Raptors thump Cleveland | Blake Murphy opens old wounds with Vince trade retrospective | Raptors bet on players who bet on themselves: Terrence Davis the latest one
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The Raptors scored 21 points in under five-and-a-half minutes to start the game, pushing out to an 18-point lead in a snap that set the stage for three-plus quarters of low-stakes course correction. By the end, they’d hit 16-of-32 on 3s, posted a 137.1 offensive rating and won 133-113, appreciating facing an opponent who ranks in the bottom three at each end of the floor. Within the blowout win were plenty of positives, even amid quality-of-competition caveats. Getting struggling players on the right path and others continuing to play well are things that can have carryover effects when the schedule eventually turns back the other way.
Chief among the positives was Norman Powell, who scored 26 points with six rebounds and five assists, the best all-around game he’s had in a few years. Generally, Powell has not been a great playmaker for others and has consistently hurt the Raptors’ team-level rebounding. Even during his recent, extended hot scoring stretch, his decision-making in transition has been suspect, his defensive rebounding found wanting and his defence uneven. This was a much more complete effort, with Powell eagerly making sharp reads, cracking back toward the paint to grab a rebound and get on the run and digging in to help in the post. He was instrumental not just as a finisher but also as someone helping to start the Raptors’ oft-deadly transition offence, which has the cyclical effect of playing to Powell’s offensive strengths.
“I thought I did a good job of just taking what they gave me and making the right reads and not being overly anxious to make the pass,” he said. “I think I’m really comfortable. I’m just being able to read what the defence is doing, how they’re playing, where their bigs are at, whether it is a finish or a kick-out or a drop-off to the bigs, just taking what the defence is giving me and being aggressive and thinking, ‘Try to go up there and dunk the ball,’ even if I’m not dunking it. That mindset gets me there aggressively, and being able to finish whatever it is, left, right, just reading the defence and playing my game.”
Powell is on fire of late. If he can continue to produce like this in a bench role when Fred VanVleet returns, the shot-creation imbalance between the units will be lessened. Or, if he’s done enough to warrant remaining in the starting lineup, he might free Nick Nurse to use a more natural point guard rotational deployment.
10 things: Raptors’ Norman Powell lights up pathetic Cavaliers – Yahoo!
Five — Dominant: Pascal Siakam is an entirely different player when he knocks down a few jumpers in the first quarter. Siakam drew a tough defensive assignment in Thompson, who largely kept him from attacking the paint, but Siakam was on a roll from outside. Siakam drained 3 after 3 and his confidence grew from there, to the point where he was hitting Dirk Nowitzki-style leaning fadeaways over Thompson by the fourth quarter. The next step is for Siakam to maintain his aggression regardless of the defender, or of the effectiveness of his jumper. The Raptors need him to stay in attack mode.
Raptors’ Powell giving Nurse something to think about with VanVleet out – Sportsnet.ca
So, stay tuned. The Raptors have been evasive with the particulars of VanVleet’s injury, as they often are, referring to it only as a contusion. It’s definitely to his right knee. And it’s definitely the sort of ailment that doesn’t afford a reliable timeline of recovery. He’ll just be ready when he’s ready. And Monday night he wasn’t.
“He’s making some progress, hopefully. Day-to-day still,” Nurse said before the game. “I think there’s a little swelling there. I’m not sure it’s a bone bruise or just a little swelling or a little soreness.”
And while the Raptors have found ways to win without him, it’s impossible not to notice VanVleet’s absence on the floor. It’s not only his shooting that the Raptors could have used throughout their recent slump from beyond the arc. And it’s not only his aggressiveness pushing the ball in transition or his nose for the basket through traffic.
It’s his ability to facilitate and run the offence with the starters, allowing Lowry to take turns working off the ball. And it’s his utility running secondary units, as well — a job that has fallen squarely on Lowry’s shoulders since he went down.
And Lowry’s great at it. But he could probably benefit from another couple minutes on the bench in the middle of halves in order to be at his best come crunch time. But Without VanVleet, Nurse doesn’t have a reliable option to get the most from his reserves. And so, Lowry spent nearly 37 minutes on the floor in Monday’s laugher against Cleveland, and is currently averaging nearly 39 minutes per night in seven games since returning from a long-term injury.
So, maybe that’s why Nurse can envision VanVleet returning to a bench role upon his return. The Raptors keep continuity in their starting lineup, Powell gets to see how long he can ride this hot streak, VanVleet provides a valuable boost to Toronto’s bench lineups, and then Nurse can roll out whatever’s working for crunch time.
