https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p5P3g8Tbbc
Raptors-Nets playoff preview: Guardgin LaVert, and why Siakam should feast – Yahoo!
Put OG Anunoby on Caris LeVert
LeVert is enjoying life as a No. 1 option, with averages of 25 points, five rebounds, and seven assists. His breakout moment was in their eighth game, when LeVert matched Damian Lillard shot for shot as part of a stellar 37-point, nine-assist performance that threatened to keep the red-hot Portland Trail Blazers out of the playoffs.
LeVert has always been a talented scorer, and he’s not doing anything new besides taking more shots. Raptors fans will remember his 37-point outburst in February that threatened to end Toronto’s 15-game win streak, one in which LeVert led a furious comeback before he was stopped by OG Anunoby on the final possession. When Brooklyn finally beat the Raptors a few days later, LeVert led the way with 20 points and four steals.
What makes LeVert special is his physicality and aggressiveness. He’s great at getting downhill to the basket, with or without a screen. Once he gets penetration, LeVert is tough to stop. He’s tricky with the handle and can attack going left or right, he’s clever with his fakes and his footwork, he’ll mix it up with a healthy dose of midrange pull-ups to go with a steady diet of hard drives to the rim, and most of all, he’s very strong for his size. LeVert makes a living by bumping into his man, freezing the defender to get his shot off, or drawing the contact and getting to the line.
For this reason, the Raptors should assign Anunoby to LeVert. Right away, it neutralizes most of his advantages. Anunoby is two inches taller and has 30 pounds on LeVert, so he’ll be able to hold his ground on LeVert’s bully-ball rushes to the rim. Anunoby also has a 7-foot-2 wingspan and will be able to contest most of LeVert’s jumpers. Anunoby’s strength will also deter LeVert from posting up on the left block, where he is dangerous as a face-up threat similar to DeMar DeRozan.
LeVert might wriggle free a few times because he’s quicker, but Anunoby should be fine so long as he eventually gets back into the play. LeVert has never been a great three-point shooter (26 percent in the bubble, 34 percent for his career) and it’s a win for the defence if he settles for outside shots. Where he becomes dangerous is when he draws a third defender to him at the basket, because LeVert also has the awareness to find the open shooter when help defenders close in.
Like 2004 Pistons, 2020 Raptors hope to be exception to NBA title traditions – Sportsnet.ca
The Raptors play defence selflessly with everyone switching their assignments on the fly, seamlessly anticipating the needs of their teammates before the opposition has time to exploit any potential mismatch. The result is the second-ranked defence in the NBA. Lowry leads the league in charges drawn, giving up his body as proof of real sacrifice.
Offensively, the Raptors are one of the most egalitarian teams the NBA has ever seen. According to Justin Kubatko of Basketball-Reference, the Raptors are the first team in nearly 50 years to have five starters average 15 points a game or more, led by Pascal Siakam at 22.9 points a night.
The Pistons’ version was to have seven players average at least 9.5 points a game (on a team that averaged 90.1, total) and six players with a usage rate above 20 per cent.
“Inside our room, inside our organization, we didn’t believe what y’all were saying about not having a superstar,” said Billups. “We just didn’t play that way. We didn’t have a guy who was going to go score 30 a night … we didn’t care about the whole ‘no superstar’ thing because I promise you, the people who played against us, didn’t feel that way, you feel me?”
The Raptors current state has been an evolving process. For the first five years of their playoff runs they were a more traditionally-structured offence, with DeMar DeRozan and – to a lesser extent Lowry – commanding most of the touches. As former Raptor wise man Luis Scola said to me once at the end of the 2015-16 season: “We all understand, our role is to make them [Lowry and DeRozan] happy.”
Last season it was all about Leonard. And while this season has been a coming-out party for Siakam as a primary offensive fulcrum, the Raptors take pride in their ability to defend for each other, move the ball at will and score from all angles.
The good, bad and likely outcomes for Raptors in their series against Nets – The Athletic
Most-likely (starting lineup) scenario
The Raptors lose Game 1. Of course, the Raptors lose Game 1. The Nets shoot a piping-hot 46 percent on 48 3-pointers, and the Raptors just can’t hang offensively.
Lowry goes 2-for-9, and the predictable narratives come out: He is not a good playoff performer, he is incapable of being the “leader” of a championship team. Lowry declines to speak to the media on the off day.
“I’m not concerned about Kyle Lowry,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse says to open his conference call with reporters before a question is even asked.
