Pre-game news & notes: Lowry and DeRozan in USA Basketball pool again

A lot on the line, even if it doesn't feel like it.

by

Coming off of a major victory against the Boston Celtics that more or less locked up the top of the Eastern Conference for the Toronto Raptors, the last week of the season almost feels like a formality. There are four games left, two of which come against good teams and all of which can be helpful for experimenting, learning, and fine-tuning before the postseason begins. Still, for an early April game without a feel of stakes, there sure is a lot on the line for the Raptors on Friday.

“(It’s) a record, something that hasn’t been accomplished here,” DeMar DeRozan said at shootaround. “So whenever you do something that hasn’t been done, it’s always an accomplishment that speaks volumes to the work that’s been put in, the sacrifices, the fails and what you work for when nobody’s watching.”

The Indiana Pacers stand in their way, and the Pacers have proven a worthy adversary on three earlier occasions this season. The Raptors took two of those games with a composite plus-9 across the meetings. Indian has been good all year, anyway, but they’ve seemed to have some extra juice against the Raptors. Victor Oladipo is a problem, Cory Joseph knows this team better than almost anyone, and Lance Stephenson…is Lance Stephenson. If the Raptors get caught resting on what they’ve accomplished already, they may need another game to reach the finish lines listed above.

“I don’t know, you always have certain teams that, you know, have a certain edge to them when you play them for whatever reason,” DeRozan said. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what it is but everybody has that team in the league that seems that more chippier for whatever reason.”

Of course, for Raptors fans, there’s another game taking place that’s nearly as meaningful. The Cavaliers and 76ers play tonight, and the winner will have a major inside edge on the third seed in the East. Toronto has a first-round playoff series to get through, obviously, but the loser of Cavs-Sixers would become the favorite to come out of the 4-5 matchup against these same Pacers. There will be some scoreboard watching going on.

The game tips off at 7:30 on Sportsnet One and TSN 1050. You can check out the full game preview here.

Raptors updates
Everyone is healthy and available for the Raptors here. Whether that means a 10-man rotation or a 12-man rotation or something fluid and in-between is yet to be seen. There’s an argument you could make for experimenting a bit at this point in the season, but I’d think the more cogent argument would be the one in favor of playing like you’re going to play in the postseason, at least against Indiana, a playoff-caliber opponent. It will be interesting to see if Dwane Casey sticks to his basics or mixes things up a bit, as some recent games have necessitated. Toronto’s starters are a minus-4 in two meetings with Indiana, by the way, and the current all-bench group was minus-4 in the one meeting they appeared in as a group.

PG: Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright
SG: DeMar DeRozan, Norman Powell
SF: OG Anunoby, C.J. Miles
PF: Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira
OUT: None
TBD: None
905: Malachi Richardson, Alfonzo McKinnie, , Lorenzo Brown, Malcolm Miller

Pacers updates
There are a couple of changes for Indiana since the last time these two teams met. The big one is the return of Domantas Sabonis, friend of Jonas Valanciunas and draft-comparee to Jakob Poeltl. Sabonis is having a heck of a sophomore season and is quickly developing into a multi-faceted offensive center, one capable of pulling Toronto’s center away from the paint and making plays for teammates. He’ll be a nice test for the Raptors’ pick-and-pop defense, one that’s been a little shaky of late. His presence also might mercifully mean Al Jefferson can’t get in the DeLorean again.

Indiana has also gone back to Darren Collison as their starting point guard, shifting old friend Cory Joseph to the bench. Why they decided to do so, I can’t quite figure – the Pacers’ starters with Joseph owned a plus-11.5 net rating in 330 minutes together compared to just plus-3.2 in double the sample with Collison. Maybe it’s about lineup balancing (the Pacers don’t have any one bench group with a large sample of minutes to evaluate), and Collison has the better net rating overall on the season, so maybe there’s something there not caught in the lineup data. The Raptors should be annoyed at the change – today’s projected starters are plus-15 in 35 minutes against them this year.

PG:Darren Collison, Cory Joseph, Joseph Young
SG: Victor Oladipo, Lance Stephenson, Edmond Sumner
SF: Bojan Bogdanovic, Glenn Robinson, Ben Moore
PF: Thaddeus Young, Trevor Booker, T.J. Leaf, Alex Poythress
C: Myles Turner, Domantas Sabonis, Al Jefferson, Ike Anigbogu
OUT: None
TBD: None
Fort Wayne: None

Assorted

  • Raptors 905 are in Erie tonight for a one-game Eastern Conference Final. Lorenzo Brown, Malcolm Miller, Malachi Richardson, and Alfonzo McKinnie are all on assignment. If the 905 win, they’ll be in Austin for Game of the G League Finals on Sunday.
  • Over at The Athletic, I wrote about some of the adjustments the Raptors made between the two Celtics meetings.
  • DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry are among the 35 players included in USA Basketball’s player pool for the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympic years.
  • The Raptors have moved from 19:2 to 17:2 favorites to win the NBA championship, fourth in the NBA. They’re also at 6:5 to come out of the East (from 8:5), and there’s a substantial gap between Cleveland/Toronto and everyone else.
  • Three Canadians will suit up for Roy Rana’s World Team at Nike Hoop Summit next week.

  • Speaking of the growth of basketball in Canada, here’s some great stuff from Casey before the game on the growth of basketball in the city while he’s been here:
    • “I think the Raptors are cool now. Before, when I first got here, basketball, you know, it was basketball. But now it’s fun, it’s cool. Kids at my daughter’s school, they wear Raptors gear, hats. Some of it I’ve given ’em, but. It’s cool, they’re on the playground playing basketball in sub-zero weather, you see hoops in the driveway instead of hockey nets. And that’s never gonna change, this is always gonna be a hockey country, and I understand that and respect that. But it’s still cool to play basketball now…They (kids) talk basketball and they ask basketball questions. It’s cool, because a few years ago that wasn’t the case, kids wasn’t out playing pick-up basketball in the backyard, and I drive through the neighborhood and see that now. And it really, really warms my heart, because that’s how I grew up, playing, after-school running to get my basketball, putting my gloves on, and going playing hoops. I see that now more than I ever have.”

The line
The Raptors are 7.5-point favorites with a 210 over-under.

Previous: Open Gym Ep. 25
Next: Raptors set franchise mark for wins and home wins, win Atlantic, clinch 1-seed