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Determining what’s an overreaction and what isn’t after Raptors lose Game 1 to Celtics – Yahoo!
Concern: Pascal Siakam is really struggling
On the flip side, the Raptors’ top scorer was downright woeful. Siakam didn’t score his second basket until the seven-minute mark of the third quarter, and the Celtics stopped double-teaming him in the second half. After bricking a few open threes, Siakam retreated into the post where he launched a series of contested hook shots while hollering for fouls that never came.
Nick Nurse maintained after Game 1, and again in practice, that he was happy with Siakam’s attempts. To his credit, Siakam did get good position for most of his offense and he had the advantage over smaller defenders. More of these shots will fall, especially if the officiating loosens up on the contact that is permitted around the rim. There were instances where Siakam was tripped by Marcus Smart under the rim only for the play to continue.
The bigger concern is that Siakam pretty much only settled for post-ups, and didn’t look comfortable in the rest of his game. It took until garbage time in the fourth quarter for Siakam to attack facing up, and he didn’t get a single point in transition. Siakam is not a Kawhi Leonard-style superstar, where the best play is to get him into his spots and getting out of the way. He is at his best when he does a bit of everything — operating in the pick-and-roll, screening then rolling to the rim, driving inside before the defense gets set — basically any scenario where his athleticism is a factor.
Only being comfortable in the post reflects a lack of confidence, which is a bigger concern with Siakam inside the bubble. Siakam didn’t touch a basketball during the quarantine, and was noticeably rusty in the seeding games where he shot 39 percent from the field. Even during the lopsided Nets series, there were instances where Siakam looked shaky despite being at a clear advantage. Everything is a bit too loose for him right now — the handle isn’t tight, the jumper is erratic, the touch around the basket is off, and his passing vision isn’t always clear — and it’s not even necessarily a tactical problem, so much as it is to do with conditioning and sharpness.
‘Juice’ and chemistry: Behind the scenes of a remote TSN Raptors broadcast – The Athletic
“Ahh,” Armstrong half-moans into a live mic late in the game, standing up from his seat to stretch. “I’m standing up here in Studio North! I’m just trying to stretch out.”
Devlin teases him with a laugh, explaining to the audience that Armstrong got his customary morning run in and is experiencing some soreness.
“I’m a little stiff,” Armstrong admits. Then, after a pause, adds: “I could use a stiff beverage after watching this one.”
After a progressively light-hearted quarter, that comment finally causes Devlin to break. He buries his face in a hand, elbow on knee, and lets out an extended high-pitched laugh. Armstrong clarifies that he’s not drinking – yet – just enjoying “ice cold agua” in the studio.
Chris Boucher mercifully hits a 3-pointer to snap Devlin back to a more serious tone, and not even a celebratory “Bonjour!” can break him. A steadied Devlin resets the game situation and kicks to commercial after a timeout is called, only breaking back out in laughter once they receive an all-clear from the production truck through their headsets.
Jack Armstrong (L) and Matt Devlin react to some action during Game 4 of the Raptors-Nets series on Aug. 23.
If you think a Devlin-Armstrong Raptors broadcast sounds like fun while you’re watching one, that’s because it is. At least to them. And it’s by design. If they’re enjoying themselves, they figure the audience probably is, too.That they’ve been able to keep this up while broadcasting from a remote broadcast studio in an industrial park, instead of their customary courtside seats, is a testament to their talent, 20-plus years of friendship, and the production crew that supports them.
Beneath the playful banter is preparation, and over the last few weeks, changes.
“There’s nothing like doing it in person and there’s nothing like being courtside doing it in person,” Armstrong said. “There’s nothing like in person. I mean there’s just zero comparisons. But you do the best you can. You just make the best of it and you try to bring energy.”
No one is about to compare Siakam to Raptors legend Hakeem Olajuwon. He is, however, typically a tough cover around the basket. Few players combine his quickness, strength and length. He has the footwork to create an advantage and the soft touch to finish in tight spaces. On the way to the 2019 title, he got good looks backing down Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Shaun Livingston and even Draymond Green one-on-one, and when the Warriors started double-teaming him, he found open teammates:
All season, Siakam’s post-ups have been a reliable source of offense for Toronto. He doesn’t always make the right decision, but he’s dangerous enough that most teams elect to send help his way. And while he hasn’t been all that efficient offensively in the bubble, it’s not difficult to find recent examples of him scoring or forcing a rotation on the block:
Attacking the Celtics is not the same as attacking what was left of the Brooklyn Nets. Smart is an all-world defender, and Jaylen Brown is on his way there. But Siakam won some of those battles on Sunday, and has won them before:
The thornier issue is whether or not Siakam should try to be his aggressive self against Semi Ojeleye, the hard-to-move reserve forward who got three stops against him in the second half:
I’m not convinced that those were all bad choices, but repeatedly going at Ojeleye isn’t my favorite strategy. More broadly, I’d argue that Siakam needs to make Boston pay for its single coverage. If he can successfully bully Brown and Smart, coach Brad Stevens will have to reconsider his approach. Getting either one in foul trouble would be particularly damaging with Gordon Hayward unavailable. And if Stevens counters by giving the offensively limited Ojeleye more minutes, the Celtics will be easier to stop.
