For the first time in almost a month the Toronto Raptors took the floor and did what they were supposed to do for (almost) full game. There was no getting blown out early and then making a frenzied comeback, no playing down to the level of an overmatched foe and, perhaps most importantly, no need for extended minutes and heroic play from their stars. In place of the inconsistency that has had become the teams calling card over the last 30 days was a consistent collective effort – the team as a whole put pressure on a banged up New York Knicks squad early and when the Knicks finally broke in the 2nd quarter the Raptors didn’t let up until Coach Casey decided the job was done and gave the starters the rest of the night off.
The Raptors have struggled to open games all season but there was none of that tonight thanks in large part to the teams recent partnering of Jonas Valanciunas and Bebe Nogueira. The pair set the tone early by locking down the paint on both ends, leaving precious little room inside the three point line for the Knicks offense and making sure that a Raptors offensive possession never ended without a fight, leading to six 1st quarter offensive rebounds. Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan and the Raptors outside shooters are always a handful to deal with but when Valanciunas is driving across the lane and delivering one-handed bounce passes through traffic and grabbing a half dozen offensive rebounds there isn’t really much you can do to stop them except pray. The Knicks managed to keep pace due to some hot shooting from Carmelo Anthony but they got precious little from anyone else and never really looked comfortable or confident.
The second quarter saw the return of the Raptors team that we were all so excited about two months ago. The offense staggered the Knicks with a flurry of three pointers from Terrence Ross and while the defense wasn’t exactly great they did enough to prevent the Knicks from matching their output and with this Raptors team that may be about as good as it gets on that end of the floor. The game was broken open by one of my favourite iterations of the Patrick Patterson-less bench unit, where Norman Powell replaces Patterson and the Raptors spread the floor and push the pace. That unit played together for 5 minutes, forced 3 steals, got 12 shots up and put up 19 points. The Raptors have precious few lineups they can play that actually utilize the advantages a team gets from going small; DeRozan and Patterson can hurt spacing while Carroll and Valanciunas sometimes struggle to keep pace but this combination of players should be able to consistently spread the floor and run. It’s not something you would play all the time but against a unit with little in the way of post scoring or as a change of pace it can work wonders – I wouldn’t play it against the Cavs but I absolutely would against the Warriors.
The Raptors all but ended the game in the third quarter as the starters came back into the game and took care of business. The defense was about as stingy as you can get at the NBA level, with the two centre lineup allowing only 2 points in over 9 minutes of play, while they collectively shot 11-15 from the floor, leading the way to a 38 point lead The bench did their best to squander the lead and make Ron Baker into a folk hero but even the worst of Raptors teams would struggle to blow a lead that big in such a short period of time. Casey thankfully resisted the temptation to put the starters back into the game and the Raptors head on for a 15 point victory that was actually even more lopsided than that score suggests.
About a month ago I wrote that the Raptors are at the point where how you win and who you beat matter almost as much as the wins themselves. Even though this was against a banged up Knicks squad that the team should handle with ease even on their best day the fact that it was such a consistent dominant effort is encouraging, especially given the teams recent struggles against lesser competition. The Raptors may have also tapped in to something that will get them closer to the next level with some of these unconventional big and small lineups. Matchups matter but may not be as important as playing your best players, and as a general rule if you give up something you have an advantage elsewhere; small lineups are quicker, big lineups are stronger and have more length, etc. The two centre frontcourt may struggle to defend the perimeter but they lock down the paint and dominate the glass on both ends – in the 87 minutes they’ve played together the Raptors defensive rating is a stingy 97.4 while they grab 31% of their offensive rebounds and 78% of their defensive rebounds. It can be viewed as a situational lineup but the Raptors shouldn’t be afraid to play it often because it seems to cause a lot of problems for opponents. The Raptors have already shown that trying to match up with the Cavaliers and the Warriors is enough to stop the bleeding but not enough for them to do any consistent damage of their own, giving them matchups that potentially make players like Channing Frye unplayable due to his inability to protect the rim or the defensive glass is worth trying. The Raptors don’t have a conventional 2016 NBA roster and they need to embrace that.
Another encouraging aspect of this game was the obvious emphasis on getting Valanciunas the ball inside. We may never know if Valanciunas is playing with more energy because he is being rewarded or vice versa but it’s clear that the team has decided that he needs to be included more. There was a sequence in the 3rd that demonstrated this commitment to getting him the ball: DeRozan was blitzed coming off a Valanciunas ball screen so he made the safe pass to Bebe, who missed hitting a wide open Valanciunas at the rim and passed it back out to the perimeter. On the next offensive possession DeRozan held the ball for a beat longer to see if a passing lane to Valanciunas would open up and delivered a pass to the big man under the rim. It’s become very clear over the years that Valanciunas is at his best on both ends when he gets more than a courtesy clear out called for him every half and is actively involved in the offense as more than a screener.
Perhaps the best thing about the game was a victory with DeRozan and Lowry playing below 30 minutes – in 78 combined games this year there have been only 5 where either has played fewer than 30 minutes and it’s never occurred for both in the same game. Any rest that the Raptors can get for the pair is great with the both of them ranking in the top 13 in total minutes played and the team hopefully gearing up for another deep playoff run.
You can’t read too much into the result but the means they used to get there are very encouraging. This game was more or less everything that we’ve all wanted to see from the team: limited minutes for the stars, minutes for Norm, involving Valanciunas, weird lineups and a (mostly) consistent effort from start to finish. We were a Patrick Patterson start away from a complete Raptors blogger bingo. After an up and down road trip that turned into an up and down home stand it was just nice to see the team perform at a high level for an entire game again.
