The Toronto Raptors are wrapping up a tough six-game west-coast road trip and starting another tough stretch all at the same time. The San Antonio Spurs present a chance to finish the trip with a 4-2 record, an unqualified success despite the ugliness of the Suns’ loss, and a chance to get off on the right foot for a really difficult five-game slate that will also include the Jazz, at the Bulls, the Rockets, and the Celtics. If there’s any malaise at the end of the trek and after back-to-back ugly games, the Spurs should shake the Raptors out of it.
There’s also a sense that this is a bit of a proving ground for Toronto. With an 0-5 mark against the Warriors andavaliers, the Spurs offer an opportunity to add another marquee win to their ledger. Wins at Utah and at Houston stand out, but this would probably be the Raptors’ best victory of the season. It would also push their record against the perceived second tier (San Antonio, Houston, Utah, the Clippers, Memphis, Oklahoma City, and Boston) to 6-1. You can quibble with the cut-off for teams there, but the point remains that the Raptors have done well against teams of comparable quality, and taking one off the Spurs – the No. 5-ranked offense and the No. 4-ranked defense – would make quite a statement to those who see that earlier “0-5” mark and see Toronto as some sort of paper tiger.
Of course, it’s just one game, and so a win won’t be worth celebrating all too hard and a loss won’t be worth drinking bleach over.
The game tips off at 8:30 on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 590. You can check out the full game preview here.
Raptors updates
The focus here obviously falls on Patrick Patterson, who is once again being listed as questionable. The fact that he sat Sunday to err on the side of caution, in head coach Dwane Casey’s words, was reason for optimism, but the context clues from shootaround Tuesday were less positive. My early guess is that he sits, which would mean a lot more dual-big lineups for the Raptors.
Pascal Siakam had his best game in weeks against the Lakers and will need to be at his best opposite LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol. That duo could be exceptionally difficult for the Siakam-Jonas Valanciunas duo, and so it seems likely that Jakob Poeltl and Lucas Nogueira will factor in once again, perhaps with each seeing time at the four. There isn’t much opportunity to downsize against the Spurs thanks to their frontcourt rotation, as they’d be surrendering significant size with DeMarre Carroll or Norman Powell opposite Aldridge or David Lee. The Spurs don’t opt to go with a single big all that often – their most used lineup with a wing at the four has only played 14 minutes together. There’s always the argument to be made to force the matchup on an opponent, but this may be a case where that’s not a realistic option, save for maybe when my dude Davis Bertans is in as the power forward.
If Patterson can go, that makes things a little more straight-forward. If he can’t, it’s going to be an illuminating night for what the Raptors have in their four other bigs and how the potential dual-center looks can handle high-skill opponents.
UPDATE: Patterson sits, per Eric Smith. It just makes sense to be cautious here in January. Hopefully he can return sometime this week, though, because the schedule is challenging. (In an interesting side note, the Raptors are now calling this a left ankle sprain, not a left knee strain.)
PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Fred VanVleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carroll, Terrence Ross
PF: Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, Bruno Caboclo
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Lucas Nogueira
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Delon Wright, Jared Sullinger, Patrick Patterson
Spurs updates
The Raptors’ run of getting good teams in a weakened state seems to have ended, as the Spurs come in with a full squad. Not even Bryn Forbes is on assignment! That hasn’t been all that common for the Spurs, who have just one lineup (their starters) that’s played more than 55 minutes together. For comparison, the Raptors have five. Gregg Popovich has tinkered with the second-unit rotations, and they’ve also dealt with short-term absences for Danny Green, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. The Spurs are also fond of experimenting plenty during the regular season to get more information about themselves, something the Raptors have done a little more of this year, too.
That makes it hard to peg down exactly how San Antonio might approach the matchup, but the Raptors seem like the type of team they’d just go with their normal gameplan against. Green will almost surely draw the Kyle Lowry assignment while Kawhi Leonard, likely the league’s best perimeter defender, checks DeRozan. Carroll then has an advantage on Parker in some cross-match scenarios, and the Spurs will likely be aggressive in loading up off of Siakam if they need help slowing the Raptors’ stars down.
One interesting thing to look out for is how the Raptors handle Leonard. There’s been a bit of a trend toward teams trying to take Leonard completely out of the equation on defense, something Matt Moore wrote a great piece on over at CBS Sports a few weeks back. Leonard has the worst defensive rating of any Spur (other than Forbes), which is clearly something that doesn’t reflect his individual defense but that exists in the numbers over 1,066 minutes. The Raptors may not have the playmaking around the floor to simply take DeRozan out of the play to limit Leonard – they can try when Lowry’s on the floor, but Leonard’s minutes will probably be tethered to DeRozan’s, making DeRozan-and-bench units pretty cramped – and so they may have to deal with DeRozan just doing his best (which is quite good) to score opposite the two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year.
(No Spurs are resting, by the way.)
PG: Tony Parker, Patty Mills, Dejounte Murray
SG: Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, Jonathon Simmons, Bryn Forbes
SF: Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Anderson
PF: LaMarcus Aldridge, David Lee, Davis Bertans
C: Pau Gasol, Dewayne Dedmon
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: None
Assorted
- Updating Sunday’s news that the Raptors have called on Paul Millsap, Brian Windhorst mentioned on today’s TrueHoopTV podcast that the Hawks had a deal in place to send Millsap to the Raptors this summer if Al Horford had agreed to re-sign. It’s unclear from his language just how locked-down a potential agreement was, but if this is true, the Raptors and Hawks should be quite familiar and comfortable with the potential framework at play here. This is encouraging for those excited about potentially landing Millsap. You can read my breakdown of the rumors here.
- I tweeted it out the other day, but DeMar DeRozan became the franchise’s all-time leader in minutes played on Sunday. Add that to games played and points scored. His assault on the record-book continues.
- I was looking at the schedule a bit yesterday and am starting to wonder if the Raptors may be fine with the minutes of Lowry and DeRozan right now because of a quirk in February. Not only do the Raptors have eight days off for the All-Star break, they also have an unusual three-day break earlier in the month. They’ll essentially play just three games over 15 days, a nice opportunity to ease up on their stars. LeBron James and the Cavs have talked about how he wants to play 38 minutes per-game until around that time and then manage his minutes more closely from there. Maybe the Raptors are thinking something similar here?
- Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan were both given an honorable mention for Eastern Conference Player of the Month for December. I thought Lowry had it after averaging 24.4 points on 72.7-percent true shooting, with 3.3 rebounds and 7.1 assists, plus a plus-17.9 rating, but John Wall had a good month too, I suppose. Lowry didn’t receive an honorable mention for Player of the Week, either, despite putting up 29.8-6.8-6.8 with ridiculous efficiency. Admittedly, the Raptors going 2-2 probably hurt his chances.
The line
The Raptors are 6.5-point underdogs. On the final game of a six-game trip and potentially without their best power forward, it probably makes sense that the Raptors aren’t pegged as very likely to take this one. They’re just so thin in the frontcourt without Sullinger and Patterson both, and with a matchup that might not let them go small for too long. Still, the Raptors are in the same tier as the Spurs, and there’s been some movement pushing the line to 5.5 on occasion throughout the day. The over=under has fallen to 206.5 from 211, so expect a little more defense than we’ve maybe gotten used to of late.
