The Washington Wizards will look to build on a victory over the Golden State Warriors when they visit the Toronto Raptors for the first game of a home-and-home series on Wednesday. Saying the Wizards beat the Warriors without context is perhaps unfair, given that the Warriors lost Kevin Durant in the game and then summarily folded up shop, but it’s a notable win for a Washington team that initially stumbled out of the All-Star break.
The Raptors, meanwhile, have both stumbled and surged out of the break, depending on which parts of the game you’ve watched. They’re 3-0, coming back from deficits of 17, 12, and 17 to win those games. Needless to say, against a team as dangerous as Washington, led by a point guard as dynamic as John Wall, anything but a thorough effort is probably going to leave the Raptors coming up short. That’s the message ahead of a potential playoff-seeding tiebreaker clincher, anyway.
“You have to compete. You have to come in and meet his intensity level, his compete level,” head coach Dwane Casey explained at shootaround. “It starts with transition defense, you have to get back and be present and accounted for in transition, but one guy is not going to stop John Wall. It’s a team thing. This team got 68 points in the paint last time against us and a lot of it started with him.”
So just keep one of the best point guards in the NBA in check and slow him down. Easy enough!
The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One and Sportsnet 590. You can check out the full game preview here.
Raptors updates
Things have pretty much been figured out in the post-Kyle Lowry world, beyond a few lingering questions at the periphery of the rotation (Fred VanVleet’s role and the fluid Jakob Poeltl vs. Lucas Nogueira backup center battle). The biggest question remains the role of Jonas Valanciunas, which could change game-to-game based on matchups and his own performance.
Asked about the potential to use Valanciunas more with second units moving forward, Casey offered the following:
“We could possibly do that. The other night we had trouble defensively and I thought we needed to make a defensive more move so than offense and Serge helped us. But if we have need more offense we could get Jonas some minutes with that group.”
That’s a pretty firm non-commitment, and Casey’s focus remains on deploying Valanciunas in such a way that his defensive shortcomings are covered up, allowing his thriving offense to be a net positive. Marcin Gortat is about the toughest matchup there is for Valanciunas in the “traditional, hulking center” class
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, Lucas Nogueira, Jakob Poeltl
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: Bruno Caboclo
OUT: Kyle Lowry
Wizards updates
The Wizards have found the solution to their shaky backup point guard situation in the form of Brandon Jennings, but Jennings isn’t expected to officially be signed until after Wednesday night’s game. Making things slightly worse is that Trey Burke will miss the game due to a personal matter. This is worse only in terms of depth and not actual talent, because it’d be tough for any contingency plan to be worse than Burke. With both out, Tomas Satoransky figures to be the de facto backup point guard.
The Wizards are cutting Danuel House, who was in the D-League on his way back from a fractured wrist, to make room for Jennings, per Woj.
PG: John Wall
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
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Trey Burke
Assorted
- Terrence Ross wrote a Thank You to Toronto in The Players’ Tribune, and it’s awesome. Read it now. I’m not kidding. Forget this article. Go read Terry.
- If I ever hear unkind word about Ross again, heads are gonna roll.
- The Magic are here March 27. You know what to do, Raptors fans. Shower this man with love.
- Also, “F*** Brooklyn” forever. That moment changed everything.
- If I ever hear unkind word about Ross again, heads are gonna roll.
- Bruno Caboclo remained with Raptors 905 as they hit the road for something like an 11-day west coast trip. He’s the lone assignee, as the Raptors want a full complement of 13 healthy players at their disposal with Kyle Lowry sidelined. This should be a nice chance for Caboclo to find a groove with the 905. His defense has been steadily improving, but the constant shifts in role and up-and-down, plus the natural bumps in the learning curve, have caused some stagnation on the offensive side of the ball.
- Matt Bonner is in the house for tonight’s game!
The line
The Raptors are 4.5-point favorites, up from Raptors -4, with the over-under edging from 210.5 to 210 even. The Raptors getting the edge here, even at home, weighs the Wizards’ back-to-back and thin point guard spot as nearly as big a deal as Lowry’s absence, calling the teams as constructed tonight essentially even on neutral court. That’s a nice sign of Raptors optimism from the market, but the margin for error will still be small.
