Bring me the Magic!
No More Drama: The end-of-year Raptors regular season awards – The Athletic
Best game: Raptors 131, Warriors 128 (OT), Scotiabank Arena
More about Durant: The game-tying shot he hit, backtracking to the corner with Leonard hounding him, should have been impossible. There is not much room in the corner, especially when you have large feet; to be able to find your spot without looking down or finishing with a toe on the arc or a heel out of bounds is incredible. This was breathtaking stuff, with two of the best players in the world going shot for shot, both being asked to defend each other, too. There was plenty of other drama: Kyle Lowry losing all confidence in his shot, but still hitting a huge 3-pointer in the corner near the end of regulation; Pascal Siakam having one of the first of his many breakout games, putting in 26 points, but getting lost late in the game; Jonas Jerebko providing the little spacing that Durant needed; Klay Thompson gifting the Raptors a series of missed open 3-pointers. Aesthetically, one of the most compelling regular-season games ever played in the arena.
Raptors draw Magic in first round – TSN.ca
The two teams split the four-game season series, but Orlando outplayed Toronto in the first three meetings, with the Raptors stealing the first on Green’s buzzer beater. While it’s always wise to take the season series with a grain of salt at this time of year, there are also lessons to be taken from it.
What should have the Raptors learned about the Magic? For one, their eighth-ranked defence is legit. Toronto was only held under 100 points nine times this season, but three of those games came against Orlando.
Two of the Raptors’ worst losses of the season – 29-point and 15-point defeats – came at the hands of the Magic, although Toronto was without one of Leonard or Lowry in each game.
The Magic’s length and athleticism caused problems for the Raps, particularly up front where they feature Gordon, Isaac, Wesley Iwundu and Montreal-native Khem Birch, who’s had a solid under-the-radar campaign.
No team defended Raptors breakout star and Most Improved Player frontrunner Pascal Siakam better than the Magic. They held him to just 34 per cent. He shot 56 per cent against the rest of the NBA. If there’s one challenge the Magic present that figures to translate into the playoffs it’s their defence.
However, if we’re reading into the season series, the most recent meeting – a dominant 121-109 Raptors win in Toronto on April 1 – is probably a better indication of how these teams match up at full strength.
Gasol helped hold Vucevic to just 13 points on 5-of-14 shooting in that game and should be the primary defender on him in this series. Meanwhile, Ibaka – a former member of the Magic – has been playing great basketball off the bench of late. Without much depth at the point guard position, Orlando doesn’t have an answer for Toronto’s tandem of Lowry and Fred VanVleet.
The series should be a great test for Siakam, who will have to prove he can adjust and adapt to a defence that’s capable of taking him out of his comfort zone. Even if Siakam is neutralized, the Magic don’t have a defender with the pedigree or the skill set to stop Leonard, who should be the best player in the series, by a mile.
Everything to know for the opening round of the 2019 NBA playoffs – ESPN
2. Toronto Raptors
2018-19 record: 58-24
BPI odds vs. ORL: 89 percentThe combination of trading for Kawhi Leonard and archnemesis LeBron James leaving for the Western Conference had fans north of the border dreaming of a trip to the NBA Finals. Nothing that has happened since has led them to think otherwise, as Toronto has the league’s second-best record, despite having both Leonard and Kyle Lowry miss large chunks of the season.
Season in a single game: Dec. 12
Yes, Leonard didn’t play, but that’s kind of the point. The Raptors have been almost as good when Leonard and Lowry don’t play as when they do this season, and this night showed what they can look like at top gear, as they dismantled the Warriors — who had their four All-Stars all playing. This win, combined with a victory over the Warriors in Toronto that completed the season sweep, will give the Raptors confidence that if they can make it to the Finals, they can make it a series.There’s trouble brewing:
All season, the Raptors have looked like two teams: one when Leonard has the ball and one when he doesn’t. Some of that is because Leonard prefers to play a more deliberate, isolation style, while the Raptors when he isn’t on the court ping the ball around more frequently. There have been only a handful of games all season in which the Raptors have had their full allotment of players available. If there is one weakness to point to heading into the playoffs, it is that lack of time to sort everything out.One big stat and why it matters:
Don’t let the Raptors get out and run, as they are the NBA’s best team in transition. According to Second Spectrum, Toronto’s 1.22 points per chance in transition leads all teams by a relatively wide margin. They take advantage of that often, as their 1,639 valid chances in transition rank fifth in the league.Get to know: Pascal Siakam
Siakam, who should be the clear winner of the NBA’s Most Improved Player award, has not only improved across the board but also helped keep the Raptors humming while having Lowry and Leonard missing time this season. He should be an All-Star next season and could be the player who puts Toronto over the top and gets the Raptors to their first NBA Finals.What to watch in Round 1:
Aaron Gordon vs. Siakam. Frankly, there isn’t a lot about this series that is exciting, but seeing two of the more athletic young forwards in the league go back-and-forth over the course of a best-of-seven series will provide at least one thing for neutral fans to lock on to.— Tim Bontemps
1) Think back to September. Did this Raptors regular season meet your expectations; exceed them; or fall short?
