Raptors 92, Pacers 73 | Box Score | Quick Reaction | Reaction Podcast
So much for the Indiana Pacers streaking into the playoffs. So much for the Toronto Raptors’ defense sputtering to the finish line. And so much for a number of Raptors franchise records. The Raptors brought the clamps out in full force against the Pacers on Friday, locking up the one-seed, the Atlantic Division, the best home-record, and the best overall record in franchise history in the process.
There was no shortage of positives to take away from this one, a second consecutive convincing victory against a hot visiting team. The Raptors were masterful defensively, turning in perhaps their best four-quarter defensive performance of the season and holding Indiana to 73 points – and 74.6 per-100 possessions, a ludicrous number that stands a season-best defensive rating – on their way to a 19-point victory. The Pacers shot poorly, were run off the line, met bodies at the rim, and established no rhythm at any point in the game. The Raptors’ offense was less spectacular – 23 turnovers hurt their cause, as did a 9-of-30 mark from outside – and still they managed 27 assists, indicative of how galvanized the system changes have become even through slogs.
Given where the confidence level was around the Raptors a few days ago, the last two games have provided a nice shift.
“It’s always great,” DeMar DeRozan said. “We’re not going to have much practice time, three games left, then the real thing starts. So being able to work on the things we need to work on in these next three games, so we’ll be ready come next weekend.”
The Raptors carried over their step forward on the defensive end from Wednesday, completely bottling Indiana up early on. OG Anunoby did a tremendous job on Victor Oladipo, forcing him to his off-hand if he was going to use screens and getting his hands on everything if Oladipo insisted on going right and recovering well over the screen to still contest otherwise. That freed Jonas Valanciunas to drop back more comfortably, and while Oladipo did manage to find a window for a few mid-range attempts, the Raptors will live with that. Everyone else was locked in, too, and Valanciunas and DeRozan both had early blocks, while the Raptors as a team forced seven first-half turnovers. With the clamps out, Indiana managed just four points in the opening eight-plus minutes, allowing Toronto to build a comfortable 14-point lead.
“That’s the OG that we need defensively,” Dwane Casey said. “He made it hard on Oladipo, who is one of the most dynamic guards in our league, and he did a good job with him.”
Indiana is a plucky opponent, and Toronto’s own occasionally cold offense precluded a premature pull-away. Kyle Lowry and everyone not named Serge Ibaka struggled from outside (non-Ibaka Raptors were 1-of-11 in the half, Ibaka 3-of-5), and Valanciunas, while excellent on the boards, struggled from floater range. The bench sputtered a bit, too, with Jakob Poeltl being the only source of offense for a long stretch of time. Fred VanVleet and Delon Wright kept looking for him, and Poeltl cruised to 10 first-half points on perfect shooting, finishing a number of tough dives and nifty Wright feeds.
The bench did let some of the team’s grip on the game slip, but the Raptors re-established with the starters late in the half. Anunoby continued his strong work, DeRozan got going a little bit, and despite 11 turnovers, Toronto went into the break up 12. It was a half built on defense where they matched Indiana’s physicality throughout and didn’t get rattled by Lance Stephenson or a minor free-throw inequity, the game feeling similar to the playoff-like Boston meeting in stylistic terms (albeit just a hair prettier). It’s true that a fair amount of the success was poor Indiana shot-making – Domantas Sabonis missed some good looks, the Pacers shot 3-of-10 on threes and 23.7 percent (!) on twos – though the Raptors earned a lot of their 66.9 first-half defensive rating, with Anunoby and Ibaka in particular continuing their notable recent progress.
The second half wasn’t quite as seamless. Lowry and DeRozan remained off their games as scorers, neither responding particularly well to some increased pressure from Indiana. At the very least, they turned their focus to playamking, with Valanciunas being rewarded for a deep post seal, Anunoby picking up an easy dump-off, and Ibaka finishing a transition alley-oop. The slower offense didn’t hamper Toronto from pulling away, anyway, as Indiana continued struggling to put points on the board. Once shots dropped – threes from Lowry and Ibaka sandwiched another great contest from Poeltl against Sabonis – the Raptors were up 20.
Casey rode four of the starters almost the entire third quarter to put things away, and they did just that. The earlier three seemed to get Lowry going, and he turned in a few KLOE minutes to start pulling away further. Ibaka hit two more jumpers – Ibaka finding his stroke from mid- and long-range certainly feels important, and he set his Raptor-high for scoring in this one – and Toronto was able to bump that gap to 23 entering the fourth.
“Making the simple decisions, being decisive with the ball,” Casey said of Ibaka’s strong play. “The offensive end is new to Serge, he’s a weapon, he’s developed that, like a lot players as they go through the league they develop at the offensive end. He’s a definite three-point shooter but now teams are running at him and he’s doing a better job of making decisions.”
It set up as a January game, the Raptors handily taking care of a good team and being able to turn things over to their bench to close out without over-working their primary pieces. That’s more or less perfect – the Raptors are a little hesitant to rest players full games and get out of rhythm before the playoffs, and taking care of business emphatically and keeping everyone under 30 minutes is a great way to serve both ends. That’s especially important because they once again downplayed the idea of multi-game rest en masse over the next week. Briefly, it looked like the bench might slip enough to make the endgame worth worrying about, but they quickly put that concern to, uhh, rest.
“Obviously, we know we didn’t play our best a few weeks ago. But that seems like so long ago now,” VanVleet said. “The other day, whatever. Last week. But, yeah, there’s ups and downs like that. You try to bounce back and get back to the fundamentals. I thought we did that against Boston and we did that tonight. And hopefully we’ll keep it rolling going into the playoffs.”
Lucas Nogueira made a mid-fourth appearance to help close things out, and a Pacers timeout with six minutes to go, stuck 19, felt like the de facto ending of the game. They emptied their bench given it was the second night of a back-to-back, and the Raptors don’t have a garbage-time lineup to deploy, so they rode with Bebe-and-bench, then got Norman Powell some extended run as well. Al Jefferson proved a problem inside, one that came too little and too late, albeit predictably after the last meeting between these teams. The close-out was rote from there, a full 12-man effort in one of the team’s better performances standing as a fitting tribute to how they’ve tried to define success over this five-year run.
The talk quickly turned to the future after the game, no Raptor willing to dwell too long on the regular-season laurels being thrown their way.
“It’s gratification but you’re not satisfied, that’s the way I like to put it,” Casey said. “We haven’t got to where our ultimate goal (is).”
Some wouldn’t entertain the accomplishments much at all.
“Journey’s not over. Next question,” Lowry said.
If nothing else, the Raptors have looked much better prepared for the most crucial part of that journey over the last two games, assuaging some anxiety that that a late-season malaise on the defensive end was anything more than psychological. There’s still plenty of work to be done, they’ve just done more or less every last shred of it they can do in a regular season, the best of those in franchise history.
