First, a few thoughts on the loss to the Houston Rockets. The bad news is that Houston proved that the Raptors’ offence can be limited by great coaching. The Rockets used a playoff-style defence, with a number of tactics that differentiated from a vanilla, regular season base package.
First, the Rockets put James Harden on Pascal Siakam. Harden is an elite post defender, and he easily handled a few of Siakam’s post-up attempts early. He’s not the quickest defender for a guard, but he doesn’t have a speed disadvantage on the perimeter against Siakam. Most teams don’t have a defender with the unique skillset of Harden, but the concept is to put a stout guard on Siakam and let him isolate. Quick hands, more than physicality, is likely the best defence against Siakam’s quick-twitch post spins and fakes.
Houston also happily switched bigs onto Kyle Lowry and let him work. Lowry couldn’t create any space against Kenneth Faried. That’s a problem, although the team did a much better job leveraging some advantage in the second half by having Lowry drive or dish immediately after the switch. Still, he needs to be able to create an advantage in the pick-and-roll, or the Raptors’ offence becomes single-faceted. Kawhi Leonard got his, but Houston let him work against single coverage in the midrange. Leonard scored efficiently, but Toronto needs to find more diversity when he’s in the lineup (and they seem to find it easily enough when Leonard sits). If Leonard isolations constitute the entirety of the Raptors’ offence, then Toronto will run into trouble matching high-powered offences in the playoffs like the Milwaukee Bucks.
The good news is that Toronto only used a plain, vanilla defence against Houston. They started each player at his own position on defence and didn’t really try anything fancy against Harden. They didn’t pre-switch screens to keep Rox guards from attacking the paint downhill against overmatched bigs; they didn’t stagger starters in the first half, and those all-bench minutes were a huge minus in a close loss; they didn’t let Leonard guard Harden (Green, to be fair, was doing a great job); they didn’t even run creative offensive sets. They dialed up their aggression and scored well in transition after the first quarter, which brought them back into the game. However, Toronto kept a lot of its tactical ammunition dry. That’s very encouraging, and the Raptors will have much funkier stuff when they need it. Boiling this down to the simplest point: Houston treated this like a playoff game, and Toronto didn’t. Don’t be over-concerned with the loss, even if it did show some cracks.
Now, Dallas. At 22-26, they’re sitting at 12th in the West, but don’t let that fool you. They are 18-6 at home with a better home plus-minus (5.9) than Toronto has on the road (2.1). They’ve been losing a lot since the middle of December, but they’re coming off of important home wins against the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Clippers. The Mavericks are very good at home, have no doubt. So what’s there to it?
Dallas is the Luka Doncic show! This Houston road trip is apparently just about playing against wings in name and point guards in practice who are some of the most fun isolation players in the league. Doncic just scored 32 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists against the Pistons, who boast a number of sizeable wings who are theoretically defenders. Doncic is a step-back wizard, and at his best he can spray the ball around the court with the verve of LeBron James. However, there’s much more to the team than Doncic.
The Mavericks have a terrific bench. Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell are elite bigs coming off the bench who offer very different dynamics. Kleber is a smart wall of a man who rebounds well and blocks shots, and Powell is as bouncy as they come. Their guards, like Devin Harris, are similarly heady players. Their bench groups have some of their best plus-minuses as full lineups, and Toronto could be in trouble if they match all-bench with all-bench.
For Toronto, this is an important game, even if it’s not against a team with the profile of the Houston Rockets. They are coming off a loss, so it’s always important to rally, especially with Milwaukee on a six-game winning streak. Dallas is just the type of team to pounce on those with better records who falter.
The game tips at 7 PM ET on TSN for TV and TSN 1050 for radio. Samson Folk wrote a fantastic preview that you can read here.
Toronto Updates
Jonas Valanciunas (thumb) remains out, but Danny Green will suit up despite left hand soreness. Lowry and Leonard will continue building their chemistry together. Delon Wright received his first DNP-CD of the season against Houston, and we’ll find out if that was a matchup decision or a result of the number crunch.
PG: Kyle Lowry, Fred Van Vleet, Delon Wright
SG: Danny Green, Norman Powell, Malachi Richardson
SF: Kawhi Leonard, OG Anunoby, CJ Miles, Patrick McCaw
PF: Pascal Siakam
C: Serge Ibaka, Greg Monroe
Mavericks Updates
JJ Barea (achilles) remains out.
PG: Dennis Smith Jr., Devin Harris, Jalen Brunson
SG: Wesley Matthews, Ryan Broekhoff
SF: Luka Doncic, Dorian Finney-Smith
PF: Harrison Barnes, Dwight Powell
C: Deandre Jordan, Maxi Kleber, Dirk Nowitzki, Salah Mejri
The Line:
The line is holding steady at Toronto -4.5, which feels trappish. Toronto is tired, and Dallas is excellent at home. The over-under is 220.5.