Sully Akbari: They definitely exceeded all of them. One of the things that caught me off guard was that I did not expect the starting unit to mesh as quickly as it did with Kawhi Leonard. I thought they’d need half a season to fully come together; instead, it took about 20 to 25 games. It just goes to show how seamlessly Kawhi can fit into any lineup and make the game so much easier.
I also didn’t expect the frontcourt to be as good as it is. I thought that was going to be the team’s weakest area and I didn’t expect Pascal Siakam to make such a huge leap, nor did I foresee Serge Ibaka completely turning his game around.
Then there is the guard play, which at times was rocky due to injuries, but seeing how comfortable Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, and Fred VanVleet all look, especially on the offensive end (I thought they’d take a scoring hit after trading away DeMar DeRozan) topped my expectations.
Josh Kern: Well, I had them at 56 wins and finishing second, so they exceeded my expectations, if only slightly. How they got there was certainly different though — I thought they’d start slow, then pick up steam, then pretty much run the table in the last month. Instead they started out ridiculously hot, then cooled off considerably, and then were simply very good down the stretch.
Of course, like most everyone ‘round here, I’m not too concerned about the regular season; we’ve seen regular season success turn into post-season heartbreak, so the real judgment occurs starting next week.
Jay Rosales: Back in September, here are the things we didn’t know:
- How will Kawhi recover from his Spurs-career-ending injury?
- Will Kawhi ever be an elite two-way superstar again?
- How is Kawhi going to fit in with his teammates?
- How can a Raptors team that finished with the 1-seed and a franchise-record 59 wins possibly improve?
- How can the entire organization convince Kawhi to re-sign?
- Yeah, I think “exceed” is an understatement!
A happy, healthy Kawhi Leonard is great news for Raptors as playoffs loom | Toronto Sun
The Raptors have to be thrilled with the partnership they formed with Leonard. A lot will ride on what happens in the playoffs, but they’re on the same page now. Leonard is looking forward to what comes next.
“I think all of us want to win, get to that promised land. It’s a great group of guys here who are unselfish. Want to win, want to play defence, want to do the right things on the floor,” Leonard said.
“We always want to improve and get better, but we do feel we are a good playoff team (with the talent) to go deep, but we’ve got experience.”
Leonard was then asked about how the major quadriceps injury that held him to just nine games with San Antonio last season was handled and it was clear how he feels about Toronto’s medical staff.
“We did a great job just attacking the problem in the beginning during training camp. Laying out the schedule. I feel good (now),” Leonard said, after playing in 60 games.
“I wasn’t as healthy as I wanted to be this year, but, I couldn’t say I would have this type of season in the beginning of the year, the way things started, the way I felt. I’m happy. We’re second place (in the NBA). We’ve got an opportunity to get where we want to get to.”
That the biggest off-season acquisition and most talented player in franchise history is in this frame of mind is excellent news for Masai Ujiri, Bobby Webster and Co. They can offer him more money and term than any other team, as well as a medical comfort zone.
Nurse has Raptors prepared for important playoff run – TSN.ca
It’s not that Nurse was diminishing the importance of the regular season. The Raptors needed it more than most teams, even if they would have happily shortened it by a month or two.
For the first time in seven seasons they were entering training camp with a new core of players. For the first time in eight years they were doing so with a different head coach. Two of the organization’s most prominent and longest-tenured figures, Dwane Casey and , were gone. Enter Nurse, Leonard and .
Then, a midseason shakeup would see three rotation players (, and ) exchanged for one, . After years of leaning on continuity, the foundation had been rocked and Nurse was tasked with putting the pieces together in time for the playoffs.
