Nothing annoyed me more than that Pistons defeat. Part of it was losing to Dwane Casey again, part of it was OG hesitating on that three for no good reason, and the rest of it was this comment by Casey when asked what it would mean facing the Raptors in the post-season:
“It would mean a lot. This is a storied franchise in Detroit. There are three championship trophies you see every time you walk into the building. It’s not like in Toronto, where they’ve never tasted it. The fans in Detroit, they know what a championship is all about, and it’s like, let’s get this thing back on track.”
Fuuuuck this guy for going sideways on the question and taking a shot at the fans for no good reason. There’s a part of me that hopes we lose to them on March 17 again and they come into the post-season thinking they can beat us, only for us to sweep. The Nets and Wizards did something similar to us and it sucked, and I want Casey to feel that suckage. Move over Paul Pierce, you got company.
Load Management (is that M uppercase?) continued in Detroit and cost us an otherwise winnable game. This tells you the Raptors prioritize health over home-court in a potential Game 7 against the Bucks. Health is over everything, and if you’ve seen Kyle Lowry limp along the past three post-seasons, you can see why managing Kawhi’s load is important. I wouldn’t even be shocked if his load got nursed in Game 3 of the playoffs if we’re up 2-0. However, having said all that, there’s a little to be said about getting these guys clicking before the post-season. Marc Gasol and Kyle Lowry seem to be aware of each other on the court, and their intrinsic basketball intelligence is producing tangible results. I’m not sure the same can be said about Kawhi Leonard, who continues to be his own thing within the team. He’s not a black hole because he’s quite efficient, and does pass when he gets stuck, but how often have we seem Leonard have “chemistry” with another player other than Danny Green?
Is it even a problem if Leonard, Gasol, and Lowry have limited time together before the post-season? On one hand, it makes logical sense for them to be maximizing time together, but on the other how much does Leonard click with anyone? The Raptors have a winning percentage of .719 and 46 wins, and this is with Kawhi’s offense being of a distinct variety than the rest of the team. How well this translates to the scrutiny of the post-season remains to be seen. Chances are that these three will log a lot of minutes together in the playoffs, so my natural thought would be for the Raptors to maximize their exposure to each other prior to that. On the flip side, maybe this is the element of surprise at play. Maybe the Raptors don’t want all three to play a lot together so that teams have less scouting opportunities heading into the playoffs. That sounds ass-backwards and highly risky, but it is a strategy. Not one I’d recommend, but one that helps explain load management in March.
Scanning the East, only one team would be favored in a series against the Raptors and it’s the Bucks. Indiana’s been a nice little surprise which has pitted Philly against Boston, which takes out one of them and puts the other in the path of the Bucks, giving us Indiana. I can live with that and call it even for facing the LeBrons last year. The universe has a way of angling itself to give you a break sometimes. The Bucks are deep and dangerous, and if I had to pick an X-Factor in a series against them, it’ll have to be Norman Powell. If he’s hitting his shot, he can stay on the floor, and if he can stay on the floor, he can be a disruptive pest that can muscle out Bledsoe and get in passing lanes to slow them down. A defensively 100% OG is a big factor as well, because he neuters their lesser wings and offers a healthy option when checking Giannis (or at least six decent fouls).
Kawhi checking Giannis is the matchup on paper and given the former’s defensive ability, you’d think it would work out in our favor. However, that strategy can only be used in bits and pieces, notably clutch situations, not as a permanent approach. In reality, it can work out against the Raptors because of potential foul trouble for both Kawhi and our bigs. If the Raptors are switching on screens, we’ll inevitably find ourselves in a Giannis/Gasol or Giannis/Ibaka face-up situations, and though we’ll try to scramble, fouls are a big risk. Giannis is third in the league with 9.2 FTA, only behind James Harden and Joel Embid. We do not want to give the refs a reason to blow us out of the game. Because they will.
As I’m writing this, I have the Bucks/Suns game on, and one thing the Raptors can learn from them is how they use their big man as passing options. They have their 4 or 5 catch the ball in a face-up situation at the elbow, and as soon as the corner three-point shooter’s man looks over the elbow area, there’s a corner-to-basket cut and gives the big man a pretty good passing option. They also have Mike Budenholzer, who has done this sort of thing in the past, and we have a coach who, as great as he’s been, is learning on the job. One of his responsibilities is how to integrate the second-best passing big man into his offense, and right now he’s treating it with the same attention as what my buddy Blake (no, not that Blake) did when he found out his son had gotten a girl pregnant: avoid the hell out of it instead of seeing it as an opportunity to bond with his family.