He is correct in that approach. Lowry doesn’t have a great shooting series, but he plays his all-around game reliably. He has 13 points, nine assists and five rebounds as the Raptors blow out the Nets in Game 2, at which point the series finds its footing. The Nets are a fun team playing freely, so they are the constant recipients of damning-with-faint-praise compliments: competitive, energetic, spirited. The Nets use a fair bit of zone defence, and it at times confounds the Raptors — at least until Marc Gasol starts to pick it apart from the inside out.
The Nets just don’t have the weapons to exploit a very strong Raptors defence. LeVert is game, but the onslaught of defenders and schemes thrown at him starts to wear on him as the series goes on. His efficiency dips in a major way. The Raptors live with Luwawu-Cabarrot and Johnson taking outside shots, and they come in below league average. Jarrett Allen is swarmed inside by the Raptors’ pesky guards, scrapping to create turnovers. Crawford has his three-minute stretches, but he cannot find the fountain of youth for entire games at a time.
The Raptors’ offensive performance is less inspiring, although it is bolstered by the transition opportunities that those turnovers create. Siakam has a tough time dealing with Kurucs to start the series, before Nurse manages to free him up using more early shot clock screens off the ball. Turnover problems carry over from the seeding games, with the Raptors trying to make the perfect play against the zone a little too often. The ball movement gets a little stagnant, too.
The Nets are competitive in four of the five games in the fourth quarter — they just don’t have the late-game abilities that the Raptors do. VanVleet hounds Harris off the ball and limits his attempts. Despite his overall struggles, Siakam works well with Lowry in the two-man game in clutch scenarios. The Raptors just make a few more shots and fewer mistakes, closing out the series in five games.
Nobody on any national broadcast in the United States talks about this series in any depth. Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal take turns making fun of one another as the highlights air on “Inside The NBA.”
Raptors confident their formula for success will transfer to playoffs – TSN.ca
There are moments in big games, and certainly in a playoff series, where the very best players can take over, like Leonard did for Toronto at various points throughout last year’s title run. You need other great players, and complimentary pieces, and coaching, and a lot of other things. However, historically, most championship teams have also needed that transcendent talent.
As the Raptors get set to begin their title defence and open their first-round playoff series with Brooklyn on Monday, the big question is: will Siakam be that guy, and if not, can they defy the odds and compete for another championship without that guy?
The past 15 championship teams have each had at least one star who already won a Most Valuable Player award or finished in the top five in MVP voting. The last title-winning club that didn’t have an established MVP calibre player on its roster was the 2004 Detroit Pistons – a team that this iteration of the Raptors have been compared to.
Like these Raptors, those Pistons had a balanced offence, the league’s second-best defence, and they were tough and well coached. It’s exceedingly rare, but that group – led by Larry Brown and with great players like , , Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace – proved that it can be done.
“There’s a lot of special guys on this team,” Nurse said last month. “There might not be anybody that’s in the MVP conversation, but I’d put Kyle and Fred and Marc and Serge and Pascal into a category that’s pretty special. When Serge gets playing and blocking shots and making shots and stuff, he’s a big body. Marc’s as good as it gets at that position. Kyle and Fred are as tough as smart as [anybody]. Obviously Pascal continues to get better. And I didn’t even mention Norm and OG [Anunoby]. There’s some specialness individually and then there’s that little thing called chemistry and effort and toughness that I think make us a special team.”
Siakam, the reigning Most Improved Player, took another big step forward this season and didn’t look out of place in his first year as an offensive focal point. Despite his shooting woes during the seeding games, he and the team remain confident that he’ll be ready to lead them in the playoffs.
“I think he’s proven it,” VanVleet said. “I don’t know who’s setting the standard, but from my eyes I think he’s proven it. And I think if he goes out there and plays well, he plays well, and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t. The playoffs are just about performance each game, each night. It’s not about who you are as a player or what limits you [have] or what level of superstar you are. You’ve gotta play [well] each game and that’s all it really boils down to. So he’s more than capable and, obviously, we’re gonna do everything in our power to help him play well. But I’m not worried about Pascal at all.”
For the Raptors to reach their ceiling as a team, they’ll need Siakam at or close to his best. Still, it’s nice to know that they can still find ways to win on nights when he’s not. That’s the luxury of having a balanced offensive attack and an elite defence, and maybe that will help take some pressure off Siakam.
Koreen: Raptors could become the bad guys against Nets, if only momentarily – The Athletic
It would be disingenuous to say the series between the Raptors and Nets this year is a straight-up flipped script of the 2014 matchup. While the Raptors’ future then was indeed long, as is evidenced by the fact we are still talking about a Kyle Lowry-led team, the Nets, as constructed, could not have a shorter future. Franchise centrepieces Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are not in the bubble thanks to injuries, and a handful of other rotation players did not travel to suburban Orlando, Fla., after testing positive for COVID-19 or opting out of the return to the season.