By his own admission, it wasn’t always pretty. Chemistry between the team’s two best players, Leonard and , proved to be a work in progress and may still be. Toronto’s all-star duo played just 43 games together and never more than five consecutively.
Thanks to a barrage of injuries, Leonard’s frequent rest nights and Nurse’s tendency to tinker, the Raptors used 22 different starting lineups, 10 more than last season. As promised, Nurse experimented with his rotation to see what worked and, often glaringly, what did not.
For better or for worse, they believe it all helped them to prepare. The playoffs are anything but predictable, especially if you go as far as Toronto is hoping to. There will be unexpected bumps along the way.
At least to this point, that’s where Nurse has thrived most as an NBA head coach. His background leading teams around the world and in the NBA Development League readied him for the job in some respects, but he’s never had to manage this level of talent or the egos that come it.
That was the biggest question upon hearing of his promotion. How would he fare off the court and away from the clipboard? Could he keep an NBA locker room from fracturing, particularly one that seemed so tenuous heading into training camp?
This season could have been a tense and awkward one for the Raptors if they allowed it to be. Leonard’s load management was an unprecedented method that could have created animosity between him and his teammates. Lowry’s initial disapproval of the trade that separated him from his best friend could have caused dissention. Convincing veterans like , Valanciunas and then Gasol to buy into new roles off the bench could have been a tough sell.
All the while, Leonard’s impending free agency has been hanging over them like a dark cloud. The combustibility potential was high and very real.
Instead, they stayed together in the interest of the common goal. If there was any drama or in-fighting it was kept behind closed doors and resolved quickly. While some in the organization were walking on eggshells, especially around Leonard, the tension never seemed to infiltrate the locker room, where Nurse has kept things loose. His relaxed, albeit direct and straightforward, approach jives with this group of vets.
Toronto Raptors will open playoffs against Orlando Magic | Toronto Sun
Victories by Brooklyn (over Miami in Dwyane Wade’s final game), Detroit (over New York) and Orlando (over Charlotte) left the Magic in the seventh spot in the East, setting up the second playoff meeting between these franchises. The Dwight Howard-led Magic crushed Toronto in five games back in 2007-08 in what was arguably the most forgettable series in franchise history and the beginning of the end for Sam Mitchell.
This time around Toronto will be the heavy favourite, even though Steve Clifford has done tremendous work in his first year in Florida, lifting the Magic to eighth overall in defence (Toronto ranked fifth). Orlando also played the Raptors tight winning twice and falling on a Danny Green buzzer-beater (though Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry both missed one of the games) in the opener.
All-star centre Nikola Vucevic went off, averaging 20 points, 15.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists in the season series, though the presence of Marc Gasol in the middle now should change things quite a bit.
The series will reunite former Toronto lottery pick Terrence Ross, who will get some sixth-man-of-the-year votes after the finest season of his career (including 35 points to sink Charlotte on Wednesday) and former Raptors assistant general manager Jeff Weltman, Masai Ujiri’s close friend and former right-hand man.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse is turning the games into his jam sessions | The Star
Maybe that’s why he can just go with the flow and jam with whoever’s sitting in that day, how he can get lost in the rhythms and the sounds and the movement of the game and never appear to get ruffled.
Maybe that’s why he’s had so much success in his first season as an NBA coach despite injuries and trades and more load management than any other coach has had to worry about.
And maybe that same calm, that same ability to adapt, the creativity in crunch time, will allow him to handle the pressure and the second-guessing and, yes, the comparisons to those who went before him when the NBA playoffs open on the weekend.
Nurse will talk about Xs and Os and schemes and rotations if you insist, but you get the feeling he’d rather not. He will, however, gladly expand on feel and adaptability and spirit and doing what you can with what you’ve got.
He tossed out the phrase “winging it” last weekend to describe part of his coaching philosophy but quickly caught himself because that’s a vast over-simplification of it.
“Just coaching on the fly a little bit because, again, I think the minor leagues and the European leagues that I was in force you to (adapt to) one night have one guy and one night have three others and next week, three more,” he said. “You just have to kind of say, ‘Gee, that kinda wasn’t that bad, everybody’s making a big deal. We lost three guys, we just put three new guys in there and they played pretty good.’ ”
Toronto Raptors: Why this could finally be their year in the East – Sir Charles in Charge
Lowry is playing the most unselfish basketball of his career averaging 8.7 assists a night which ranks second in the whole NBA. He’s being a full-on team player this year and isn’t as worried about carrying a massive workload in the scoring column like past seasons. Make no mistake about it though, K-Low can still have a 30 point game out of nowhere if the team needs a scoring boost, which makes him a massive threat at all times. Another massive threat that nobody saw coming this year was Pascal Siakam.