It is only natural that Siakam is under the microscope after the most significant game the Raptors have played since last June. The Raptors’ energy, though, was more concerning than where he operated on the floor. They appeared perturbed by some calls and non-calls at the outset, didn’t play with their usual oomph and fell down by 19 points in the first quarter. Nurse said Monday that they need to do more around Siakam’s post-ups: cutting, spacing, relocation.
Why OG Anunoby’s importance to Raptors is evident in series against Celtics – The Athletic
If you believe the Raptors might be able to get Antetokounmpo, they have to put a hard cap on what they are willing to pay Fred VanVleet in unrestricted free agency and be thrifty everywhere else. That includes negotiating a potential rookie contract extension with OG Anunoby, who will be eligible for such a deal after this season. Anunoby’s cap hold as a restricted free agent after 2021 will be $11.6 million. The plan would be to sign a free agent — Antetokounmpo — while Anunoby is still on the books at that price, and then presumably sign Anunoby to a new deal that would pay him more than that.
Things get interesting if the Raptors do not feel they are realistic suitors for Antetokounmpo. Anunoby had his best season yet this year, providing borderline All-Defense quality on one end, and making marginal, but functional improvements on the other. The NBA is built around versatile swingmen, and Anunoby is one of the few players out there who can plausibly guard any player in the league, save for the occasional Nikola Jokic or Joel Embiid. He is also just 23.
In other words, the Raptors should want him around for a while.
The Celtics series might go a long way to proving how much on-court impact he can make at the moment, even if it won’t answer questions about his long-term ceiling.
“I would imagine you’re gonna see a lot of different things over the course of the game and the series,” Nurse said before the Game 1 loss. “You’re gonna see a lot of the guys guarding — there’s gonna be so much switching going on and changing matchups and tinkering around with where each team is trying to go with certain matchups, that you’re gonna see a lot of scenarios with a lot of teams.”
If that holds true, the ability to judge Anunoby could be more muted than expected. On paper, Jayson Tatum is exactly the type of player that Anunoby could be matching up against more often than not in this series, and for a long time after that. He has the physicality and quickness to be able to make Tatum uncomfortable, even if Tatum’s development shows how difficult an assignment that is.
Toronto Raptors hoping a taste of home will provide a spark in crucial Game 2 – TSN.ca
The Raptors have been away from their loved ones since they reported to Fort Myers for pre-camp workouts exactly 10 weeks ago – nearly two weeks longer than any other team. However, beginning on Monday, some players will have guests join them in the NBA bubble.
Per the agreement made between the NBA and NBPA prior to the restart, each team that advanced to the second round of the playoffs will be allotted up to 17 additional hotel rooms for guests. Each player is allowed up to three guests, which can include family members or others with “long-standing relationships,” with one of them permitted to attend each game.
Guests have been in quarantine just outside of the league’s Walt Disney World campus, and assuming they clear the protocol, they’ll get to reunite with the players this week.
The timing couldn’t get much better. Being away from family, friends and their communities in the midst of a global pandemic and during a time of social unrest has taken its toll on everybody in the bubble. Given the current state of the world and with the emotions of this past week – watching the police shooting of Jacob Blake, protesting games, and nearly walking away from the restart – the value of being able to hug a parent, sibling, child or partner is immeasurable.
VanVleet’s girlfriend, Shontai Neal, as well as their two young kids – who he hasn’t seen since Father’s Day back in June – are among the group expected to enter the bubble on Monday.
“[I’m] just excited,” VanVleet said Monday afternoon. “I miss my family. Family is huge for me. It’s been a while, but it will be good to see everybody. And right on time after getting our butts kicked yesterday. So that’ll kinda take my mind off of it for a little bit today, and then I’ll get prepared and get locked in for the game tomorrow.”
The Raptors are coming off a blowout 112-94 loss to the Boston Celtics in the opener of their second-round series opener on Sunday. In order to remain focused on the task at hand, and with the unusual living conditions inside the bubble, many players around the association have opted not to bring their families to Orlando, at least for the time being.
Roughly half of Toronto’s players chose not to have guests join them, according to team sources, including Marc Gasol. After discussing it with his wife, Gasol – who has two young kids – made the tough decision not to bring his family to the bubble.
For those that will be welcoming loved ones in, the hope is that a taste of home can help lift their spirits and maybe even spark them on the court going into Tuesday’s crucial Game 2.
