The fatigue was evident on the Raptors as Washington chipped away, bucking any idea that Brooks’ ejection was the start of a meltdown. Instead, they rallied around Beal, who was suddenly a house afire, talking endlessly to the Raptors bench as he hit big shot after big shot. He scored 12 of his 32 points in the fourth quarter and came up with a big block on Danny Green, then eventually handed the reins to Wall, who scored or assisted on the Wizards’ final 12 points as they got back within two.
Ultimately, the Raptors hung on, but not before a little bit of valuable close-out experience and affording new head coach Nick Nurse some late-game reps. Obviously, with the Wizards going on a 24-13 run over the back half of the fourth quarter, things were imperfect beyond just some tired legs. Lowry, who had been in full KLOE mode for large swaths of the evening, perhaps forced things a bit late without the team’s unquestioned No. 1 option alongside him. Nurse tried going super-small with Siakam at centre (something the team hadn’t even practiced yet) opposite Markieff Morris at the five — the rare lineup in which a tiny Raptors group doesn’t have a pronounced rebounding disadvantage — only for Siakam to promptly foul out. Nurse even drew up a nice out-of-timeout play late, and the inbound pass squibbed between Serge Ibaka’s legs, nearly costing the Raptors the game before Fred VanVleet recovered the loose ball and hurriedly flung a dagger through the rim.
It was how the Raptors built a double-digit lead initially that is perhaps more telling for the season ahead. Those late-game reps are important; they’ll just almost always come with Leonard available when the games matter. Wright’s presence will be meaningful, too, as most of Toronto’s bench units have struggled to create offence. Nurse’s adjustments and the team’s responses against Washington are telling.
Nick Nurse’s 30-year path to head coach of the Raptors – Sportsnet
The search for outgoing coach Dwane Casey’s replacement had taken the better part of a month and reportedly involved at least seven serious candidates. Nurse’s name was in the mix right from the beginning, but both publicly and privately he’s said he wasn’t bothered by the wait; he had the patience of a man who knew his time was gonna come sooner or later. “I don’t really know how to tell you this, right, but in the last five years, I had 1,000 people, at least, tell me I was going to be a head coach in this league,” he says, pausing for a beat before delivering the punchline. “And then those same thousand people were surprised when I got the job.”
It took Nurse 11 years to go from a near-completely unknown rookie head coach in the NBA D-League to a relatively unknown rookie head coach in the NBA proper, and judging by the amount he accomplished in that time, he didn’t take a whole lot of days off. In four seasons with the Iowa Energy (2007–11) and another two with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, he racked up the second-most regular-season wins in league history (183) and the most playoff victories (15), took home the Dennis Johnson Coach of the Year Award in 2011, and became the first and only person to lead two different teams to the D-League title. When all of that success earned him his first NBA job with the Raptors in 2013, he lived in the film room and on the practice courts for years and eventually led an overhaul of the team’s attack that saw Toronto rank second in the NBA last season by offensive rating, behind only the Houston Rockets.
The effectiveness of the Raptors offence under Nurse didn’t surprise Curtis Stinson, who played for the coach all four seasons in Iowa and was named D-League MVP in 2011. “I’ve been in game situations with him where we were down five points with like 15 seconds left and won the game. Because he’s calm, and he knows he’s got his timeouts, he knows he can draw up a play and he can get us a quick shot,” Stinson says. “It’s the best feeling in the world ’cuz you don’t feel rattled, you know? You’re like, ‘Ah, man, we’re gonna lose.’ And then he draws up a play and you’re like, ‘Whoa!’
“After a while it got to the point where it was like — ‘Timeout! Timeout!’ We’re running to the huddle: ‘What we got coach?’ You know what I mean? He earned our respect.”
Connecting with players is a constant challenge for G-League coaches (the NBA changed the name of its developmental league in 2017). Many G-Leaguers, as Chris Finch points out, are “at the most vulnerable point in their career,” and the roster shuffling as guys are called up to and sent down from NBA clubs leads to both a lack of consistency in terms of who’s in the locker room and a regular source of potential conflict within it. Twenty-seven players saw the court for Nurse’s first Iowa Energy team — nearly double an average NBA roster. Over the course of his six-year stint in the league, his teams averaged 23 players per season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoLxCEl0Tls
Raptors’ Siakam sees something special within reach | The Star [subscription]
On a bad team, Siakam would be force-fed 35 minutes and the ball. With the Raptors, if he plays with Leonard and Kyle Lowry, the MVP candidate and the all-star, they get proper priority. Anunoby shoots better. Leonard, as he showed against the Celtics, is all-world. Lowry is in charge. Others eat first.
