Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

Pre-game news & notes: Patterson sits against Lakers, but late call encouraging

The Toronto Raptors will look to build off of the best calendar year in franchise history on Sunday night, as they tip off the 2017 portion of their schedule at Staples Center against the Los Angeles Lakers. The game presents an opportunity to avoid a three-game losing streak and to ensure a .500 record or…

The Toronto Raptors will look to build off of the best calendar year in franchise history on Sunday night, as they tip off the 2017 portion of their schedule at Staples Center against the Los Angeles Lakers. The game presents an opportunity to avoid a three-game losing streak and to ensure a .500 record or better on this six-game trip, as the Raptors are 2-2 so far after dropping both ends of a back-to-back with Golden State and Phoenix. With two days off to rest up in between, the Raptors will surely be eager to get back on the right foot.

Not that a two-game slide is any reason for concern. They remain 22-10 and have inched to a respectable 16th in defensive efficiency, and while their offense has slid all the way to third, they remain the league’s second-best team by adjusted net rating. What’s more, their January sets up easier than December – they’ll play nine of their 17 games against teams under .500, they’ll play 10 of those games at home, and the average opponent is a -0.9 in adjusted average net rating. The heavy schedule is arduous, but the games on the calendar aren’t so bad, and there’s a nice four-game home-stand not too far down the line.

The Lakers are perhaps a tougher out than their 12-24 record or Tronto’s prior drubbing of them would suggest, so the Raptors can’t (and likely won’t) look ahead to a much stiffer test in San Antonio on Tuesday. They should approach this one the same way they did last time, looking to end it early and emphatically.

And hey, it’s a home game for some of the guys! With two days off before an L.A. game, a handful of Raptors could have potentially gotten some time at home with family and friends, and it was probably a decent gap on the schedule for some team bonding. (Sober team bonding, of course – the Raptors don’t seem the types to get caught with L.A. Hallucinations, even on New Year’s Day. Related: I hope you all had a wonderful New Year’s Eve.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPGafnhUYos

The game tips off at 9:30 on TSN 2 and TSN 1050. You can check out the full game preview here.

Raptors updates
It’s been all quiet over two days with respect to the status of Patrick Patterson. The Raptors’ super-sub left Thursday’s game in the second quarter and didn’t return, with the team calling the injury a left knee strain. He’s been considered questionable, and his status might not be known until closer to tip off. If he sits out, I wrote about how the Raptors could handle a short-term absence here. If he can play, great, but the Raptors are by nature quite cautious (and rightfully so), and there are worse things than having to get by with fall-back options against the Lakers in early January.

In any case, every game right now is a test for Pascal Siakam and an opportunity for the Raptors to try going small a bit more in the second unit. The season has also become a bit of an extended referendum on the center position, so it would be nice to see Jonas Valanciunas come out and win his matchup with Timofey Mozgov and company, and do so substantially.

Non-update: As of Casey’s media availability, Patterson is still questionable, per Eric Smith. Check back about a half-hour before tip. More non-update from Mike Ganter: Casey said he’ll “probably” hold him out as a precaution but didn’t commit to it.

UPDATE: Patterson will sit. I’d actually probably call this a win, all things considered. We were all kind of bracing for worse news on Thursday, and yet here he was a late call done mostly as a precaution, by the sounds of it. That’s encouraging not only for his status Tuesday in San Antonio, but about the health of his knee in general. It seems like the Raptors may have dodged a bullet here.

PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Fred VanVleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan,  Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carroll, Terrence Ross
PF: Pascal Siakam, Patrick Patterson, (Bruno Caboclo)
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Lucas Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl
TBD: Patrick Patterson
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Delon Wright, Jared Sullinger

Lakers updates
The Lakers are much healthier than last time around, getting D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young back for this matchup but losing emerging Raptor-killer Larry Nance. Russell obviously adds another dynamic offensive weapon, Young has been perhaps the team’s best two-way player so far this year, and Nance’s minutes will shift some to smaller lineups (good for the Raptors if Patterson can’t play) or Thomas Robinson (less good, given the Raptors’ rebounding issues).

The big strength here is the bench, which packs a lot of scoring punch. Luke Walton uses them liberally, too, not fearing having too many starters off the floor at once. And his most-used lineups aren’t really the issue here – five of the six Lakers lineups to play at least 40 minutes together have a positive net rating (though only one, the starters, doesn’t include Nance) – it’s when those aren’t available that the Lakers have struggled. (They’re also very bad whenever Mozgov plays with anything but the starting unit.)

PG: D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson, Jose Calderon, Marcelo Huertas
SG: Nick Young, Lou Williams
SF: Luol Deng, Brandon Ingram, Metta World Peace
PF: Julius Randle, Thomas Robinson
C: Timofey Mozgov, Tarik Black, Ivica Zubac
TBD: None
ASSIGNED:
OUT: Larry Nance Jr.

Assorted

  • The big news right now is obviously that the Raptors have called about Paul Millsap, who the Hawks are listening on. I’ve got everything you need (except potential proposal analysis) right here.
  • I went to the Centennial Classic today and had an awesome time. It’s a tough sell logistically, and there probably isn’t as much nostalgia to play up, but I’d love for the NBA to try to find some sort of offering like this. If not an outdoor game, maybe a college-atmosphere kind of game where one major game a year is played in a massive stadium for a different vibe. I don’t know, I haven’t brainstormed this very much yet, but it feels like the NBA could probably do something special in a similar vein. (Although their global games initiative, best-in-sports All-Star events, Summer League, and everything else they do probably make up for the absence of a once-a-year gimmick. I’m trying to be fun though.)

The line
The Raptors are eight-point favorites on the road, which is substantial. They should really win this game, and they should be hungry, and so on. That the over-under is way up at 218 suggests defense might only be a rumor here. I’m holding off on a prediction until we know the status of Patterson.

Raptors , Lakers