Over the course of the regular season, Nick Nurse and the Toronto Raptors have been heralded for their unorthodox and experimental defensive tactics. Opponents have been befuddled by a plethora of zones, box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos, and full-court presses. When welcoming James Harden and the Houston Rockets into town on Dec. 5 they devised their most radical defensive plan of the season, aggressively trapping Harden to get the ball out of his hands and hoping that the supporting cast would not capitalize on an outnumbered, scrambling defence. Although it was one of the rare moments in which one of Toronto’s unique defences did not succeed, the premise was clear.
“Somebody was going to get open. We were banking on them not making those shots,” Pascal Siakam said on that night.
In their first game of the new year the Raptors received a taste of their own medicine. The Miami Heat welcomed Toronto into town, rolled the ball over to them, set up in a 2-3 zone for the entire night, and dared Lowry and co. to shoot the defence apart. Toronto, missing four of their best shooters due to injury, could not. They ended the night 6-for-42 from deep, a historically poor shooting night. Sometimes a single statistic can tell a thousand words.
6/42 (14.3%) is good for:
*3rd-worst on 40+ 3FGA
*5th-worst on 35+
*17th worst on 30+
*worst in franchise history on 28+— Blake Murphy (@BlakeMurphyODC) January 3, 2020
Although the game ushered in a new decade of basketball, it felt as if both teams transported back twenty years in time. The final score suggested as such, a 76-84 scoreline that warranted a second, and then a third, glance. Neither team cracked the 92 offensive rating barrier. The Atlanta Hawks have the lowest offensive rating in the league this year at 102.9. Suffice to say this game was an eyesore.
The Raptors entered the game ranked fourth in three-point shooting. Their two best healthy shooters, Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry, ended the night a combined 3-for-23 from the outside. A majority of those shots from deep were also clean looks. Without trying to sound too reductive, it was just one of those nights.
“It felt to me that we were finding some things, in the high-post, underneath the basket, kick outs, but we couldn’t string any together. Then I think we got a little bit discouraged with that part of it,” said Nurse. “We wasted a hell of an effort. We tried really, really hard and we were into the game and executed really well defensively.”
Before the game Nurse mentioned the possibility of a new starting lineup to address Miami’s size, teasing the notion that Patrick McCaw may finally be demoted from the starting lineup. Unfortunately this was not the case, as O.G. Anunoby replaced Rondae Hollis-Jefferson in the front court. In a peculiar move, McCaw also returned to spotting up from the corner rather than being the primary ball-handler, which had hidden his offensive deficiencies slightly of late.
Toronto initially responded well when Miami transitioned into zone midway through the first quarter. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson got to the nail and picked apart the defence. However, things began to devolve as the Heat remained steadfast in the gameplan and the Raptors couldn’t regain a consistent offensive rhythm. The ball was passed along the perimeter like a game of hot potato with none of the guards decisively driving into the heart of the defence. The most egregious offensive set was a Hollis-Jefferson/Chris Boucher pick-and-roll that was as ugly as it sounds.
“We didn’t attack the rim hard enough I don’t think. We had a lot of good looks,” said Lowry. “We just have to be a little more aggressive maybe, but good gameplan and good zone by them, I guess.”
Miami were equally as inept on offence. Butler carved Toronto’s trapping scheme on him last time the teams met, yet he couldn’t score effectively on single coverage this time around. The only difference that determined the outcome of the game was Miami’s bench duo of Goran Dragic and Tyler Herro each having mini-heatchecks. Dragic nailed a couple of triples to close out the half, while Herro posted a personal 8-0 scoring run to open the fourth quarter which felt like an 18-0 run in a game like this.
For the most part Toronto made the correct reads to deconstruct the zone. Anunoby got to the nail and found Serge Ibaka in the dunker spot for an easy finish, then quickly dished to an open McCaw for a three in the proceeding possession. The Raptors were trying to expose the defence by working inside-out, the only issue being that the ‘out’ aspect was non-existent.
The few positives that can be taken from the game was that Toronto cleaned up the defensive glass and crashed the offensive boards well, particularly Ibaka and Anunoby. Miami’s inability to close out possessions is an indicator that some of Toronto’s own defensive rebounding woes can be attributed to their own proclivity for zone schemes rather than personnel; it is a far harder scheme to locate and box-out opponents. Boucher had a few uber athletic blocks, one in particular where he perfectly matched Dragic stride for stride in the pick-and-roll, an area that he has struggled with in the past.
It was yet another encounter in which the Raptors fell painstakingly short against playoff competition. There are plenty of external excuses that they can point towards, but VanVleet summarized the result best after the game.
Flush it🚽 on to the next
— Fred VanVleet (@FredVanVleet) January 3, 2020
Let’s hope Toronto break records of the positive kind on Saturday when they head to Brooklyn.