When it was known that Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka were going to miss the remained of the Western Conference road trip, and then some, after the win over the New Orleans Pelicans, it looked rough for the Raptors. The rotation had only been 7 players mostly to that point and there were a lot of questions about how they’d survive without those players, and we somewhat jumped past those questions after a big win over the Los Angeles Lakers, especially with the bench looking capable against Portland again on Wednesday.
In Dallas, on Saturday night, those questions seemed to catch up to the Raptors, with them dropping the game 110-102 to the Mavericks. It wasn’t just that Pascal Siakam struggled mightily, looking worn out nearly from the opening tip to the closing buzzer, and the interior presence of Ibaka was certainly missed as they were beat on the boards regularly. The biggest place where the absence was felt was when the offense couldn’t get out and run, because Dallas made it a point of emphasis to not give up a lot of transition buckets in this game. Without that easy offense, the Raptors struggled to find much all night that wasn’t tough, and although Norman Powell had 26 and Fred VanVleet scored 24, it was mostly through them getting hot from outside, and the Raptors only hit 41.7% of their 2-point attempts in this one.
These are the games that you have concerns that will happen without Lowry, who excels at getting his teammates in rhythm, and that’s where his presence is often felt the most, finding ways to get guys who need an easy bucket one to get them rolling, and there wasn’t a lot of that here. Lowry is too good of a player to not have his absence be felt sometimes when he’s out.
As far as Siakam goes, his early season dominance has definitely wavered some in the last few games, and there’s definitely some adjustments to be made for Toronto. They have to find ways to help him conserve some energy in game if he’s going to be playing this many minutes, or ideally reduce the minutes somewhat and draw even when he rests, which they didn’t do in this game. He sat for 7 minutes, and the Raptors lost those minutes by 11 points, because he’s too important to the defense and rebounding even when his own scoring is off. There has to be a way to help him have more in the tank to find his scoring, or it’s going to be rough for the Raptors until the rotation gets healthy.
It’s been a mentally exhausting seven days for Raptors players, and it feels the same as an observer and a fan. The injuries and trying to figure out what they mean, the incredible win over the Lakers, the emotional loss to the Clippers and seeing Kawhi against the Raptors for the first time since the Championship, and now the big win over Portland and this tough loss. It’s hard to, in the moment, put that all in the perspective of how long the season is, but a little bit of perspective is necessary right now, I think. The Raptors are still a very good team and there have been a lot of positive signs of growth over these last few games, and some of that will carry forward as the team gets healthy down the road. They are also, still, missing two of their six best players, and their leader and best offensive creator, for some time yet, and that will also create some tough games going forward. It’s hard to keep all of that in balance, but definitely necessary to do so.
There will be more great games for the Raptors, and Siakam, going forward. How many of those there are, and how many games like tonight, might depend on how quickly they find some balance to keep him fresh though, something that they haven’t been doing enough of, and something that contributed to this loss. The team gets to come home for two games now though, and being back at Scotiabank Arena will hopefully energize the Raptors.