NBA Playoffs 2020: Off-Day Talk: Toronto Raptors frustrated after Game 1 struggles – Raptors HQ
Fred is right — the Raptors really hurt themselves coming out without playing sharp basketball. Losing the first quarter 39-23, the Raptors hurt their own ability to use their defense to grind back into the game. Boston wouldn’t score 30 in a quarter again in the game, but the sloppiness in the first meant Toronto was never able to get back in.
Marc Gasol echoed VanVleet’s sentiment about needing to be on the ball.
As Daniel Hackett talked about in his tactical breakdown earlier today, there was a bevy of open threes for the Raptors in Game 1. If Gasol and his cohort started making them, we might be talking about something else entirely today.
Finally, Nick Nurse had his usual, tidy summation of a basketball game.
So, without getting into specifics, it’s clear the Raptors want to light a fire under themselves going into tomorrow’s Game 2. Everyone who talked today didn’t limit their discussion to either end of the floor. Toronto will need to be more consistent on defense and make more open shots on offense in order to tie this series up. There’s plenty of bright sides too: we’re early, we expected to see a long series, and there’s lots of time to make things right.
There’s a bright side off the court too, as Raptors’ families will begin entering the bubble today to take in the rest of the post-season.
Maybe the return of Fred Jr. is enough to get those threes to start falling again!
Why Raptors could utilize ‘jumbo’ lineup for Game 2 vs. Celtics – Sportsnet.ca
According to Nurse, while there are certainly adjustments that need to be made, the biggest one is likely just more energy.
“We didn’t bring it, man. We weren’t running hard,” said Nurse. “It was like we were playing uphill both directions. Right? We weren’t running hard back, we weren’t running hard forward. We weren’t cutting hard. There was a speed and energy problem that I think was — it was a physical problem, which I think was created by our mental state, which wasn’t right.”
Not being in the right mindset is understandable given the emotional nature of the week that was that preceded the Raptors’ second-round opener with the Celtics. But at the same time, Boston was dealing with it exactly the same, too, and it came out like a house on fire Sunday.
There are many valid concerns with the Raptors after Game 1, such as their inability to get out in transition and the poor job they did of defending the corner three – according to CleaningTheGlass.com, the Celtics were 10-of-15 on corner-three attempts alone.
Thankfully for the Raptors, however, bouncing back in the face of adversity is something they’ve gotten used to. This was a team that still managed to finish with the NBA’s second-best record despite being among the most injured teams in the league and went down 0-2 to the Milwaukee Bucks last year before recording four straight wins to reach the NBA Finals.
This group has proven before that it can fight its way out of a corner.
“I think that’s just when you draw on your experience a little bit. We’ve all been in these positions. We’ve been on the good side. We’ve been on the bad side. We understand the ups and downs that come with the playoffs,” said VanVleet. “A lot of our guys in the rotation have been battle-tested. You understand that there’s gonna be a game like that probably. You hope that it doesn’t come. But it did. Now it’s our job to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Added Nurse: “I’d much rather be holding hands and skipping rope after a win, but again, this is where we find ourselves…. I mean, listen, we’ve certainly been punched squarely in the nose and we’ve got to stand up and either start playing, playing better, or not, and that’s kind of where we are.”
A little more speed, a lot more force the answer to the Raptors’ woes | Toronto Sun
VanVleet said the remedy to that one is pretty simple.
“Well, we’ve gotta run first,” he said. “We didn’t run very fast, we didn’t run our lanes, we didn’t get to the corners. I thought we played too fast to start the game and too slow after that. We had our opportunities. I think we forced them into a bunch of turnovers. We didn’t really capitalize off of those. But like I said, give them credit, they were the better team. They did a good job of stopping us in transition and we’ve gotta find a way to take advantage of that in the next game.”
It was VanVleet who probably summed up the Raptors’ position heading into Game 2 the best yesterday.
“You probably can’t survive more than one of those,” he said of the never-quite-right Game 1 by the defending champs. “We’ll have to put together a better performance to give ourselves a chance, and continue to move forward and not get too high or too low. People say that a lot, but it’s a little bit harder to do when you’re in the moment and you want to compete at a high level. Nobody’s out there trying to play bad. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. You’ve got to turn it around and be accountable and, like you said, have the fortitude to look at the film, get better, take some criticism and get out there and correct it. I think if we do those things, we’ll have a better shot. I think we’re still pretty confident, but obviously we’ve got some work to do.”
Perhaps smoothing the way for that kind of turnaround was the arrival in the bubble yesterday by the families of those players who chose to bring them to Orlando with them. VanVleet was one of those and he admitted just the thought of seeing his loved ones already had him feeling a little better about things. The families on their way in have been in Florida for a few days now finishing off a quarantine and undergoing the same testing the players do to ensure that when they did enter the bubble they would not be a risk to anyone already in there.