The trick with getting the opportunity in Toronto is, it could limit the opportunity.
“Depending on who I’m playing with,” says Siakam. “Like if I’m playing with the second unit I can have more freedom, to have the ball more. Because Fred (VanVleet) is a great ball handler and Fred always trusts me to have the ball in my hands, Delon (Wright) and all of them know. But when you play with Kawhi, Kawhi has the ball, that’s his game, he has to create. And you just have to choose your spots.”
Could Siakam could become the best-ever African perimeter player after veteran Luol Deng of South Sudan? He isn’t old enough to have seen Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo become the first African NBA stars. He has seen Joel Embiid, though.
“Joel is unbelievable,” says Siakam. “Because you know, the narrative with African players is we are all role players, right? And seeing a guy like Joel, he’s the franchise. It makes you dream and want to step out of the box a little bit.“It’s interesting because I always say that we were unlucky a little bit with Hakeem and Dikembe because they came at a time of no internet, no social media, none of this hoopla that would have given them a bigger audience, especially on the continent,” says Ujiri. “So we missed out on some years there. And then came the generation of Luol and Serge (Ibaka) and Mbah a Moute and Bismack (Biyombo).
Raptors Woz Blog: Lowry still driving wins in crunch time | Toronto Sun
– Through three games Toronto’s offence doesn’t look all that fluid. A lot of sets are breaking down and resulting in one-on-one heroics. That’s to be expected. A new cast of characters, Kawhi Leonard commaning the lion’s share of shots one night, sitting out entirely the next and so forth. The bench has looked a bit lost without Delon Wright (especially when Pascal Siakam was with the starters), but even despite the stumbles, Toronto still had a stellar 114.6 offensive rating through three games (sample size alert! But Houston led the NBA at 114.0 last year). The Raptors also boasted one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in the league, so maybe we are over-analyzing the issues?
– Kyle Lowry’s been a driver of wins in Toronto for a long time now. It seems like when games require plays to be made at crucial moments, Lowry has a knack like few other players in the league to get it done.
“ You’ll get in a four-minute flurry, (Lowry will) bang in a three, a take and a charge, a battle on the floor and making a layup,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “When he’s in those he’s good. That’s why he’s an all-star.” Lowry’s already taken four charges and bulled his way to the hoop at the other end for layups.
– Some people melted down a bit about Kawhi Leonard getting the night off. Chill, y’all. It makes zero sense to push Leonard right now. He’s barely played since January, this season is all about what happens in the spring, so might as well ease him back into the grind of the NBA schedule. And when I asked Nick Nurse whether Leonard would sit some of the games in November (three back-to-backs) he indicated that while he wasn’t sure yet, it probably wouldn’t be a long-term thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XuxdPbvn2M
Raptors like Valanciunas, Siakam all smiles despite lack of minutes to go around | Toronto Sun
When the Raptors return to full strength and start dropping a few games, it will be fascinating to see how Nurse and his staff hold everything together and how they can maintain the buy-in from everyone and keep camaraderie high.
“There’s a long way to go and there’s a lot of stresses in these seasons,” Nurse had said beforehand when asked how he’s settling into his new role as the man in charge.
Siakam seems to be the Raptors prospect who has most captivated the attention of NBA Twitter. He started in Friday’s home victory over Boston and came off the bench in a stellar 10 point, 10 rebound effort against the Wizards in a season-best 27 minutes.
Siakam even spent some time at centre for the first time all season before fouling out in the fourth quarter.
Starter, reserve, it doesn’t matter much to the third-year energizer.
“I know we have a deep team, new coach, trying to figure things out,” Siakam told Postmedia.
“I just want to play, man. I just want to hoop.”
With a whopping eight games on the way over the next 15 days, Siakam will surely get a chance to do just that, along with most of his teammates. Three veterans (Leonard, Kyle Lowry and Danny Green) have averaged north of 32 minutes a game so far, six others at least 15.
The rotation will tighten up as the playoffs get closer, but for now, it’s all hands on deck.
Monday NBA preview: Charlotte Hornets at Toronto Raptors | The Star [subscription]
Toronto has used three different starting lineups in three games this season, so things could change again on Monday night … The Raptors still list guard Delon Wright as questionable with a left adductor strain … The game marks the return of former Raptors head coach Jay Triano, who is now the lead assistant to Charlotte’s James Borrego … Borrego is familiar with a couple of key Raptors, having been an assistant in San Antonio when Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green played there.
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