Well, that was a bit of a roller coaster. The Toronto Raptors jumped out to an enormous first-quarter lead against the Washington Wizards, looked like they were going to cruise to an easy victory, nearly coughed it all up, and then pulled away emphatically late. At the end, they were on the right end of a 130-119 final and are now up 2-0 in a series for the first time in franchise history. Exhale.
“I liked the way the starters responded,’ Dwane Casey said after the game. “Our second unit has gotta come in with a sense of urgency and some toughness that they’ve shown all year. We can’t run up the minutes for our starters extensively. They had some good moments but not enough. Not enough. Not enough. I liked the way the starters came in. I liked the way Serge battled down the stretch. Kyle and DeMar did an excellent job. But we’ve gotta get some more guys to join the party.”
They’ll need more contributions, though it’s hard to see them scoring more than 130 points, including franchise postseason records for points in a quarter (44) and a half (76). They’ve hit 29 threes and dished 50 assists over two games, playing 13 different players, and checking all of the culture reset boxes, but there’s still plenty of room for tightening the rotation and improving the execution, especially on the defensive end, where Washington flirted with 50-percent shooting again and got their wish with a tighter whistle both ways.
The Wizards are doing their best to put a strong front forward, even if their body language on the court has sometimes betrayed it. Asked if the Wizards felt they were in trouble, John Wall downplayed the idea, leaning on the team’s experiences being on both sides of 2-0. Something something the series doesn’t start until one team loses at home.
“No, I wouldn’t say trouble,” Wall said. “Every series is different. Every year the playoffs are always different. Last year we were up 2-0 going into Atlanta and they took care of business on home court and we went down to Boston and were down 2-0 and came back home and took care of what we’re supposed to do at home. We have to definitely make adjustments, they’re a team that’s going to be hungry, probably, in a Game 3, trying take full advantage. We have to be a team that’s hungry, trying to take advantage of home court one game at a time.”
The Raptors are going to prepare as if the Wizards will be more desperate than they’re making out.
“We have to amplify everything we’ve done,” C.J. Miles said. “We have to. They’re gonna play better at home. They’re gonna shoot better at home. They’re gonna have their crowd. Down 2-0, it’s a big game.”
The New Matrix
DeMar DeRozan’s best career playoff game to date probably came in a Game 3 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers last year. In that game – on my birthday! – he scored 37 points on 12-of-23 shooting without Kyle Lowry by his side. The difficulty in that one was probably a little higher, but his performance in Game 2 might top it overall – DeRozan tied that career high with 37 points, once again did so on just 23 shots (14-of-23) and on only 29 used possessions (same as the last game), only this time he also added five rebounds and four assists (compared to two and three).
It was a masterful example of all the ways in which DeRozan can now punish a team in the pick-and-roll, which I wrote about earlier Tuesday. Continue to trap was Washington prefers to and DeRozan will make the right read and find the safety valve, and the bigs have consistently been making plays in those situations. Trap ineffectively and DeRozan can split the defense and get to the rim. Ditch the trap and drop-back and he’ll unleash pull-up jumpers. Trail over the screen and Washington doesn’t have nearly the rim protection to stop him from scoring. Those are the reads and reactions and manipulations that present themselves as options when the game slows down to science-fiction degrees.
Yes, science fiction. Asked if the game is slowing down to him, DeRozan finally found an analogy Lowry agreed with.
DeRozan: Yeah, I’m like Neo now.
Lowry (slams fist on table): That was good. Wow.
DeRozan (motions at Lowry): That’s Morpheus.
There was also this:
Friendship pic.twitter.com/ASqHfkUA33
— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) April 18, 2018
DeRozan wasn’t the only player who had a great offensive night here – every Raptors starter graded from good to excellent and C.J. Miles and Delon Wright were great off the bench once again – but DeRozan’s night was up there for the best individual performances in Raptors playoff history.
“Super on the offensive end. We needed every point,” Dwane Casey said. “He showed offensive toughness, they were into him, they were doing a lot of switching, he attacked their feet. We figured that’s what they were probably gonna do and he did a good job of attacking it, attacking the blitzes early in the game, just all-around reading. That’s just through his maturity. He’s grown a lot from that standpoint. Two years ago, I don’t know what he would have done. He did an excellent job of reading what the defense was doing to him and making ’em pay.”