That isn’t to say the Nets’ players have nothing for which to compete. In fact, since some of them were signed just prior to the restart, they are trying to prove they are viable NBA pieces. For them, it is like the highest-stakes summer league ever. (Interim head coach Jacque Vaughn is in the same position.) As a unit, though, the Nets have virtually nothing at stake. That allows for a certain freedom.
“There’s something to that. There’s something to that, for sure,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said. “From my perspective, I just think every team in the playoffs is dangerous, man. They’re here for a reason. It takes a lot to get to the playoffs. Ups and downs, injuries, they’ve been through quite a bit, just as every team has, just as we have. They’re talented enough to be here. It’s not like we’re going in disrespecting them or overlooking them. We know what we have to do to go out and perform. Obviously, we’re confident in our abilities, but we’re going to have to go out there and play and the rest will take care of itself. But for sure, they are one of those teams that teams will look at and say they have nothing to lose. I’m sure they feel like they can do some damage.”
“It doesn’t really matter what people are saying if your belief … inside your locker room, organization and everything is strong enough to overcome that,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said.
At the same time, the Raptors are not in the same position as the Nets were in 2013-14. For one thing, the Raptors just won a championship. (Although if you ask them, that has changed nothing in terms of the modest expectations placed upon them.)
“The championship didn’t seem, and still doesn’t seem, like a huge burden to carry around that I thought maybe it was going to,” Nurse said. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just because nobody really expects much from us ever. You know what I mean? But that doesn’t matter either.”
Projecting the 2020 NBA Playoffs rotation for the Toronto Raptors – Raptors HQ
Settling the Rotation
All that’s left to do is consider the Raptors rotation that comes from these lineups.
Starters: KL-FVV-OGA-PS-MG
Lowry rest: FVV-NP-OGA-PS-SI
Fred/OG rest: KL-TD-NP-PS-SI
Fred/Siakam rest: KL-TD-NP-OGA-MGIf the Raptors need to keep their three mainstays in for 38 minutes, and OG as well (he was regularly in the high 30’s prior to the bubble), that means each of the rest lineups needs to function for 10 minutes, or 5 minutes per half. So, in each half, 15 minutes is actually a rest lineup, while nine minutes is for the starters. That gives Toronto 18 minutes of the starting lineup together for the game. The starting lineup averaged 16 minutes in games they played together this year so that’s about right.
There would need to be some quick transitional lineups between these, to allow OG and Pascal to avoid playing more than a full quarter to start. But that seems like the backbone of successful lineups that can provide enough rest for the heavy minutes players on the team.
Meanwhile, our key bench players project to between 20-30 minutes a night, Gasol projects to 28 minutes (which can certainly edge up if needed, he fits in basically any lineup Serge fits in or even beside Serge in some matchups), and the Raptors don’t run out a single lineup that has less than two starters on the floor. What’s more, the only lineup with two of the three top ball handlers
Raps to draw from experience of last season, enter playoffs with attacking mindset – Video – TSN
As the Raptors get set to face the Nets in the first round and begin their NBA title defence, members of the team spoke about their mentality heading in.
Series Preview: Toronto Raptors vs. Brooklyn Nets – Raptors HQ
Hot Hand Risks and Raptors’ Defense
You have to give it to the Nets on this one: even with a zombified roster, they’ve got some shotmakers.
Since the restart, noted Raptors annoyance Joe Harris has been draining threes at a 54.1% clip (6.2 takes per game) and Luwawu-Cabarrot has made 45.1% on 6.4 takes. Tyler Johnson and the aforementioned Temple have also been capable at 38.9% and 37.5% respectively.
This is also a Brooklyn team that isn’t shying away from their one strength as an offense — shooting 40.4 triples a game, only the Bucks, Jazz and (of course) the Rockets are above them.
Defending against great three-point shooting teams, the Raptors’ identity has been to give them up, but give them up to the right guys. You’re likely to see a lot of open shots for Kurucs, or even LeVert — who has averaged 25.0 points a game, but shot just 25.8% on threes in the bubble. You can believe in this strategy for the Raptors too, as the NBA’s best bubble defense, they’ve been scrappy in shutting down the Lakers and Heat just by going all-in on “leave the crappy shooter open”.
