It is perhaps a little early in the season to already be worrying about potential playoff seeding. There are still six weeks and 20-plus games to go, a quarter of a season in which injuries, slumps, and variance can have a butterfly effect on how the standings might look come the middle of April. But with the Eastern Conference as tight as it is, and the Toronto Raptors in a bit of a precarious spot with Kyle Lowry possibly out for the remainder of the regular season, every game has taken on greater weight.
That’s doubly so when said game comes against the Washington Wizards, with whom the Raptors figure to spend the next month-plus battling for the East’s No. 3 seed. Both teams can still very much catch the Boston Celtics for a seed higher, but with the Wizards cooling off (before Tuesday, anyway) and the Raptors’ aims shifting to securing home-court down an All-Star, the home-and-home Wednesday and Friday could go a long way in determining the East’s playoff bracket. Winning one of the two games would give Toronto the tiebreaker, which looms large with the race figuring to be tight. (That Boston is stumbling and draws the Cavaliers on Wednesday before hitting the west coast also means that sweeping the two-game mini-series would put either team in a great position to move upward, as each enter play here just two games back of the Afflecks.)
Even with Washington on the second night of a back-to-back, the Raptors may be in tough here. The Wizards have a ton of firepower – Toronto will only play one top-10 offense the rest of the way after Friday, by the way – and are a quality defense, meaning the Raptors are unlikely to get away with falling behind double-figures. They’ve done that in four consecutive games and stormed back to win each, but that’s a pretty risky strategy against good teams. (Against pretend good teams like Boston, it appears to work just fine.) The Raptors’ margin for error is fairly slim right now, and a 48-minute defensive effort would go a long way here against what could be a tired opponent.
The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 590.
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To help set the stage, I reached out to Adam Rubin of Truth About It, and he was kind enough to help us out.
Blake Murphy: All that’s really on the minds of Raptors fans right now is the injury to Kyle Lowry. Did this resonate at all with the Wizards? Specifically, has your confidence grown in locking up the third seed? (The Raptors taking one of the two games would give them the tiebreaker, for what it’s worth.)
Adam Rubin: Washington has looked terrible in its two games since the All-Star break, losing badly to Philadelphia and Utah. With 16 of their last 26 games on the road, there is legitimate concern about falling to the 4/5 matchup. To give an idea how dark it’s been, fans spent all day Monday talking themselves into Brandon Jennings as a savior. So, yes, the surprising Lowry news did ease a little of the concern in Washington but the underlying anxiety is still there. Wizards’ fans have been conditioned by 35 years of misery to always expect the worst. Even after the team won 18 of 21 games heading into the All-Star break, all it took was two bad games for panic to set in.
To answer your specific question, I’d say my confidence levels in the past week have fluctuated wildly:
- Before All-Star break: “Wizards have third seed locked up and 50/50 chance at catching Boston.”
- After Ibaka-Tucker trades: “Toronto got better, but Washington’s roll can’t be stopped.”
- After Loss to Philly: “Man that was bad, but it’s only one game.”
- After Loss to Utah: “Uh, Toronto just destroyed Boston without Lowry. Wizards need to turn this around quick or the Raptors will have a 3-game lead by the end of the week”.
- After Lowry Injury: “Ok, maybe this will cost Toronto a few games, but if Washington keeps playing this poorly, it won’t even matter.”
Blake Murphy: John Wall has been terrific this year. Normally in this space, I’d ask for some sort of Lowry-Wall comparison, but with Lowry down, let’s band together to throw shade around the East: When healthy, these two are the two best point guards in the East, leaving Wall the crown with Lowry shelved, yes?
Adam Rubin: Given Lowry’s unfortunate injury, I’ll be kind enough to include Lowry in the top-2, but just know that around these parts the point guard rankings are John Wall first with everyone else vying for second.
Certainly, Wall and Lowry are the most complete point guards in the East. Kyrie Irving is really a shooting guard in a point guard’s body. He’s got incredible handles and is one of the best scorer’s in the league, but he’s strictly an isolation player. He rarely passes on drives to the rim and he does not make his teammates better. Lebron James is the Cavs’ quarterback and he averages 8.9 apg (fourth in the league) to Kyrie’s six. Isaiah Thomas is fun to watch and his fourth quarter scoring is insane but he gets exposed defensively. And I still think he will have trouble scoring in crunch time in the playoffs when defenses key in on him and refs are less likely to give him the regular season touch fouls he lives off of.
Blake Murphy: Otto Porter is turning in a terrific season. The timing isn’t perfect for the Wizards, who will have to pay him this summer, but has he played his way into being this team’s second-most important long-term piece? Third? I know Bradley Beal is great, but Porter feels like he may wind up being more crucial.
Adam Rubin: As good as Otto has been, the pecking order is still Wall -> Beal -> Porter. Don’t get me wrong, Otto has been spectacular and the fact that he has continued his progression from a very strong second half last season gives hope that he will improve even more beyond this breakout year. It’s not just his league-leading three-point shooting, Otto moves extremely well without the ball and always seems to make a key hustle play when it’s needed. Still, his ceiling is lower than Beal’s. Beal has shown the ability to be the go-to-guy on a playoff team whereas Otto has excelled as an incredibly efficient complementary player. If you had to start a team with either one of those players, I think you choose Beal.
Blake Murphy: Adding Bojan Bogdanovic (and unloading a bad salary) came at a tidy cost in the form of a first-round pick, but a scoring punch off the bench was obviously needed here. Did you like this move for the Wizards?
