It’s difficult to level many criticisms at the Toronto Raptors by this point in the season—they’re the first place team in the East, they’ve won 16 of their last 17 games, they’ve got the league’s third-best offense and fourth-best defense, they’ve implemented a new offensive style to perfection, and they’re deeper than the Mariana Trench.
And yet, disbelievers will look at this last fact and disparage it by soberly noting that, in the playoffs, rotations are shortened and stars play more, hence lessening the impact a bench can have on a game and effectively muzzling the Raptors’ arguably greatest strength.
Last Friday, then, was a fantastic opportunity for Dwane Casey and his club. The league-leading Houston Rockets came into their house, red-hot on their 17-game win streak, playing at a level higher than perhaps any the Raptors had faced all season.
The build up felt like a playoff game. The atmosphere inside the Air Canada Centre felt like a playoff game. And, most importantly, the actual intensity of the contest itself felt like a playoff game.
So it was great to see a number of things the Raptors have developed over the season continue to be effective against a titanic opponent (e.g. the offense, which despite the pressure of Houston’s defense continued to thrive by moving the ball, setting screens, and not falling into static possessions). Sure, Casey had a game plan ready specifically for the Rockets (which was abundantly successful, by the way), but he was also granted the chance to let some things stand, like the rotation, and see how they fared in such a tense environment.
When it came to the much-lauded bench unit, Casey didn’t hesitate to put their feet to the flame, plopping them into the game in their normal minutes (with 905 call-up Malcolm Miller filling in for the injured Delon Wright) and evaluating their performance against an opponent that always had at least one of two Hall of Famers on the floor.
As it turns out, that performance was nothing short of exceptional.
Against a second unit anchored by Chris Paul, the full Toronto bench (that being the lineup of Fred VanVleet, C.J. Miles, Miller, Pascal Siakam, and Jakob Poeltl) played a totality of about nine minutes. During that span, they outscored Houston 22–20, more than holding their own on both the offensive and defensive side of the basketball.
The Raptors Bench Mob is exceptional at moving the ball, screening for one another, and cutting at auspicious moments. They work in tandem, like a well-oiled machine, seeking one another with a refined chemistry. If one option isn’t there, they kick the ball around and slice into the paint until they find the next one, with nearly every player an adequate-or-better playmaker.
Here, VanVleet comes off a Poeltl screen at the elbow, kicking the ball out to Siakam on the perimeter. Siakam then sends the rock down to Poeltl, who has a mismatch in the post with Eric Gordon guarding him. All the while, Miller has been moving off-ball, first working his way from the weak-side corner up towards the arcs before turning just as Poeltl catches the ball and cutting down the middle of the key. Poeltl sees him immediately and feeds him a pretty overhead pass that results in an easy layup.
Pushing the pace is also a key element of Raptors basketball this season (they play at the league’s 14th-fastest rate, as opposed to 24th-fastest in 2016–17), and the bench often does it even better than the starting group. As soon as Toronto gets a rebound, they’re off and running, with whoever’s running point looking to make long passes up the sides of the court to a streaking wing or big man (Siakam is excellent at this). Sometimes, if there’s no one open and there’s space left up the center of the floor, the point guard himself will attack in transition while the defense is still back-pedalling.
In this example, the Rockets have actually just scored, and are back on defense. VanVleet comes up the floor, however, and sees the space he desires. Already headed downhill, he hits Paul with a wicked crossover and burst of speed, and he’s at the rim.
Unfortunately, playing in transition isn’t always possible, and when it’s not, the bench needs to score via the opportunities it creates for itself in the half-court. As aforementioned, the bench is quite good at generating these looks, but they aren’t always great at making them, which isn’t a surprise, since the Raptors as a whole are only 22nd in three-point percentage despite taking the third-most attempts in the league. Sometimes, they just need someone to hit a shot, which is where guys like Miles come in.
Seeing nothing much developing, VanVleet barrels his way into the paint and looks to his left, where Miles is sliding farther towards the corner, his man not far behind. VanVleet hits him anyway, and with the sliver of daylight he has, Miles drills the triple right in Trevor Ariza’s face.
On defense, the Bench Mob followed Casey’s game plan nearly as well as the starters. The plan was simple—stay home on shooters, keep a wing high when guarding the pick-and-roll and hope they can fight through screens, and make sure there’s a big man waiting under the basket to contest shots at the rim. Whenever Harden was on the floor, Toronto purposefully left the midrange wide-open, knowing full-well that Houston is last in the NBA in two-point shots, and it paid off, with the Rockets refusing to deviate from the method that’s resulted in their first-place offense.
The few twos, then, came from Paul, whose bread and butter is the elbow jumper. Since the full bench played all of their minutes with him on the floor, the big (Poeltl) knew to come out from directly beneath the hoop and up closer to the top of the key in order to contest each one of CP3’s attempts, as shown here.
Even more impressive than just coming up to contest a shot, was Poeltl flaunting his mobility and versatility, staying with Paul on more than one occasion while the latter tried to shake him. CP3 is used to torching bigs after getting switched onto them, but the lateral quickness of the Raptors’ reserve bigs is part of what makes that group so special.
The beating heart of the Bench Mob is VanVleet, and it’s often his grittiness and hustle that result in the most important swings. In a high-pressure game, he exerted his own pressure against Paul, getting in his grill and never allowing him to get comfortable on the perimeter. On one particular play, he picked up the nine-time All-Star full-court and forced him into an ugly turnover that was converted into a lightning-quick Siakam layup.
No, this wasn’t a playoff game. But it was the closest the Raptors are going to get in the regular season, and when shoved under a white-hot spotlight for the world to probe and judge, the Raptors bench group responded, playing the way they’ve played all season and shocking their opponents with speed, energy, and a collectively high basketball IQ.
Yes, rotations generally do shorten in the playoffs. And even in this matchup against the Rockets, Casey had Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan play more minutes (they still only played 33 and 36, respectively) with the bench to give them an extra scoring punch. But teams must also play to their personnel, and rarely do second units perform to the degree Toronto’s has—a degree that withstood the most lethal haymakers the league’s best offense could throw.
So why not enter the playoffs with the rotation as is? Why not throw out the all bench group against opposing teams who have a star on the floor?
The answer used to be: Because it won’t work.
And now? Now it’s just another criticism the Toronto Raptors have washed away.
What else you got?