Because, remember, some of Toronto’s best lineups have featured Lowry and VanVleet playing together. It increases Toronto’s capacity to create shots, puts two playmakers in the back court, and maximizes sheer unquantifiable hustle at both ends of the floor.
“Fred and Kyle are two really special players,” Nurse said before Monday’s game. “They’re tough, they can shoot, they defend, they can take on bigger people, and they really know how to play the game.”
Recap: The Toronto Raptors breeze by the hapless Cavaliers, 133-113 – Raptors HQ
Powell dropped 16 of his 26 points on the night in the quarter; Siakam 13 of his game-high 33. Norm drew particular praise from Nick Nurse after the game, and with 22.5 points a game on 61 / 50 / 72 shooting splits in four games as a starter in place of Fred VanVleet, a once set-in-stone starting unit at full health is looking to be a little more fungible. Nurse suggested as much after the game.
“It’s the decisions of ‘I am going for it,’ and now you’re not hesitating at anything, or looking out of the corner of your eye, you are just really going,” said Nurse of Powell’s finishing around the basket of late — he had four or five strong finishes through contact on the night.
“He had a couple tonight where where he had to move it around somebody or directly over somebody, but most of these when he gets an extra burst he gets clear and clean and he’s making them.”
If there was any question as to whether Powell’s best role is as a fourth or fifth guy, surrounded by creators who can compromise the defense on his behalf, there ain’t now. Surely the politics of a starting lineup change will be a chill and calm conversation-starter in the coming days.
On the topic of rotation notes, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson found himself glued to the bench for the first time in a month and a half on Monday. Nurse revealed after the game that a slight injury was enough reason to forego his minutes in favour of some extended run for Chris Boucher.
Boucher looked bouncy, and his fit with Serge Ibaka seemed a little less clunky than it has when Hollis-Jefferson’s gotten the call since Ibaka’s return. It’s a one-game sample and all that, and the new Kyle Lowry, Terence Davis, Patrick McCaw, Boucher and Ibaka bench mob had a bit of an icky stretch to start the fourth quarter (a short Siakam shift was needed with about five minutes left to finally shut down any notion of a Cavs miracle), but seven points and five boards in 13 minutes should be enough to throw Boucher back into Nurse’s rotation puzzle. With Patrick McCaw clearly going nowhere (he hit two threes on Monday!), and the Raptors nearing full health at long last, who plays and who doesn’t is probably going to be the dominant question for Nurse and the Raptors throughout the holidays.
What is more clear is that the Raptors are emerging from their early-December malaise. No, Cleveland isn’t a real measuring stick, and the win Monday tells us nothing about whether the Raptors can hang with the league’s top teams. But between a couple Raptors-like stretches against the Clippers, and the last two wins over Brooklyn and the Cavs, you can see things settling back into a comfortable place for the team. Pascal Siakam looks like he’s having a blast again; a bunch of his 13 buckets on 24 attempts were accompanied by the smirk of a guy who knows he can’t be stopped when he’s cooking. Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka looked damn near rust-free on Monday, too. Lowry hit three of his seven triples and carved the Cavs up for 11 assists to one piddly turnover; Ibaka popped off for eight points early in the second, nearly all of which could be credited to Lowry and that sweet, sweet pick-and-pop game those two have mastered over the last year and a half.
Raps lay lumber on the Cavs in biggest offensive output of the year | Toronto Sun
Credit the Cavs for not caving once the Raptors pushed the lead to 20 to end the third quarter but the Raptors are a much better defensive team than they showed Monday night.
Head coach Nick Nurse, perhaps sensing his team needed one like this, wasn’t overly concerned about the sub-par defence.
“Yeah, I think there wasn’t a ton of defence going on either way but that’s okay,” Nurse said. “Again, you look at the numbers, we shot the ball well, 31 assists so a lot of guys with some pretty good nights there.”
Pascal Siakam and Norm Powell led the way offensively with 33 and 26 points respectively but this was a night everyone got in on the offence. Five different Raptors were in double digits by game’s end. Kyle Lowry was among that group with 20 points to go along with 11 assists on the night. OG Anunoby had 12 and nine rebounds as well.
The Cavs young backcourt of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland were tough on the Raptors all night with 25 and 20 points respectively.
At no point past the first quarter did it ever feel like the Cavs were going to alter the outcome of this game but the defensive letdown on Toronto’s part was somewhat alarming.