Still, there’s no shutting off the faucet entirely. I’m imagining at least one game in this series where the Nets go hog wild from distance and steal a game — there’s just too much variance when you face a team that shoots so confidently (and has such youthful exuberance in doing so!).
The key for the Raptors is just to stay the course and stay confident in what they’re running. It’s something we’re all used to seeing since the 2018-19 title win, and what’s made this Toronto team so easy to root for during the regular season. They’re comfortable wearing who they are, against any opponent, and stick to that enough to come out on top.
Against the Nets, there are storylines to watch for, but the series comes down to that. If the Raptors play like we’ve seen them all season, this should be a wrap in relatively short order.
RAPTORS REPORT CARDS: Defending NBA champs get high marks | Toronto Sun
Kyle Lowry: A (Mid-season grade: A)
Lowry’s had better years, but not by much. He still performed at an All-NBA and all-defensive level and remains the beating heart of the team. He makes winning plays and sets the tone for one of the hardest-working and most focussed teams in the NBA. Lowry made that one-year extension delivered just before the season look like smart work by Masai Ujiri and Co. An A+ grade also would have been warranted.
NBA playoffs 2020 storylines: Lakers, Clippers, 76ers, LeBron – NY Post
Do Masai Ujiri’s Raptors still have it post-Kawhi?
Knicks owner James Dolan jumped at hiring an agent (Leon Rose) instead of waiting for Ujiri to become a free agent after the 2020-21 season. Ujiri is the best executive in the business, his Raptors still lethal even after losing Leonard and having six of the team’s top seven players miss 11 games or more.
Even without Kawhi Leonard, the foursome of Kyle Lowry-Fred VanVleet-Pascal Siakam-Marc Gasol is battle-tested. The Raptors have a new defensive whiz in another unsung piece, small forward OG Anunoby, who, like Ujiri, is a 2021 free agent.
Raptors enter with the playoffs with a wealth of experience – Sports Illustrated
“I think we always had confidence in what we created, what we’d done, but I think the opportunity that when we won it, we know what it takes, we know how hard it is, we understand that it is going to take every little bit of effort that you have to get to that point and to actually win it,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. “I think that just helped us with our ability to know, like, yo we can do this, and this is how hard it is, and we’ve gotta continue to try to work on it and keep building on it.”
The biggest trick to managing the playoffs is just having an appreciation for the amount of work that goes into winning a title. It’s not like the regular season where you can take breaks against weaker opponents or rest here and there.
“It’s a long journey that is just getting started and you kind of gotta acknowledge that fact and you’ve gotta acknowledge that not everything is going to go perfectly and you’ve gotta kind of keep a level playing field with yourself and your team and your staff and just do the best you can,” Nurse said Saturday. “But it’s going to be a long, tough grind and it should be, the result at the end of it if you can get there is certainly worth it.”
With all that experience, it’s probably time for the rest of the NBA to remember who the reigning champions are.
Nets full of confidence as they prepare for playoff opener against Raptors | Newsday
Under the circumstances, it would not be surprising if the Nets must overcome a certain amount of intimidation, but veteran guard Garrett Temple said their confidence has grown as a result of their own 5-3 performance in Orlando. “I don’t think it’s a mental hurdle,” Temple said. “I think you just respect the team that they are right now, understanding they got to be the second seed for a reason.
“I think we’re confident. We really love the way that we’re playing right now, especially on the offensive end, sharing the basketball. We have six new guys on the team, and over these eight [seeding] games, we’ve learned each other much better, so, the confidence in that chemistry is much higher.”
Surprisingly, the Nets have emerged as one of the most potent offenses in the bubble behind the leadership of Caris LeVert, who averaged 25.0 points in his bubble games. They are sixth in scoring (119.9 points), seventh in offensive rating (116.2), seventh in effective field goal percentage (55.6), second in assists (27.8), fifth in fewest turnovers (13.3), first in drive points (32.6) and first in bench points (49.0).
It’s fair to say the offense coach Jacque Vaughn has adopted an offensive style designed to attack the Raptors’ switching defense. “Without a doubt,” Vaughn said Sunday after practice. “Overall, our ability to share the basketball has been a positive for us, and it will definitely be tested against a group that’s extremely aggressive. Can we be strong with the basketball? Can we be strong with our intent? Can we be strong with our movement to get in pockets where we can take advantage of our ball movement?”
Last year, the Nets won the opener of their first-round series and then lost the next four, in part, because the 76ers did a great job of taking away three-point shooting opportunities from Joe Harris. That will be a key for the Raptors because Harris averaged 20.0 points and shot 54.1 percent from three-point range in six seeding games he played.
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