Pre-game news & notes: Cavs rest big 3, DeRozan and Ibaka sit, both teams add 905ers

Photo credit: MattAzevedo.com.

Does anyone care? This is the big question ahead of Game 82 of what’s felt like a very long 2016-17 NBA season. It’s the final night of the year, and while playoff spots and seedings are still up in the air, the Toronto Raptors don’t have a ton to play for, in the direct, tangible, and predictable sense. Sure, a loss would make it a little more likely that the Cleveland Cavaliers draw the one-seed, clearing them out of the Raptors’ way until the Eastern Conference Finals if all goes well, but that scenario also requires the Boston Celtics, who care very much, to lose to a resting Milwaukee Bucks team that is in full-on Raptors preparation mode. What’s more, the Cavaliers care little about the top seed and are more or less punting it.

The Raptors could, in theory, try to out-tank the Cavs and hope Michael Beasley cooks the Afflecks, but they have their own things to worry about. The Raptors have dropped Game 1 of the postseason on home court in three consecutive years, whether they’ve rested or played well down the stretch or otherwise, and so their focus is entirely on themselves. As around practice on Tuesday, and to a man, the Raptors were talking up the need to treat at least part of Wednesday’s finale like a dress rehearsal.

“No better time than now, everybody’s locked in,” P.J. Tucker said. “Finish the year strong, finish this game strong, we want to go in and try to win, play to our strengths, but I think we’re locked-in.”

While the Raptors have looked varying degrees of good of late, Kyle Lowry just returned three games ago, the entirety of his experience with Tucker and Serge Ibaka. Head coach Dwane Casey mentioned that he was still figuring out the best rotations and groups to use, and when to use them, something another two or three quarters could help determine. The team’s presumed starting lineup in the playoffs has played just 40 minutes together, and they need to find a bit more of a groove together to enter the weekend in peak form.

“We just gotta go out there and try to gel,” DeMarre Carroll added. “Kyle’s still trying to get his rhythm. As a team we still gotta gel, especially when your star player comes back. It’s a great opportunity for us to try to get better and try to get back into game rhythm.”

Of course, even the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) laid plans are subject to the whims of the human body. While the plan didn’t call for any players to rest in the final game, DeMar DeRozan has been battling an illness and seems likely to join LeBron James and company on the sidelines. Losing that chance at chemistry with Lowry and DeRozan together might hurt, but they have ample time working together, and Lowry can still get some necessary reps in with Tucker, Ibaka, and Jakob Poeltl. It could also be a chance for Norman Powell to get some positive momentum ahead of the postseason, even if it seems like he may be out of the playoff rotation at present.

The Raptors won’t go all-out to win this thing. It could be a Pyrrhic victory, anyway, and they’re far too focused on the qualitative progress of their own group to worry about anyone or anything else. If they play well and win, so be it. If they play well and lose, that’s life. Playing poorly regardless of outcome is the only unacceptable harbinger of their state entering the playoffs. (And, of course, my preseason prediction of a 51-31 record is on the line here.)

The game tips off at 8 on TSN and TSN 1050. You can check out the full game preview here.

Raptors updates
If DeRozan sits with the illness, I would think P.J. Tucker starts so that he can get more time with Lowry, but I’d understand just as well if Powell drew the start so that Casey could replicate his regular rotation with Powell in the DeRozan role. Powell could probably also use a good game, psychologically, to enter the playoffs on better footing. DeRozan is officially questionable. (If DeRozan plays, he needs 50 points to tie Vince Carter’s franchise record for PPG over a season.)

UPDATE: DeRozan is out due to the illness, Serge Ibaka is joining him to rest, and the Raptors have recalled Bruno Caboclo and Pascal Siakam from Raptors 905 for additional bodies.

Elsewhere, I would expect the end of the bench to get some run late, particularly Fred VanVleet and Lucas Nogueira. VanVleet may or may not be looking at an assignment to Raptors 905 later in the week, and Nogueira could probably use some reps to freshen up in the event a matchup or foul trouble requires his services in the playoffs. It’s easy to forget with how long he’s been out of the rotation, but before his ill-timed slump around the deadline, Nogueira was a solid, productive piece for the Raptors who was a major positive in terms of on-off numbers and rim protection.

As for the amount of time the starters will play, Casey made it seem as if there’s a cap somewhere.

“All I know is we’ve struggled going into that first game. We’ve rested guys and it didn’t help going into the playoffs,” he said Tuesday. “We’ve got a lot of issues we’re working out right now, groups, combos that haven’t been together, different things we want to do with those combos, whether it’s 15, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, we’ve gotta get a little workout.”

UPDATE: Hey, we guessed the starters right!