Adam Rubin: You touched on the most important aspect of this trade. Washington decided to use its first-round pick to unload one of its awful free agent signings. This severely depressed the trade value of the pick and took Washington out of the running for Lou Williams and other players, like Darren Collison, who were reportedly available for a first rounder.
Washington’s biggest weakness is backup point guard and this trade did nothing to address it. As the last two games have demonstrated, the Wizards cannot move forward as a serious contender in the East with Trey Burke leading the second unit (thus the prayers for Brandon Jennings that I mentioned earlier).
So, it’s hard to consider the trade a success. However, once you accept the fact that Andrew Nicholson’s contract had to go and Brooklyn was the only team willing to absorb it, the trade becomes a little more palatable. Bogdanovic does add needed long-range shooting, but he cannot really create his own shot. As a result, the Burke-led second unit still struggles to score even with Bojan on the court.
Blake Murphy: The Wizards are nearly a top-10 offensive rebounding team but are in the bottom five on their own glass. What gives here? Does Scott Brooks just have these guys crashing a ton on offense, and that’s making up for a lack of natural rebounding talent? Is it something schematically on defense? They’re generally quite aggressive on defense – does that have guys away from the rim too often? Is this even a problem for a defense that’s borderline top 10, anyway? Could I jam any more questions into one?
Adam Rubin: This is a good question. I think it is a combination of a lot of little things. First, Marcin Gortat, the ninth leading rebounder in the league, is much better on the offensive glass than the defensive end. He has mastered the art of the Tyson Chandler back-tap offensive board but he does not always fight to box out his man on defense. Jason Smith, who has played the most minutes at back-up center, is also much better on the offensive glass (over 30% of his total rebounds are offensive).
Schematically, Brooks has had to play a lot of small lineups with Otto Porter and Kelly Oubre together at forward. Both those guys have a nose for sneaky offensive rebounds but they get pushed around on the defensive end – especially Porter when he plays power forward. With Ian Mahinmi missing almost all of the season, Gortat is really the only true center on the roster. He has played a career high 34.4 mpg this year, but that still leaves over a quarter of each game with no true defensive rebounding presence on the floor.
As the Utah Jazz showed this week, Washington’s lack of interior size is a problem. Utah destroyed them on the boards (52-27). So, yes, it’s a legitimate defensive issue that hopefully can be ameliorated when Mahinmi gets back into playing shape.
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Raptors updates
The Raptors are without Kyle Lowry, shifting point guard duties to Cory Joseph, Delon Wright, and Fred VanVleet. And yes, all three may be in the rotation, with Dwane Casey surprisingly opting to go with a two-point guard look instead of rolling with an extra wing on Sunday. With four capable wings, the Raptors figure to go with a dual-point approach fairly infrequently, but they’ve also downsized at the four more than anticipated, which opens up minutes at shooting guard. It’s nice to have that kind of lineup flexibility, and it’s magnified by Casey trusting as many as 11 or 12 healthy players right now.
There is a change to the depth chart, though, as Jakob Poeltl appeared to be ahead of Lucas Nogueira in the pecking order against the Knicks. Nogueira has struggled since the break and Poeltl got the first look when Jonas Valanciunas got in some foul trouble. But Serge Ibaka may really be the second center here, as the Raptors looked primed to use Valanciunas in a new way, helping prop up the second unit after an early sub out. That and smaller groups would cut the frontcourt rotation down to three players, and it could help to get the highly-efficient Valanciunas more touches while helping mask some of his defensive shortcomings by playing him against opposing bench bigs. This is a big Valanciunas game, by the way, opposing Marcin Gortat.
PG: Cory Joseph, Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: DeMarre Carrol, P.J. Tucker
PF: Serge Ibaka, Patrick Patterson, Pascal Siakam
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: Bruno Caboclo
OUT: Kyle Lowry
Wizards updates
The giant hole on the Wizards’ depth chart when unfilled at the deadline, as their backup point guard is still someone who has shot 38.9 percent over a four-year career and who is yet to sniff league-average efficiency, even with a decreased role. Yeah, I’m not a Trey Burke fan. I may even consider turning point guard duties over to one of the team’s two-guards, if I were Scott Brooks. More realistically, John Wall – who is dealing with an illness right now – figures to play into the 40s in minutes during the postseason.
Oh, and the Wizards might sign Brandon Jennings later today. Jennings will clear waivers at 5 p.m., and Mike Wise reports that he’s a “strong bet” to land in Washington. (Later reports from just about everyone indicate a verbal agreement has been reached, assuming he clears.) Whether or not that would all take place in time to matter for Wednesday’s game is unclear, but you can probably consider Jennings as a factor for the Friday rematch. (Adrian Wojnarowski’s report suggests that Jennings won’t be available Wednesday.)
Elsewhere, Danuel House is working his way back from a fractured wrist in the G-League and Daniel Ochefu has been under the weather, not that either would really figure in here – they’ve played a combined 49 minutes this year.
PG: John Wall, (Brandon Jennindgs – Rumored), Trey Burke
SG: Bradley Beal, Tomas Satoransky, Sheldon McClellan
SF: Otto Porter, Bojan Bogdanovic, Kelly Oubre
PF: Markieff Morris, Chris McCullough
C: Marcin Gortat, Ian Mahinmi, Jason Smith
TBD: Daniel Ochefu, Brandon Jennings (?)
ASSIGNED: Danuel House
OUT: None
The line
The Raptors are 4-point favorites, a bit of a surprise with Lowry out, even if the Wizards are in a back-to-back scenario. Market faith remains. The over-under is at 210.
