One night removed from a fourth quarter collapse in Atlanta, the shorthanded Raptors didn’t wait until the last frame Saturday night against the Miami Heat to fall apart. With DeMarre Carroll sitting out the second night of a back-to-back after his return from injury, Norman Powell got the start for the team and never looked fully comfortable, despite moments of brilliance. Although the final score was 104-89, the game never really felt that close and it took a fourth quarter garbage time run from the younger players at the end of the bench to make the score even that respectable.
This was a game of two opposite teams headed in opposite directions. The Heat, a team of cast-offs, thought to be bound for the bottom of the standings, winners of 21 of their last 25, against the Raptors, a team lauded as one of the best built in the league, carrying a 17-20 record since Christmas.
The game started well enough offensively, with Jonas Valanciunas doing work on the offensive boards and DeMar having a good first quarter as well with 11 points on 5-10 shooting early, but the Heat also seemed to be getting whatever they wanted as they raced out to a 32-26 first quarter lead. The Raptors have had some success since Kyle Lowry’s injury by slowing games down and grinding them out, only breaking 100 points once in their last 7 games, but that style of play requires a defensive intensity that just wasn’t there in this game. That led to a slow Raptors offense taking difficult, contested shots as they gave up much easier buckets at the other end of the floor.
After the first frame, things got worse, as JV’s minutes and opportunities were few and far between past that point while DeRozan didn’t hit a single field goal in the last 3 quarters. With Serge Ibaka also struggling, going just 3-11 from the floor, there just wasn’t anyone generating significant offense. It’s to be somewhat expected, without Lowry, that the team won’t be the historically efficient juggernaut they were early in the season, but the degree of the struggles was definitely troubling with the team managing to make just 2 of their 15 long-range attempts, and many other opportunities turned down, with players turning down open shots at times to end up with the team generating a worse one later in the shot clock. The Raptors just managed 7 assists on 33 made shots in this game, and the team needs to find a way to both find shooters for good opportunities, a rarity in this one, as well as the shooters need to find confidence in their own shots.
In the second half, Patrick Patterson got himself ejected for yelling at the referee about possession of a ball that landed out of bounds, which was somewhat a microcosm of the Raptors night. Even when they managed intensity, it often felt off-target and mistimed.
It would be easy to blame coach Dwane Casey here, for not integrating a better offense earlier in the season when the team was healthier, but with the team rolling at sometimes historic rates, he also would’ve likely been criticized then if the tweaks didn’t immediately take. While he’s certainly not completely without fault, the battle between expectation and reality with this squad has been a tough tight-rope to walk this season. Down the stretch of the year, it looks as though holding onto the fourth seed might be a victory, but a second-round date with the Cleveland Cavaliers will hardly feel like a win for Raptors fans.
Toronto looked exhausted again on Saturday, a common thread through recent games, and although DeMar DeRozan only played 28 minutes in Miami, they felt like hard minutes through and through, as he was either asked or felt the need to try to do everything himself offensively. With the cast around him not finding any form of consistency offensively, it’s unlikely that his mentality there will change, as the team needs him to score if no one else will. It’s not fun to watch at times, and perhaps not the most efficient offense, but for this team, more DeMar taking over might be the best thing until Kyle is back.
On defense, the Raptors simply need more from the guys around DeRozan. Norman Powell has been a shade of the player he was last year on that end, and he needs to find the form that had him recognized around the league when he slowed down Paul George during the playoffs. Especially with Carroll still seeming to be recovering from his injury, Norm will have an important role on this team, often taking the tougher wing assignment to conserve DeMar’s energy. He needs to find a way to be up to that task for the Raptors to find wins, and he struggled on Saturday.
Monday night, Toronto will find themselves back home after a grueling 5-game road trip in which they managed a 2-3 mark, and hopefully the friendly confines of the ACC can help them figure out some of their issues and get back to more successful habits on both ends of the floor. Otherwise, they might not find themselves at home very much during the playoffs.
