It’s hard to know lately, when looking at the NBA scoreboard, which Eastern Conference teams to cheer for when trying to figure out the best case scenarios for the Raptors heading into the postseason. Trying to avoid Milwaukee or Chicago in the first round, or Cleveland in the second, just seems like an impossible task with how volatile the standings are in both the top and bottom of the East right now. With five games to go for the Raptors, they control their own destiny, at least to the extent of whether they end up in the third or fourth seed, but the implications of that seeding are far, far outside of the team’s own control at this point.
At the same time, for the Raptors, DeMar DeRozan has been carrying a massive workload offensively over the past month, and is once again among the league leaders in minutes, so the temptation anytime Boston sneaks up to the number one seed is to want the team to rest guys and tank to hold onto fourth, so that a potential series with the Cavaliers sits in the Eastern Conference Finals instead of the second round. It might be worth looking at the implications of any such action, though, to better understand how this impacts the team over the last 9 days of the regular season, and we’ll start with the positives of tanking for fourth:
- The rest argument. It’s pretty simple. If DeRozan takes a few games off, he might be better rested going into the playoffs, which should allow the Raptors a better performance in the first round, at least in theory. This probably also applies to Cory Joseph, who’s been playing more minutes recently than at any previous point in his career and might benefit from a few extra nights off. As someone who’s frequently come out in favor of reducing minutes for the team’s stars, it’s easy to see the attraction here, but it might be too late in the year to address the problem for this campaign.
- Might avoid Cleveland in the second round. The word ‘might’ here is really problematic, and the truth is that it’s impossible to predict whether the 3rd or 4th seed will be more useful in this regard. Facing the defending champions in the ECF is better for one reason, that being that Kyle Lowry has a better chance of being in uniform and fully healthy in that round than the second. That might be enough of a factor to try to put this scenario into play, but again, it’s not really controllable.
- More minutes for struggling guys. I’m primarily thinking of two players here, in Norman Powell and DeMarre Carroll. Carroll has had good games and bad, and maybe increasing his role while removing the pressure of expectation for a few games helps him find his way. As far as Powell, his shooting hasn’t been what it was last year while he’s taken a step back defensively, and maybe more minutes against other teams’ starters helps him find his way on both ends, because the team will need one of these two guys performing at a high level in the playoffs.
On the other side of the coin, there are some potential downsides to trying to stay in fourth place and taking the last five games to rest up:
- It might not work. This is simply the flip-side of the ‘trying to avoid Cleveland’. If you make the play to try to avoid them, and they end up in first anyways, you might have messed with team chemistry for nothing, and DeRozan has looked rusty when playing on rest so far this season. Maybe the rest doesn’t work, and you still get Cleveland earlier than you want them.
- Facing Cleveland is the goal. I buy in fully on this argument. At the end of the day, it might not get better than this year for this Raptors core. DeRozan and Ibaka are in their late 20s, Lowry is on the wrong side of 30, and despite a young group around those guys, the players who dictate the ceiling for the franchise as constructed might not get better than they are right now. If there’s a chance at a championship, regardless of what you think of the Raptors chances against Cleveland, this is it. So whether you face them in the Eastern Conference Finals or the second round, if you have to beat them, you have to beat them. If the Raptors are that worried about facing Cleveland and think it’s an insurmountable task, that’s admitting this will never be a championship core.(small caveat of the scenario posed above with Lowry being more healthy in the ECF)
- Chemistry is a tenous thing. The Raptors have been rolling defensively since the arrivals of PJ Tucker and Ibaka, and that’s something you want to keep going and integrate Lowry as soon as possible. The best way to do that is not mess with the status quo more than you have to, either in rotation or active players. So tanking gives you less opportunities to get Lowry into what his normal playoff minutes will be, as well as less time to get him comfortable with the new arrivals.
So while on the surface, looking for the best matchup feels like an attractive option, it’s hard to say it’d be worth the risk, and if you want to see this team be a true contender to get to the Finals and perhaps have a shot at hanging a banner next fall, then you can’t worry too much about matchups, because you’ll have to beat the best in the league at some point anyways. Might as well build on the chemistry that’s developing and try to keep things rolling until the team’s All-Star point guard returns to action and they can get him up to speed. Maybe it works out and the team draws a favorable matchup in the first round and doesn’t have to face Cleveland until the Eastern Finals, and maybe it doesn’t. It’s not about when you play them as much as that you find a way to win that series when it arrives.