Unless you’re a die-hard Toronto fan, you probably haven’t heard the name Pascal Siakam until this year, but you should know it by now. Averaging 17 and 7, Siakam has had a year where most voters see him as the leading candidate to win Most Improved Player of the Year. He’s improved in every category that you can name from last season. His points have increased by 10. Rebounds, two and a half. Free throws, a 16 percent increase.
Spicy P has truly been remarkable this season and is my x-factor against a team like Golden State if and when they meet in the postseason. An athletic, stretch four that can give a team like the Warriors a lot to worry about. He can get it done on all aspects of the offensive end shooting nearly 37 percent from 3 and he can get to work on the inside. One thing’s for sure, all true basketball fans are looking forward to seeing how he performs this postseason and in the years to come.
This is Toronto’s best and possibly last chance for a while to get to the NBA Finals. They look complete on both ends and are a scary team to come up against in the East. We got a sample size of what Leonard would look like matched up against the NBA’s juggernaut during the 2017 playoffs when he was a part of San Antonio. I think that based off of that, it’s fair to say that with Leonard healthy, he can do enough to neutralize Kevin Durant and help stop Golden State and this could be the only chance he gets to do it in Toronto.
The Whiteboard: Have the Raptors remade their playoff psyche? – Fansided
Regardless of the 2019’s outcome, hats go off to Masai Ujiri. He recognized the Raptors possessed a formidable, yet defined ceiling. Instead of residing in complacency and hoping to catch a break, he swung for the fences.
He made the hard decision of firing Dwane Casey — two days after winning coach of the year no less — and replaced him with Nick Nurse.
In upgrading to Kawhi Leonard from DeMar DeRozan, landing Danny Green, and swapping out Jonas Valanciunas for Marc Gasol, he made a good team more versatile and better all-around, with the potential to be a defensive powerhouse. Ujiri’s probably going to win executive of the year, and he should.
Toronto boasts the third-best point differential in the entire league, along with the fifth-highest offensive and defensive ratings.
In addition to raising its ceiling, Toronto heightened its urgency. This isn’t a “well, there’s always next year” team. Leonard could bolt in the summer. Gasol and Kyle Lowry are old. While they have the silver lining of not being anchored by any long-term contracts, the Raptors’ demarcated window is now and only now. Their future uncertainty could give them the exigence they always needed.
Perhaps the largest boost to Toronto’s psyche comes with an internal x-factor: The ascendency of Pascal Siakam. His transformation from bench sparkplug to two-way force playing 32 minutes a night put him in the frontrunning for the Most Improved Player award. More importantly, he gives the Raptors a reliable complementary piece if Leonard has an off night or Playoff Lowry rears its ugly head.
Having a consistent third option to lean on every game is what they lacked in the past. Going in with that answer instead of speculating who will step up each game should make the biggest mental difference for Toronto’s postseason hopes.
Top 5 candidates Jeanie Buss, Lakers should try to hire as president | Larry Brown Sports
1) Masai Ujiri
If you’re the best franchise in the NBA, your list of targets should start with the best executive in the league. And that’s Masai Ujiri. Ujiri was named the NBA Executive of the Year in 2013 for his work building the Denver Nuggets. The team won 50 games twice in his three seasons and reached the playoffs in all three years. They won 57 games in his final season, which marked a successful turnaround following the trade of Carmelo Anthony two years earlier. He left Denver to take a position with the Toronto Raptors after the 2012-2013 season. At the time he took the Raptors job, Toronto was coming off five straight losing seasons and did not have a star since Chris Bosh left for Miami. Since then they’ve become one of the powers in the Eastern Conference, winning 50-plus games four seasons in a row, only unable to get past LeBron James. Some of the gems he drafted in Denver included Kenneth Faried and Evan Fournier. In Toronto, he’s drafted Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and Norman Powell, and added key players like Kawhi Leonard, DeMarre Carroll and Serge Ibaka.
If you’re the Lakers, you dangle the prestige and allure of Los Angeles in front of Ujiri, plenty of money, and make him turn you down.
