Throughout the playoffs, we’ll be giving you brief notebooks after every practice, shootaround, pre-game, and post-game. They’ll vary in terms of length and analysis based on what’s said, what happens, and what else is going on, and the videos will all eventually go up on the Raptors’ YouTube page, anyway, but rest assured you can use us as your first stop for the relevant quotes and notes each day during the postseason. Feedback on whether or not these posts are useful is appreciated so we can spend our time accordingly.
The Toronto Raptors aren’t good to start games. They’re not good to start series, either. This is old hat, but the degree to which they struggle early on, and for how long it’s been the case, is staggering for a team of this quality. They were the league’s best fourth-quarter team. They have led the league in double-digit comebacks in two consecutive seasons. They clearly have a gear they can get into, when necessary, that makes them among the best teams in the NBA.
But their starts are bad, frustrating, and often inexplicable. The team itself does not have a good answer for it. If they did, they probably would have fixed things by now. At the very least, they have a good analogy to entertain with.
“I don’t know,” DeMar DeRozan said at practice Monday. “You ever have an old Regal, you’ve got to start up and sit there for a while before you pull off and you go on a little road trip. But once you get going, your car feels like a 2016 Lexus or something. I think that’s just kind of our problem. I don’t know. It’s something we have to be better with. I don’t know.”
DeRozan, by the way, did not ever have an old Regal.
The issue here, of course, is that the Raptors fancy themselves a Lexus in the big-picture, and as they Regal their way through the start of games and series, they make the nOS button more and more necessary. The slower you start, the harder you have to finish. And in Game 1, the Raptors were granny shifting when they should be double-clutching.
“We have done everything,” Casey said. “We have looked at the numbers, the stats, the rotations the matchups, the groups that were in there and there is no consistent statistic or number or group. It’s just kind of been our DNA. We have had different people in the starting lineups and that hasn’t changed very much. I think it is our DNA – slow starts and hard finishes.”
The current starting lineup doesn’t have much time together, but it’s been ineffective when used. The bulk of their starting lineups over the last two years, save for a few small-sample groups that played together due to injury, have been similarly shaky. The Raptors make their hay with bench units late in the first and third and early in the second, and thanks to elite closing groups that can get it done on both ends of the floor. The bad starts make for a much taller task, though, and they do themselves a major disservice playing this way.
“I totally agree with you, trust me,” DeRozan said. “It’s something that we can’t feel our way into. We can’t wait for a team to hit us, whatever it may be. We’ve got to have an automatic start and get out as soon as that ball goes up.”
Per John Schuhmann of NBA.com, they trailed 40 times after the first six minutes of a game this year (with five ties), after trailing 46 times (with six ties) after that amount of time a year ago. And per my own memory, they are now 0-6 in Game 1s over the last four postseasons. It has to stop.
Is the best defense better offense?
The talk at practice was once again about the transition defense. That conversation shifted at least a bit to the offensive end, though, which makes sense – Toronto’s offense actually underperformed relative to their average more than their defense did, and the halfcourt defense was pretty effective. How do the Bucks get transition opportunities? Turnovers, sure. But opponent misses can get that going, too, and the Raptors missed plenty.
“We shot 36 per cent,” DeRozan said. “That gave them multiple opportunities to get down in transition, especially when I was trying to be aggressive for myself, getting to the basket, leaving my teammates 4-on-5 going back down. That’s something we’ve got to be conscious of. We missed a lot of shots we normally make.
“We make half of them shots, we limit their chances in transition. We make them play in half court, we give ourselves a better chance.”
DeRozan also noted that improved defensive rebounding may be a way for the Raptors’ own transition game to pick up. The Raptors surprisingly made note of their pace on multiple occasions over the last few days, even though they generally prefer to muck things up at a slower tempo.
“Transition defense, the pace of play, the speed of play,” Casey said of what they can do better. “The speed of our cuts. Everything just wasn’t to the level that we needed to be for a long period of time. We had it for certain moments, we had a seven-point lead, but even then we weren’t doing things at a pace and level that was sustainable. That was our biggest problem.”
It will be interesting to see if they try to run with the Bucks on Saturday.
Other Notes
- Serge Ibaka missed practice due to a sore ankle. He was on the court for several minutes in the third quarter of Saturday’s game after landing on Giannis Antetokounmpo’s foot while coming down from a 3-point attempts, a play the league later said should have been a foul (and something that really needs to be taken out of the game somehow). it doesn’t sound as if Ibaka’s in any danger of missing Game 2 on Tuesday – he was available to media on Monday, which is usually a good sign – but the Raptors’ best player from Game 1 may not be at 100 percent, which is tough.
- Ibaka said if the game had been today, playing would have been difficult. But he felt better than two days ago and is optimistic about tomorrow. “It’s day by day,” he said. “Actually I woke up today a lot better, I’m walking perfect, so hopefully tomorrow I’m going to wake up and feel more better and be ready to go.”
- On the unfortunate chance Ibaka can’t go, I’d expect Patrick Patterson to start rather than a huge or small lineup. Patterson is one of their best options on Antetokounmpo, and I doubt they’d want to downsize against this team or put a center on him.
- Bruno Caboclo and Pascal Siakam were recalled for today’s practice session. Raptors 905 won Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Finals series against Maine on Sunday, and Casey clearly wanted someone who’s won a Game 1 to tell the rest of the team how it’s done. (In reality, both players will be back down by the time the 905 are set for Game 2 on Wednesday, but it’s good experience for them to be around an NBA club in playoff mode, however briefly, even if they’ll be in street clothes Tuesday.)
- If Ibaka can’t go tomorrow, I’d imagine Siakam will dress.
- Stray stat I came across in looking at potential emergency options to help beat Bucks traps: Lucas Nogueira was fourth in the NBA in screen assists per-minute and happens to be the team’s best passing big man. He might warrant a look if Toronto’s offense continues to struggle.
- Happy 60th birthday to Dwane Casey.
