Round one was far from pretty, so let’s move on to round two.
After losing the first half of the home-and-home series against Washington, the Raptors will have had 48 hours to refocus after getting thoroughly outplayed in their first match. The nine point defeat on Wednesday night doesn’t put into proper perspective how easily Washington won the game, as they functionally won it in the second quarter by outscoring Toronto 38-20.
What chance do you have in winning a game if you almost get doubled-up in a quarter?? (Answer: apparently very little.)
If not for Washington letting up in the fourth quarter, the final score would have shown the domination that the Wizards displayed for the majority of the night.
Tonight’s game carries added significance as it will determine the tie breaker if Washington and Toronto end the season tied. After Wednesday Washington currently holds a one game lead in the standings, but more importantly they hold a two game lead in the loss column. It’s likely overstating it (Note: it is.), but if Toronto wants to keep any chance at a top three seed tonight is a must win game.
So here’s the good news: almost no one on the Raptors played remotely well in Wednesday’s game. Serge Ibaka looked exhausted in the third game in four nights. DeMarre Carroll literally was incapable of hitting a single shot. Jonas Valanciunas failed on every defensive possession and only shot 3-for-12 for 7 points. And outside of Norman Powell, and some moments from Delon Wright, the bench looked like they were the pre-trade deadline Wizards’ bench.
The Raptors only need to worry themselves about 6 players, because that’s all that Washington has (7 if Brandon Jennings makes his debut). They’ve got a great starting line-up, and then Bojan Bogdanovic off of the bench.
Bojan torched the Raptors for 27 points on Wednesday, and needed just 25 minutes to do it. If not for his 6-for-7 shooting from long distance, the Wizards would have shot just 16.6 percent from three. I’m not much of a math-wiz, but that would be a terrible percentage to shoot.
And Bojan is capable of providing that type of offensive production, especially when he isn’t be challenged on the other end of the court.
It’s tough to even analyze what the Raptors need to do differently tonight. They just sucked on Wednesday. They couldn’t get their offense going. They regularly fell asleep on defence. The rotation was sloppy (DeRozan, Joseph, and Ibaka all went to the bench together in the second quarter…it did not end well).
Every aspect for Toronto was far below the standards that they should have, even with the absence of Lowry. So here are my three keys for tonight:
- Don’t suck on offense.
- Don’t suck on defense.
- Stop Bojan, and punish him on the other end.
Since it’s as simple as not sucking, I’m calling a 108-103 win for the Raptors tonight.