PG: Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph, Fred VanVleet
SG: Norman Powell, Delon Wright
SF: DeMarre Carroll, P.J. Tucker, Bruno Caboclo
PF: Patrick Patterson, Pascal Siakam
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
TBD: None
ASSIGNED: None
OUT: Serge Ibaka, DeMar DeRozan

Cavaliers updates
LeBron James is resting because he’s afraid of P.J. Tucker. Facts. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love are joining him, per Michael Grange of Sportsnet. Tristan Thompson, meanwhile, will return from a thumb injury that cost him the last few games, a nice positive for the Cavs ahead of the playoffs. And finally, Kay Felder suffered a leg injury earlier in the week (and an ego injury against Raptors 905 in the playoffs) and his status is up in the air. Basically, this is Ty Lue’s approach to tonight:

https://twitter.com/mcten/status/852285672979410946

All of this allows for three things to take place in this one:

Dahntay Jones kicks someone in the Biyombos.
The Raptors get 25 minutes to finally solve Channing Frye.
Jerry Stackhouse’s large adult son Edy Tavares turns his back on the Raptors franchise.

That last note is painful. The Cavaliers are signing Tavares from the 905 ahead of their Eastern Conference Finals run, waiving Larry Sanders to make room. Tavares has been massive for the 905, a legitimate D-League Defensive Player of the Year candidates who’s shown the smarts, selflessness, and work ethic to make the most of his immense 7-foot-3 frame. There remain question marks about his NBA utility, but it’s great to see him getting a chance, because he’s earned it. That it’s with the Cavaliers, and that he might win a Gerald Henderson Award instead of a Three Stars nod with the Raptors in the future, is a painful reality of the current D-League setup. Sigh.

Check back for a starting lineup.

PG: Deron Williams, (Kay Felder)
SG: J.R. Smith, Dahntay Jones
SF: Iman Shumpert, Kyle Korver, James Jones
PF: Channing Frye, Richard Jefferson, Derrick Williams
C: Tristan Thompson, Edy Tavares
Assigned: None
TBD: Kay Felder
Out: LeBron James, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving

Assorted

Bruno Caboclo and Pascal Siakam remain with Raptors 905, who are waiting to find out who they’ll play in the Eastern Conference Finals. Maine and Fort Wayne are in action tonight, and the winner of that game will host the 905 on Friday for Game 1 before the series returns to the GTA, likely for games Sunday and Tuesday (and possibly not at Hershey Centre if the Mississauga Steelheads are still in the postseason).
- UPDATE: They’ve been recalled. Expect them assigned right back down for Friday.
- Raptors Republic readers can get discounted 905 playoff tickets by using the promo code REPUBLIC905.
The Raptors may or may not know where they’ll pick in the draft after tonight. They own the better (more favorable) of their pick or the Clippers’ pick, and we’ll know where the teams stack up in the standings with the season over. But ties in the standings aren’t broken for a few days (they’re broken by random drawing).
- Toronto’s pick could still land anywhere from 22-26. L.A.’s pick could land anywhere from 22-26, too. The Cavaliers have 51 wins, the Wizards have 49, and the Raptors, Jazz, and Clippers all have 50. That means the Raptors could pick anywhere from 22-25 (they can’t pick 26th because they get the better of the picks).
- Here’s what you’d be rooting for, if all you cared about is the pick: SAC d. LAC, WAS d. MIA, TOR d. CLE, UTA d. SA.
  - That would result in the Clippers and Wizards tying for 22-23, and the Raptors getting one of those picks depending on how the tiebreaker goes. Any alternate results could push L.A. down or create larger, multi-team tiebreakers.
- If you want Cleveland to finish first but still care about the pick, you’d root for: WAS d. MIA, CLE d. TOR, LAC d. SAC, UTA d. SA.
  - That would result in the Raptors and Clippers tying for 22-23, and the Raptors keeping their own pick, wherever it lands. This is the same draft result as above, so your scenario preference depends on your feelings on hurting Cleveland.
The Raptors rank 10th in team merchandise sales in the latest update from the NBA, down slightly from eighth in early July of last year.
Over at The Athletic, I wrote about Delon Wright’s crafty play in Kyle Lowry’s absence and how he’s maybe pushed the issue from “nice silver lining” to “playoff rotation piece.”
- Raptors Republic readers can get 20 percent off subscriptions using this link.
Over at Vice, I wrote about Jonas Valanciunas gearing up to try to find “Playoff J.V.” ahead of role uncertainty in the postseason.
If you haven’t had enough of me by then, I’ll be doing an AMA on R/TorontoRaptors on Friday at 10 a.m.