Kawhi Leonard did not get off to a great start by any stretch of the imagination. After claiming the first rebound of the game off a Cleveland Cavaliers miss, he dribbled the basketball with those large mitts across the timeline to a round of applause and received a screen from Jonas Valanciunas. After using it to gain some separation from Cedi Osman, he had the opportunity to rise up for a mid-range jumper that would have been a poetic beginning to the post-DeMar DeRozan era, but instead, didn’t trust that he created enough room or the lift he’d have if he raised up and passed the ball out to Danny Green to reset.
Perhaps knowing that he should have been more decisive on the first opportunity, he called for a screen from Pascal Siakam and got himself an advantageous switch on Kevin Love. A step-back jumper, a miss. Leonard had a few possessions where it looked as though he was going to his pet moves to get himself going, but the shot wouldn’t fall. He had a couple of defensive possessions where he cheated off his man and gave up open threes as well, but no one panics when it’s all part of the plan.
Playing an NBA game of relevance for the first time in 277 days, shaking off rust was always going to be a part of the process for the 27-year-old. If the Toronto Raptors are going to indeed contend for a championship this season, they need their best player at his very peak. Nick Nurse could have taken him out, had a conversation about maybe letting the game come to him a bit more, pointed out a thing or two he could have done differently. He didn’t. Leonard played the first 11 minutes of the game and got himself into a bit of a rhythm in those latter few minutes.
Another player who arguably received a longer leash than expected was Serge Ibaka. Moved to the bench in favour of Pascal Siakam, Ibaka played 27 minutes to Valanciunas’ 20 despite missing his first seven shots and struggling with the defensive rotations early. Patience has worn thin among the public in terms of how the Congolese veteran is viewed after a disappointing regular season and a complete disappearing act in the playoffs in 2017-18, but, truth be told, the Raptors also need him. Certainly not to the extent that they will need Leonard, but on a team that doesn’t have an established third star, the whole of what everyone outside of Kyle Lowry and Kawhi provides will be vital towards Toronto’s championship cause.
It’s quite possible that if Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue didn’t make the move to go small in the fourth quarter after Valanciunas was re-inserted, Ibaka would have played about 22 minutes to the Lithuanian’s 25. Nurse wanted to play the matchups, made all the players aware of his plan, and was grateful that his two most expensive bigs bought in.
“I liked the acceptance of JV and Serge to play their roles,” Nurse said after the game. “They tried to sneak us and go small there late out of a timeout, and I’d just put JV back in less than a minute ago and I told him before the game, ‘that’s what they’re gonna do, they’re gonna go to a time out and you have just entered.’ In the past, we might not have made that switch because it was kind of JV’s rotation but [Ibaka] went in there and didn’t let Love get off any three balls to kinda get further back in the game.”
Nurse’s willingness to point out what might not have been done last season is noteworthy, and while he may have been champing at the bit to make those changes a year ago, he has full authority to do so now. He’s fully committed to his process, which is what you want to see out of a first-year head coach. It’s all well and good to say the right things, but he’s got to show the conviction to do so in games on a nightly basis. That’s how players buy in.
Ibaka finished the game strong, and ultimately, if you give him the missed wide open dunk, the right hook he’ll make more often than not and just one of the mid-range jumpers he missed (he shot 51 percent from the mid-range last season, good for the 92nd percentile among big men, per Cleaning the Glass), you’re looking at a 15-point outing on 50 percent shooting to go along with his seven rebounds, three blocks and two steals. The point here is that these were generally good looks that didn’t fall on this night.
Again, Nurse could have stuck with Valanciunas bearing the factors mentioned earlier in mind, but stuck to his game plan and was eventually rewarded. The commitment is important in earning that trust and ensuring his words don’t fall on deaf ears over time.
“Will we try stuff and maybe tinker a little bit, and will it cost us? Maybe, but it’d be a small price to pay for some growth later on,” Nurse told the media at practice the day before the game.
What applies on opening night won’t necessarily carry over into Friday against Boston or January against San Antonio’s two bigs, or against LeBron James at the five. Outside of the starting lineup, no unit played together for more than four minutes at a time, which means that it’s going to take some time for the data to become plausible, the chemistry to develop, and player expectations for each night to normalize. The rigidity of a starting unit and a Bench Mob is gone.
Even if a newly minted five-man-unit fails, it’s important to let them have the opportunity to figure things out and show that they either can or can’t over a decent sample size. Like Phil Jackson not calling a timeout when his team’s struggling and daring them to embrace a hostile atmosphere or fight through their struggles, you’ve got to take the training wheels off and be willing to watch your kid take a fall here and there till they get it right.
Once they do, you’re looking at a pretty smooth ride.