Injury Updates
- Fred VanVleet played just 2:49 of this one, missing a three and committing a turnover before getting the hook for the night. Dwane Casey chalked the decision to keep him out up to VanVleet looking tentative, with the medical staff wanting to give it another game. VanVleet was visibly upset but took it in stride:
- “Yeah, it’s frustrating. Obviously going into the postseason you just want to be healthy and give yourselves the best chance to play. I took a hit so I’m just trying to get back right from that and I thought I’d have a chance to go out and do that tonight but it just wasn’t quite right and I think the coaching staff, medical staff made a decision to get me out of there, so, you’ve got to respect it.”
- VanVleet now has another two-game break to get right. He’ll probably be listed as questionable heading into Game 3, and the Raptors aren’t practicing tomorrow so there may not be an update until Thursday. (It’s also possible there’s no update, he’s not on the injury report, and his status is more coaching decision than medical decision from here on out.)
Lineup Notes
- The Raptors starters were +9 in 17 minutes. For the series, they own a +24.7 net rating in 37 minutes. As fun as the depth was in Game 1 and a couple of key bench pieces were in Game 2, it’s been the starters taking control of games and dictating Toronto’s preferred style of play. The first half of first quarters have been terrific.
- Delon Wright with the starters in place of a very effective OG Anunoby were +12 in four minutes. Entering the season, that was one of my favorite potential closing lineups against teams with strong backcourts, but it never really clicked – they played to a .-3.9 net rating in 65 minutes. They have a +66.8 net rating in the playoffs so far. I’ll take that six-minute sample over the regular season one as personal validation.
- Conversely, the Wizards starters were-9 in just eight minutes and now have a -36.0 net rating in 26 minutes in the series.
- It’s dire enough that Scott Brooks suggested Mike Scott could potentially be a starting center.
- While that may have looked good here – Scott was a team-high plus-13 in 27 minutes, plenty of those coming at center – it’s a pretty big risk considering the damage Jonas Valanciunas has done against the Scott-Markieff Morris frontcourt.
- Dwane Casey said that the Raptors opted to close small because Washington was just too small with Scott at center and no other bigs on the floor, but did note that he foresees Valanciunas being able to stay on the floor guarding threes in the near future. He probably could have gone to it here with Valanciunas posting a preposterous +27 with a 19-14 double-double in 23 minutes.
- It’s dire enough that Scott Brooks suggested Mike Scott could potentially be a starting center.
- Washington’s best lineup actually had Ian Mahinmi at center, though I can’t imagine Brooks is going to play his all-bench group (+15 in 11 minutes somehow) as a common fivesome, given Toronto’s bench should bounce back and that lineup probably won’t shoot 13-of-20 again.
- Ty Lawson was really good here. He was a slight negative alongside the starting backcourt but in general provided some good pace and spacing for Wall. Now, whether it’s even a good idea to run against Toronto is another question.
- Similarly, I’m not sure Casey is going to be trying out the all-bench group with Lorenzo Brown in the VanVleet slot again, or with Brown and Lucas Nogueira out there together. Brown posted a -12 in seven minutes and Nogueira somehow managed a -19 in five minutes. I would not have guessed the latter possible, and there goes some of the goodwill he built in Game 1.
- Bradley Beal set a new record for the worst plus-minus by a Raptors playoff opponent at -34, beating Paul Pierce’s -31 when he was with the Nets. Markieff Morris had a -31 as well.
- Serge Ibaka tied a Raptors franchise record with a plus-31, matching Kyle Lowry’s Game 7 against the Heat.
Assorted
- Jonas Valanciunas tied Antonio Davis atop the franchise leaderboard with his 12th career playoff double-double. He got there in the first half.
- C.J. Miles has 30 points on 18 used possessions through two games and is 8-of-13 on threes. But don’t forget he missed a bunch of threes in the playoffs like a decade ago, so clearly he can’t perform in the postseason.
- The Raptors had 14 screen assists, up from 10 in Game 1 and their season average of 9.4. That’s a very good number. Kudos to the bigs once again in this one. Maybe Kobe Bryant will be kinder to their screening in the next Detail episode.
- Delon Wright believes his alley-oop in the fourth was the first of his NBA career. I can unofficially confirm based on an NBASavant search.
- A second happy birthday to Dwane Casey! Here’s a gift:
Look at Bradley Beal while Wall and Gortat argue lollll pic.twitter.com/91nGZ06xd8
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) April 18, 2018
Programming note: The Raptors are not having a practice with media availability tomorrow, so there may or may not be an afternoon notes post. I’m leaning towards no, unless there’s something notable from the injury report or Washington.
