defending at the one, two, and three simultaneously. All the while, the offense has been more than fine (fourth overall), even as DeRozan has cooled down just a bit.
From here, Houston is hardly an easy place to visit, and Milwaukee’s not exactly an easy out on their own court, either. The Raptors return home after that for a game against the plucky 76ers, then the Grizzlies, Lakers, Hawks, Cavaliers (come on, man), and Timberwolves all visit over an 11-day home-stand. There aren’t many layup opponents this year, but at least they return home and only have one back-to-back between here and Dec. 9. Perception can change pretty quickly, and the Raptors are a couple of good games from once again looking like a 51-win team, or something close to it.
Now someone hit the schedule making software with a baseball bat, Office Space style.