Armstrong: Stunning to see Raptors overmatched, more will be needed from Siakam – Video – TSN
The Raptors were never able to recover after being dominated in the first quarter by the Celtics and as TSN NBA analyst Jack Armstrong explains, Toronto played on its heels and looked overmatched. Armstrong expects the Raps to bounce back in Game 2 and believes Pascal Siakam needs to get back to what has made him successful.
The Raptors look to the mirror for answers as they try to rebound from Game 1 loss | The Star
It wasn’t a lot of fun to be around the Raptors on Monday, it seems — “We’re not happy and we’re a little pissed off and we should be. We’re not proud of anything we did,” Nurse said — but it wasn’t doom and gloom. It’s not like this group hasn’t faced adversity and doesn’t know how to bounce back.
Maybe getting smacked around was the wake-up call the Raptors needed. Or maybe that’s just an easy narrative.
“I’d much rather be holding hands and skipping rope after a win but, again, this is where we find ourselves,” Nurse said. “Well, maybe I was the one that was pissed off, maybe I was reading it wrong, but let’s see. I mean again, we’re going to find out, our mood (Monday) doesn’t affect (Tuesday) much.”
Nurse can’t make them run faster or play harder or be a wee bit tougher, that has to come from within. But the coach can impress upon them that time is of the essence.
“We’re kind of in a situation now where the stakes are high, where if you don’t bounce back you’re going to be in trouble, right?” he said. “(You’ve) got to figure it out.
“It is the first team to four wins and there’s a ways to go in this series, but we’ve got to play better against these guys and we’ve got to get in a better mindset both physically and mentally. We really do.”
Lewenberg: Expect energy and intensity to be higher for Raps in Game 2 – Video – TSN
TSN Raptors reporter Josh Lewenberg joins the guys on Overdrive to discuss Game 1 of the Raptors and Celtics series and the lackluster performance from Toronto. Josh discusses why he thinks the Raps will have a bounce back effort in Game 2 and talks about some players bringing their families into the bubble Monday.
THE GASOL FACTOR
Even though he hasn’t been close to the offensive player he once was, Marc Gasol has still been a major part of one of the NBA’s elite defensive groups this season. He’s particularly great at slowing down top offensive centres. Recall that all-star Nikola Vucevic shot 36% from the field and averaged nearly three turnovers per game during last year’s playoff series between Orlando and Toronto. Gasol also put the clamps at times on superstar Joel Embiid and Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez. This year, Vucevic only averaged 6.7 points on 20% shooting against the Raptors. But in Orlando’s series loss to the Bucks this year, Vucevic averaged 28 points on 51% shooting. He did that even though Milwaukee was the league’s best defensive group in the regular season.
In Game 1 Gasol did not have his normal magic. Starting Celtics centre Daniel Theis got to the free throw line seven times and pulled down 15 rebounds. Backup Robert Williams shot 5-for-5 and gave both Gasol and Serge Ibaka trouble.
The Raptors went big to try to turn the tide, something head coach Nick Nurse said he did as he was “searching” for something, anything that would work, and the Raptors did find some success that way.
Gasol needs to be more aggressive and needs to channel some of his old Memphis form.
NBA playoffs debate – Predicting potential upsets and new Eastern Conference favorites – ESPN
1. What did you find most fascinating in Celtics-Raptors Game 1?
Tim Bontemps: Kemba Walker looking like the Charlotte Hornets version again. This has been the biggest development of the Eastern Conference playoffs thus far. Walker has been superb in the postseason, as he sliced up the Philadelphia 76ers and was the best player on the court in Boston’s emphatic win in Game 1 over Toronto.
André Snellings: The way that the Celtics’ offense utilized ball- and player-movement to overpower Toronto’s help defense, usually its major strength, and produced a barrage of wide-open 3-pointers and easy looks at the rim. The Celtics have demolished the Raptors twice in the past few weeks, so reigning NBA Coach of the Year Nick Nurse has to make some sharp defensive adjustments.
Nick Friedell: The Celtics’ defense was on point. Toronto looked frustrated and could never find much rhythm. Can Boston play with that kind of intensity throughout this series? Also, Pascal Siakam has to start playing better if the Raptors want to get on track.
Kevin Arnovitz: The extent to which the Raptors had trouble getting anything in transition. A Toronto team that lead the NBA in transition points by a wide margin during the regular season was stopped dead in its tracks by the Celtics, who clearly had transition defense as one of the top items on their to-do list. Even the 10 measly opportunities the Raptors were able to generate were often well-contested.
Kevin Pelton: Boston’s ability to hang in with Brad Wanamaker on the floor. If Toronto is going to win this series, a depth advantage over the Celtics has to translate on the court. It didn’t on Sunday, when Boston was plus-5 in Wanamaker’s 28 minutes of action — a new playoff career high.
