The Raptors face an uphill challenge in the semi finals this year. The last time LeBron James lost a playoff round in the Eastern Conference was in the 2009-2010 season, losing to the Boston Celtics in six games. The Raptors have the roster/talent to push the Cavaliers into a potential game seven, where anything can happen. Is it improbable, yes, but with this roster, this is the Raptors best chance at upsetting a LeBron James led Cavaliers team.
Game one’s performance didn’t convince anyone that this Raptors team is anywhere close to being a championship contender. This game was very reminiscent of the Raptors trips to Quicken Loans arena last year during the Eastern Conference Finals, never really in control of the pace of the game, and going down more than twenty points in the final minutes of the third quarter. The Raptors were one of the teams who could potentially pose a threat to the defending champion Cavaliers, instead, LeBron James actually contemplated a mid game beer.
The slow starts continue to kill the Raptors, the start we saw last night was very reminiscent from one of the starts we saw in the first three games of the Milwaukee Bucks series. The move to put Valanciunas back in the starting lineup was to own the rebounding battle and contain Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love, limiting the Cavaliers second chance opportunities. The Cavaliers regular starting lineup of Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith, LeBron James, Kevin Love, and Tristan Thompson have a REB% of 53.7% in the playoffs (which is good), but isn’t much different than the 51.3% rebounding percentage of the Bucks starting lineup posted in all six playoff games. With Ibaka playing the five, and DeMarre Carroll playing the four, the Raptors have a 50% rebounding percentage. The rebounding in the Norman+starters lineup isn’t a weakness, nothing worth completely changing your tactical schemes that worked in the first round for.
The problem with the Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, DeMarre Carroll, Serge Ibaka, and Valanciunas starting lineup, is that it’s just bad.. In the 44 playoff minutes they have played together, they post a 105.6 offensive rating, 130.3 defensive rating, for a -24.7 overall net rating. When this lineup starts, opposing teams rack up 30 points in the first quarter way too easily, and in a road playoff game, it’s almost impossible to come back from. The Norman+starters lineup posted a 92.6 defensive rating, and a 17.4 net rating. This lineup could keep up with the Cavaliers pace, and with a four out approach and a mobile five in Ibaka, this lineup could guard the Cavaliers three point shooting better.
I see the problem with this lineup though in the overall rotations, where do you find minutes for Valanciunas off the bench? This is a tricky problem, because the Cavaliers don’t have a Greg Monroe style center coming off their bench for Valanciunas to matchup against. Valanciunas thrived in this bench role in the first round, but when Thompson comes off the floor the Cavs only get smaller. If Valanciunas is to move to the bench, the Raptors will have to use the minutes he’s on the floor to exploit the offensive matchup as much as possible.
Another possibility is what Sportsnet Michael Grange reported on yesterday, that Casey might consider sitting Valanciunas and Carroll, replacing them with Powell and rookie center Jakob Poeltl. Powell has definitely earned more time this postseason, he changed the series in round one, and the Raptors have been super effective with him on the floor in place of DeMarre Carroll or Jonas Valanciunas. In the 140 playoff minutes Powell has seen in the postseason thus far, the Raptors as a team are posting a 114.2 offensive rating, a 93 defensive rating….93!! In the 195 minutes when he’s off the floor, the Raptors struggle to score with a 97.8 offensive rating, and a 115.6 defensive rating, thats a -17.8 net rating.
Powell’s been huge at relieving some of the ball handling work from Lowry and DeRozan, and his hot three point shooting (12/18 66.7% from three) has been a huge factor in the Raptors offense. Defensively, Powell has proven he can keep up with just about anyone. He did about as good of a job as someone could do on Giannis Antetokounmpo, and should add yet another quick mobile defender to limit the Cavs from shooting as many threes.
Powell’s minutes in game one didn’t make much sense, and the Raptors should be riding their hot hand/strong defensive players as much as possible, after all it’s the playoff, what do you have to lose! Powell played a total of 20:37 minutes in game one, which seems like a good amount of time, but the problem is when he was used. He checked in the first quarter with around a minute left for P.J. Tucker, and played 5:05 minutes to start the second quarter. Now, Powell didn’t fill up the stat sheet in this seven minute stretch, but the Raptors did. With 10:24 left in the second, the Cavs grew their lead to 18 points, and a weird lineup of Lowry, Joseph, Powell, Tucker, and Ibaka completely torched a LeBron+bench unit. That eighteen point lead shrunk to a two point lead, a lot of this was due to the Cavs missing some open threes during that stretch, and Lowry going off on the offensive end.
This was the Raptors come back chance, the Cavaliers brought their starters back in and the Raptors countered with a Lowry/DeRozan/Tucker/Patrick Patterson/Ibaka lineup. With 2:55 minutes left in the first half, the Raptors had gotten the game to a manageable five point deficit. But in that moment, they decided to play their starting unit from the night to close out the quarter. The Cavaliers attacked the weak starting unit, and somehow created a 14 point lead at halftime. Blink and the Cavaliers can drop 9 points instantly, a couple of missed shots and this team is nearly unstoppable in transition. Powell came in next with 2:25 to play in the third quarter, at this point things were over. The Cavaliers had a 16 point lead, and Powell would basically play garbage time for the rest of the game.
The Raptors saw in the first quarter their starting unit continues not to work. They failed to recognize this again at halftime when that lineup couldn’t close out the second quarter, and decided to play the starters at the beginning of the third when the Cavaliers became unstoppable. I understand you have to run rotations and have to give guys rest, but this is the playoffs, and stretching out Norman for 8-10 more minutes wouldn’t have been a crazy idea.
Yes, it’s just one game. But a tough fight from the Raptors would have changed the perception of this playoff series. To win this series, the Raptors will need to win on the road, and not learning from your previous lineup mistakes, made just a few weeks ago, shouldn’t be the reason you get blown out in a playoff game. Changes are coming again, I fully expect the Raptors lineups/rotation patterns to be completely different tonight. Putting up a tough fight in game two, heading back to the ACC could potentially give the Raptors a needed momentum swing in this series.
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