Positivity is overrated, especially when it’s all the rage. At a time when everyone and their grandmother is proclaiming the Raptors to be special and the best team in franchise history, it’s boring to write another piece about why the Raptors are good. So let’s dig into two interconnected weaknesses after five games. To be clear, the Raptors have played like a 60+ win team, cruising to a 5-0 record to start the season. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
Transition
For all the preseason musings about the Raptors lighting the world on fire in transition, it just hasn’t happened yet. After scoring 26.4 points per game off of turnovers in preseason, the Raptors are down to a middling 16.8 points per game. (Part of this, of course is that preseason is always played at a faster pace than the regular season. But there’s more going on.) Though they are scoring relatively efficiently in transition, they are 10th in the league in terms of frequency at getting out into the fast break, and they’re 11th in frequency off of live-ball steals. That’s a far cry from expectations coming into the season.
So what’s happening? The Raptors as a team are only collecting 6.6 steals a game, which is closer to last in the league than it is first. Thought Lowry (1.6), Leonard (1.3), and Green (1.0) are slightly above average in terms of steals per game for their position, nobody else on the team is doing a great job stealing the ball. The team defence is fantastic, with players digging on drives, recovering, rotating, and altogether jamming up opponents. That the defence is strong shows that they haven’t sacrificed positioning for live-ball turnovers. I thought they would be able to do both, but they haven’t yet. This isn’t a major problem, but it’s worth noting.
When the Raptors do get the ball in transition, some of their most active players have shot poorly. Though Kawhi Leonard leads the team with 26 points in 21 possessions, the next three highest-frequency transition shooters – Serge Ibaka, Fred Van Vleet, and Danny Green – are scoring just one point-per-possession or fewer. That’s horrible efficiency, with 21 teams all scoring more efficiently on the break than those three players.
The real problem in the Raptors’ transition game is that they just haven’t committed to one. The ebullient Pascal Siakam has only used six transition possessions in five games, which speaks to another weakness of the Raptors: rebounding. Siakam has been asked to spend more time rebounding than running because of the players beside which he’s played. Siakam has played 69 possessions alongside Jonas Valanciunas and 343 next to Serge Ibaka. Those minutes alongside Ibaka have been terrific overall, but they have wasted Siakam’s incredible ability in transition.
Because of Ibaka’s limitations as a defensive rebounder, the Raptors have only attempted transition on 14.8 percent of possessions with Ibaka playing center. When Valanciunas is in the game, that number jumps to 18.2 percent. Valanciunas has been the only fantastic rebounder thus far for the Raptors, and when he’s not in the game, the Raptors have focused on gang-rebounding instead of transition scoring.
Here, Siakam could easily sprint past the shooter and beat everyone down the court. Instead he casually hits the defensive glass, despite all five Toronto players being able to secure the rebound. When Siakam hauls in the board, no Toronto player is past his own free-throw line, all but eliminating any transition opportunities. Clearly, the team is prioritizing defensive rebounding over transition attempts. Let’s look at why.
Rebounding
The Raptors are rebounding horribly as a team, giving up a league-wide fourth-highest 30.6 percent offensive rebound rate to opposing teams. Opposing coaches think they can beat the Raptors on the glass, and it’s been showing; the Raptors have had by far the toughest time cleaning their defensive glass in the league. 34.8 percent of the Raptors defensive rebounds on the season have been contested. Only one other team has had 30 percent or more defensive rebounds contested, and two teams have only had to battle for fewer than 10 percent.
Teams are crashing the offensive glass against Toronto, but the Raptors haven’t been battling effectively. They’ve only had a chance to haul in only 56.8 percent of their own defensive rebounds, which is a disaster; the league-leaders have had an opportunity to board 80 percent or more of opponents’ misses. This shouldn’t be the case: the Raptors are fourth in the league in box-outs per game, and they lead the league in allowing the lowest percentage of open shots.
Clearly, there is a disconnect. The Raptors are forcing bad shots and boxing out, but they can’t secure easy rebounds.
When Minnesota played against Toronto, eight of the nine players who entered the game notched at least one offensive rebound. Rookie guard Josh Okogie tallied five. Here, the Raptors seem to assume Okogie will score, so they don’t fight for the rebound again and again and again while Ibaka looks on sketchily.
Here Siakam and CJ Miles miss box outs, allowing Minnesota bigs free access to perfect rebounding position.
There is a combination of factors. Toronto was lazy on certain plays, and players need to protect rebounding position better. Ibaka needs to be able to contest shots and stay in defensive rebounding position, which is a defensive ability that Valanciunas has in spades. The problem goes beyond execution, however, into the tactical. Minnesota sent players to the offensive glass, thinking they could hurt Toronto. They did. Minnesota scored 17 second-chance points. Toronto, on the other hand, only scored 15 points on the fast-break. Minnesota’s gamble paid off.
Toronto doesn’t have a stable of elite defensive rebounders. When Ibaka and Siakam are the team’s bigs, Kawhi Leonard is the team’s best defensive rebounder on the floor. But teams don’t need waves of elite defensive rebounders to clean their own glass. Golden State rosters exactly zero elite rebounding centers (maybe Draymond Green), yet they lead the league with the lowest percentage of defensive rebounds that are contested and are second-highest in the league in having chances at their own defensive rebounds. The Warriors have no singly dominant glass-eater, but they somehow manage to easily control their defensive glass.
My theory is that teams are frightened of Golden State in transition. They are so terrified of Klay Thompson and Steph Curry bombs that they don’t send offensive rebounders to the glass; everyone has to get back. Paradoxically, Toronto could rebound better by just running some gang rebounders in transition instead. They won’t lose the war if teams are too afraid to battle in the first place.
Toronto could unleash Siakam, Leonard, Lowry, and others in transition. Run on every miss, and score 20, 30, more points in transition. Look at the first clip in this piece, where Siakam hauls in a defensive rebound.
It ended up being uncontested, but Charlotte did send a rebounder to skulk around just in case. No one on Charlotte hustled back on defence. If Siakam had sprinted past the shooter, he would have an easy layup from an outlet pass. Do that multiple times a game, and teams will be too scared to send rebounders in the first place.
Not everyone has to run, and not everyone has to rebound. The Raptors have tried to solve the problem by having all five players rebound, but it hasn’t worked. Instead of having a blazing transition game, the Raptors are middling in transition and the fourth-worst in the league on their own defensive glass. Perhaps if they split their forces, both problems will solve themselves.