Norm Powell continues a December to remember, powering the Raptors past Cleveland | The Star
Powell was at it again Monday, scoring 26 points in a 133-113 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers that was just a continuation of a wonderful couple of weeks for the 26-year-old guard.
In eight games in December, five as a starter, Powell has averaged 18.7 points while shooting 56.5 per cent from the field and 44.1 per cent from three point range. So will coach Nick Nurse contemplate a change to the starting lineup when Fred VanVleet returns from a bruised knee?
“Yep, it certainly will make me reconsider it,” the coach said.
Powell was 11-for-15 from the field Monday with four steals and five assists.
“I’m just being able to read what the defence is doing, how they’re playing, where their bigs are at, whether it is a finish or a kick-out or a drop-off to the bigs, just taking what the defence is giving me and being aggressive and thinking try to go up there and dunk the ball, even if I’m not dunking it,” Powell said.
“That mindset gets me there aggressively and (I’m) able to finish whatever it is, left, right, just reading the defence and playing my game.”
Powell’s performance against the 6-21 Cavaliers was just one of a handful great offensive games from the Raptors. Pascal Siakam had 33 points, Kyle Lowry had a 20-point, 11-assist double-double and the Raptors shot 58.4 per cent from the field.
Toronto, however, hardly defended well. The Cavs, 26th in the league in field-goal percentage coming into the game, shot 48.9 per cent.
“I think there wasn’t a ton of defence going on either way, but that’s OK,” Nurse said. “Again, you look at the numbers, we shot the ball well (and we had) 31 assists so (there were) a lot of guys with some pretty good nights there.”
But the Carter trade was objectionable. Extremely objectionable.
Feeling pressure with his team off to a poor start and the Carter situation becoming an obvious distraction, on Dec. 17, 2004 then general manager Rob Babcock pulled the trigger on a deal. By making the move two months before the trade deadline, Babcock was essentially jumping at the chance to acquire, the removal of the distraction. In the ensuing 15 years, there has not been one point in time in which the deal has looked good for Toronto.
For Carter, a 27-year-old about to make his sixth consecutive All-Star Game, the Raptors received Eric Williams, Aaron Williams, Alonzo Mourning, and first-round picks in 2005 and 2006. Mourning refused to report and was bought out after a two-month game of chicken. Aaron Williams appeared in 37 games over two partial seasons before being dealt for a pair of second-rounders that became nothing. Eric Williams played 62 games before also being dealt, along with Matt Bonner, for Rasho Nesterovic. One pick landed at No. 16 and the Raptors used it to select Joey Graham, a four-year project and part-time starter who never quite shot well enough or defended to expectations enough to stick in a role. The other was used to unload Jalen Rose’s contract.
For the Nets, Carter would deliver 43.6 regular season win shares and 21.5 wins of value over replacement (VORP, based on Box Plus-Minus), while also appearing in five playoff series and returning a good prospect in Courtney Lee when he was traded to Orlando in 2009. For their part, the Raptors received 7.3 win shares, -2.3 wins of value over replacement, some salary relief and a salary to facilitate the Bonner-Nesterovic swap.
The Carter trade is not the worst trade in NBA history. There are a handful of examples where instead of receiving little, teams received negative value. A quick survey of The Athletic’s staff revealed worse trade blunders than the Carter deal.
NBA Power Rankings Week 9 – The Bucks can’t stop winning; James Harden can’t stop scoring – ESPN
7. Toronto Raptors
Record: 17-8
Week 8 ranking: 7The Raptors lost their fourth straight game against elite competition this week, falling by 20 points to the Clippers on an emotional night with Kawhi Leonard receiving his championship ring. This followed losses in their most recent matchups against the 76ers, Rockets and Heat — who have a combined win rate of 70%. The Raptors bounced back with a win over the Nets, and Toronto starts this week with three very winnable games. — Snellings
The Athletic’s NBA Power Rankings Week 8: Trade season is here – The Athletic
9. Toronto Raptors (Previously 9th), 17-8 (+5.2 net rating)
How’s the team playing? This didn’t feel like a good week for the Raptors. They barely beat Chicago before the Clippers utterly destroyed them. Even the win over a good Brooklyn team at home felt like they desperately needed Norman Powell to save them throughout the night. A win is still a win, but this Raptors team needs to use the next week to get itself right.
I want to see the Raptors back to dominating teams on the floor. A couple of weeks from now, they have Indiana and then a home-and-home against Boston. The Raptors need to probably go at least 2-1 in those games, if not 3-0. They’ve been such a good story, and maybe they just need Fred VanVleet back in the mix to fix this team’s trajectory. But the Raptors have slipped a bit lately.
