The news about Kyle Lowry’s wrist injury reminds me of a weekend in first or second year of university: you’ve spent a bunch of time partying it up, but it all catches up to you on Sunday morning, with a crushing hangover and questioning why you decided to drink so much.
Like many Raptors fans (and some media), I was drinking the Kool-Aid: with Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker, this was the best and deepest Raptors squad ever. The Boston Celtics do not scare me until the playoffs, and Cleveland is banged up. Maybe it can be The Year?
Then comes the Score notification on my phone about Lowry’s injury and the inevitable (but still glorious) Twitter rage from my guy William Lou. Then, the optimism is gone, for a bit at least.
I’m holding out hope for this squad because they were never really supposed to be here anyways. I still think they’ll be fine down the final stretch of this season and the Lowry loss is something we can weather.
It has been written about many times, how James Dolan didn’t want to trade for Lowry because he feared getting fleeced by Masai Ujiri again, and now the Raptors are an old-school offence with historic capabilities. Even in the playoffs last year, they lost the first game of the Indiana series and looked like hot garbage in game one. Game five was hairy too. They figured it out and won. Toronto dropped game one against the Miami Heat and Jonas Valanciunas and won in seven. (Yes, I know Hassan Whiteside was injured too.) Then, they clawed back into the Cleveland series when everyone was counting them out.
Marv Levy, the legendary Buffalo Bills head coach who brought the franchise to four straight Super Bowls, had the phrase “when it’s too hard for them, it’s just right for us.” Can’t we say the same thing about this group? The team is already showing signs of continuing the trend that dates back to 2014-15, coming back from double-digit deficits to grab big wins. They are doing it without Lowry, and closing games with a totally funky group. This should not be happening, but it is.
Beyond the gut feeling with this team, there are some concrete reasons for why I believe in this group.
Dwane Casey’s flexibility
The longest-tenured coach in Raptors history is showing that he is not always stuck in his ways.
Yes, Casey has some crutches — like an isolation-heavy fourth quarter offence — that isn’t helping my already-receding hairline. It’s frustrating to watch the team do the same stuff over and over.
But Casey has been throwing line-ups at the wall and seeing what sticks. Without Lowry and with new pieces, Casey isn’t shy with putting JV on the bench or replacing Bebe with Jakob Poeltl. The Fred Van Vleet-Delon Wright backcourt from the game against the New York Knicks is a good example of the coaching staff just seeing what they have. Chances are that the Raptors don’t have some gems buried on the bench, but they are willing to find out.
Serge Ibaka and DeMar DeRozan are ready for this
In a perfect world, Ibaka slots in as a third offensive option behind Lowry and DeRozan. Instead, Ibaka immediately becomes the number two guy and he has been used a lot in the screen and roll.
In his three games in Toronto, Ibaka’s usage is 19.8%. He was sitting at 21.0% with an Orlando team that has fewer offensive weapons (and much less shooting) than this Raptors roster and he was still putting up efficient numbers. Ibaka’s PER is at 14.6 and the sample size is small, but he looks comfortable taking shots and he’s getting the ball in the right spots. The feeling-out process continues to progress, and one change that could help the Raptors is by looking for Ibaka on the pop more.
This starts with DeMar, who has been an absolute stud in Lowry’s absence. He’s averaging 37.6 points per game while shooting above 50% and averaging 13.6 free throw attempts. Teams will start loading up on him — the Knicks started doubling down the stretch but you can’t stop COMP10 in the Garden — and he will have to become a facilitator. He missed Ibaka on the pop a few times and the offence grinded to halt. I think DeRozan’s a smart player and he’ll make the adjustments.
A lighter schedule
I won’t pretend that the Lowry-less games have been fun to watch. The Knicks game was brutal, and the Celtics game was such a tough watch (partially because the refs were awful for both sides) that I bailed on the game at half and went out.
Toronto’s trip to New York was a particular slog because it was a back-to-back, and Serge Ibaka really struggled. Questions about his effort were legitimized, at least for a night, as he looked slow and out of place on multiple occasions. This year, Ibaka is shooting 43% overall and 31.5% from three on the second game of back-to-backs. The good news: Toronto only has two back-to-backs left. One comes this weekend at Washington and then at Milwaukee, and the other comes Mar. 16 and 17. They host Oklahoma City (Serge revenge game?) and then take a trip to Detroit, which is basically Air Canada Centre 2.0 at this point.
The opponents are easier, though they don’t get to beat up on many teams that are tanking for Lonzo Ball or Markelle Fultz. 11 of the 20 remaining games come against playoff teams, though Washington is the only team left on the schedule who has 36 wins or more. And Toronto only plays one Western conference playoff team: OKC.
