With Kawhi Leonard managing his workload, Jonas Valanciunas on the mend, and OG Anunoby still taking care of things with his family, the Raptors faced an uphill battle against the Eastern Conference’s third best team, the Indiana Pacers. The Pacers have been one of the league’s best teams since December. Even with Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner missing some time, the Pacers remained a stiff defensive team and players like Bojan Bogdanovic and Thaddeus Young have been playing great basketball this year, lifting the Pacers floor. The league’s second best defense has returned to full health in the past two weeks, with Turner making his return in a mask. On the second night of a back-to-back, at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, with the Pacers on 2 days rest, this one was never going to be easy.
The first quarter was a rude awakening for the Raptors on offense, specifically for Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet. ‘Thad’ Young has been great on defense this year, and his physical profile is one that gives him a unique ability to guard Siakam. The whole night, but especially in the first quarter, Siakam struggled to create for himself offensively. There was a lot of dribbling on his behalf, backing out, surveying and probing to no avail. This was exacerbated when Kyle Lowry checked out in the first quarter, leaving the offense in the hands of Siakam and VanVleet. The Raptors went through a dry spell, getting outscored 9-2 in the time that Lowry was on the bench. Rough stuff.
Nurse’s game-plan for Turner was a pretty clever and dynamic switching of Ibaka-Siakam-Lowry. The early returns were really promising as they forced the ball out of Turner’s and Oladipo’s hands and into Young’s. When Young and Turner were stacked on the strong-side, the Raptors were able to front Turner. Turner is a lot to handle when he brings it, and his effort was palpable last night. When Monroe entered the game in the first, Turner went gangbusters, thoroughly outplaying ‘Moose’, who had a pretty rough night. He was also bullied on the inside by super-sub Domantas Sabonis.
In the second quarter – after Monroe left the game – the Raptors went back to the dynamic guard oriented post-up defense. A couple quick buckets from CJ Miles brought the game back a little bit and the teams exchanged runs. The big news was the unfortunate injury that happened to Oladipo. When Oladipo gave chase to Siakam in transition, his right knee seemed to give out, causing a knee injury. As of right now, the Pacers fear that he’ll need season-ending surgery on his right knee. It was horrible to see, and hopefully he returns to full health as soon as possible.
The Pacers did a decent job of pushing forward after ‘Dipo’s’ injury, not letting the emotions of the situation allow them to forgo the lead they built, heading into halftime with a 12-point advantage. From there, Nurse decided that Monroe wouldn’t see the floor again, and with the guards doing a bang-up job down low, gave his minutes to Patrick McCaw.
After a shaky start to the third quarter, Nurse opted to try out an old classic – Lowry + bench. McCaw played incredibly stout defense and Powell provided some serious scoring punch, while Lowry kept his above average offensive night going. Powell was shooting 60-percent from downtown in the 5-games leading up to this one and did not disappoint from downtown last night. Finishing with a sterling 3-6 mark from beyond the arc. This line-up did a terrific job of forcing the ball out of the hands of the Pacers big men, and getting on the glass above all else. The defense was great in this quarter, save for a bit of fouling that led to 8 points from the charity stripe for the Pacers.
The fourth quarter was a preview of what we might expect from the Raptors playoff offense in the half-court. Sans Kawhi Leonard, of course. Ibaka played the whole fourth quarter, and fed the Pacers a steady diet of mid-range jumpers and well timed dives to the basket. The Pacers had no answer for him down the stretch and he shredded their defense. 11 points in the quarter with a healthy dose of assists as well (3). Delon Wright and Kyle Lowry were more than happy to find him on the short-roll and the pop. This opened up a lot of space at the rim – space that was previously walled off by Turner – providing VanVleet in particular, driving lanes. Ibaka pulled Turner away from the rim on one end, and denied him access at the other. The Raptors late charge was in large part because of Ibaka’s stellar play.
Unfortunately, while Ibaka was taking care of Turner, Siakam and the guards had their hands full with Young. With the lion-share of attention going to his front-court partner, Young poured in 12-points in the quarter. In fact, the most important bucket for the Pacers came when Lowry was unable to stop Young from getting to his left hand for a late score. On a night like last night, you throw everything you can at the opposing squad, McCaw at power forward, Siakam at center, Lowry defending in the post. Sometimes it just isn’t enough. Clever as the scheme was to move the ball away from Turner and Sabonis, Young put forward one of his best games of the year and displayed an insatiable appetite for rebounds (15) and great shot-making. The Raptors chose the matchup they wanted to allow, and sometimes life is tough.
Even though the Raptors lost, we saw a sizeable step from Lowry as far as regaining his offensive potency is concerned, another promising night from the bench – excluding Monroe – and Siakam getting out-gamed by a player with a similar physical profile and hunger for the basket, an important stepping stone, I’m sure. Most importantly though, the Raptors showed off great resiliency, playing a multitude of different styles and finding a modicum of success in more than one. This team is Finals or bust, after all. There’s no shame in seeing new looks, finding what works. Leonard and Valanciunas are on the horizon, two players who are incredibly important to this team. The Raptors will find their form, but in games like this, they find their gumption.
Have a blessed day.