Movable player before the deadline: They have three expiring deals for three players who would be monster acquisitions at the deadline for any team looking to contend. Marc Gasol ($25.5 million), Serge Ibaka ($23.2 million) and VanVleet ($9.3 million) have been integral parts to this Raptors’ success. Masai Ujiri is more likely to lean into this team being good than to start shipping off very good players. But if the Raptors want to get weird and aggressive at the deadline, they can swing a big sledgehammer with their expiring deals.
Power Rankings, Week 9: Top teams continue to dominate as Lakers-Bucks matchup nears | NBA.com
10 Toronto Raptors
Last week: 9Record: 17-8
Pace: 101.6 (13) OffRtg: 108.1 (17) DefRtg: 102.9 (2) NetRtg: +5.2 (6)Only the Warriors have been worse offensively than the Raptors (101.2 points scored per 100 possessions) since Thanksgiving. Kyle Lowry has shot 30% since returning from his thumb injury, OG Anunoby’s 3-point shooting has regressed (he’s 5-for-29 over the eight games), and Pascal Siakam’s efficiency has sunk with heavier usage. But this is still an excellent defensive team, maybe the best in the league in regard to rotating out to shooters. The champs rank second in opponent field goal percentage in the paint (49.6%) and sixth in opponent effective field goal percentage on shots from outside the paint (47.4%). With Chicago and Brooklyn shooting a combined 26% from 3-point range, committing a combined 37 turnovers, and getting to the line for just 31 total free throws, the Raptors went 2-1 last week, despite scoring less than 94 points per 100 possessions over the three games. They’ll face three top-10 offenses this week, though all three could be missing stars (Blake Griffin, Mo Wagner and Luka Doncic).
9 – This week
9 – Last weekThe Raptors appear to be getting back on track after a slight drop-off. They lost badly against the Clippers in Kawhi Leonard’s return game, but looked much better offensively in a win over the Nets. Fred VanVleet has missed the last few games with an injury, which could be a blessing in disguise since he’s among the league leaders in minutes played.
The Raptors have had a tendency to give up too many open corner threes in the last couple of weeks, Nurse and his staff can use the breakdown of the different defences to see why.
It’s not always a matter of examining the action where fans might think they would.
“The decision to do what you’re doing is one thing, and then there are other nuances behind it, and that’s more what I’ve been studying,” Nurse said. “How can we make better rotations to protect the rim a little better, get to the corner three a little better, things like that.
“Those things, you don’t know how you can do them, and then you do them and you get some data and you do some tweaks and then you’ve got to pull them out situationally.”
There will always be foundational bits to Toronto’s defence — keep the ball in front of you, do whatever it takes to close out and contest shots, fly around and be disruptive in passing lanes — and they are non-negotiable. The most effective defence is a good, old-fashioned, work-hard-and-guard-your-guy defence but having other stuff up their sleeves helps the Raptors change the tenor and tempo of games. And all the information Nurse and his staff have been amassing will come in handy.
Nurse holds court at Open House | Toronto Raptors
In leading his second Open House, Nurse’s approach to the event hasn’t changed, but his place in the Canadian basketball landscape has. After becoming the head coach of Canada’s senior men’s team, a day spent working with coaches that will impact youth basketball has a deeper meaning than it did a year ago.
“I always have it as a high importance that if anybody wants to know things about coaching we always try to give them as much information we can and get them get them started, keep them interested,” Nurse said.
“We try to build kind of a right-way-to-play mentality as far down the grassroots as we can.”
During his conversation with the coaches, Nurse told a great story about meeting his coaching idol, Phil Jackson last summer after he was named the Raptors head coach. He spent three days with Jackson in Montana and it sounds like some of the legendary coach’s philosophies aligned with Nurse’s.
“At the last dinner…we were sitting in these rocking chairs outside and he says, ‘I want to leave you with two things before you go,’” Nurse said.
“The first one he said was don’t underestimate the basketball gods. You’ve been hired to make the decisions that are best for the team at all times.
“The second thing is I want you to imagine you’ve got a sword. One end is sharp and you’re going to have to prod these guys. You’re going to have to get on their asses, you’re going to have to push them, you’re going to have to make them play, you’re going to have to get them to guard, you’re going to have to get them to do stuff.
“Every now and then I want you turn that sword around and look at the handle and that handle is going to represent compassion. That you understand where they come from and what they’re going through. It’s a good thing to keep in mind.”
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