“If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of shit”. Rust Cohle’s healthy cynicism for life in Season 1 of True Detective serves as the bludgeoning undertone of a story that oscillates between his depths of despair and his partner’s insouciance. The critical acclaim the show received reserved high expectations of Season 2 which had an entirely different cast and setting. Though the music served by Montreal legend Leonard Cohen carried the tone, the story and characters were lacking. It was a disappointing season and the show barely rebounded in Season 3 with Mahershala Ali at the helm. There is no Season 4 planned. The creator quit.
Nick Nurse’s trajectory has some eerie parallels with True Detective. The inaugural season was a smash hit culminating in a title. Even with Kawhi Leonard’s departure the expectations of a deep playoff run in the second season were reasonable, especially given an arguably weaker (or at least more distracted) East. The playoffs were a flop and Nurse’s tactics were questionable at times, though the championship glow still shields him from the servile press. The third season comes packaged with a baked-in excuse for not contending so there definitely will be a season 4 to this story, but the rebound this year needs to be much stronger than True Detective’s.
You can read about his 2020-21 season in our year-end analysis of him, but let’s start with Nick Nurse’s defensive schemes. As a coach you work with the talent at your disposal and your job is to maximize their capabilities. The Raptors have a roster that is capable and comfortable with scrambling and switching on defense. Nurse used this basic tenet in combination with a zone defense to devise schemes that throw varying looks to offenses, often on the same possession. When you have defensive players like Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol and Kyle Lowry leading the line, it affords you options.
At the same time, Boston had little trouble carving the Raptors open after they’d seen them long enough, which now the league has as well. Basketball is an extremely over-analyzed game and it turns out that if you’re taller than your opponent you have a big advantage: you can see over them as Jayson Tatum did with Fred VanVleet. Throw in a post-up option and now you’re reading-and-reacting rather than sweating to find gaps in the defense. Nurse had no answer to this relatively simple adjustment by Brad Stevens, granted he wasn’t helped by the lack of size in the backcourt.
We saw what happened to Pascal Siakam after the league figured out what his first and second tendencies on offense were, and now it is Nick Nurse’s turn to undergo the same scrutiny. It doesn’t help the cause that the roster has significantly less talent than the year before, and certainly the championship season, which makes executing his favorite defensive schemes that much harder. The downgrade from Serge Ibaka to Chris Boucher is likely the biggest drop in positional talent. Ibaka can be left alone to fend for himself whereas Boucher will be prone to mistakes which will leave defensive holes. And one leak is all you need to give up points and the Raptors have potentially a few.
Nurse is also facing question marks on just who the main pick ‘n roll combination will be. Losing Ibaka and Marc Gasol is a significant blow because both offered a “default” play to be run with Lowry or VanVleet. You may recall the Raptors running essentially a VanVleet/Gasol pick ‘n roll consistently in fourth quarters against the Celtics. That whole setup is gone and Aron Baynes appears to be the Raptors best big to run any sort of screen ‘n roll action with. He’s good at it, but it’s a big drop-off from what was and when things get tight and the spacing falters, Nurse will have to come up with ideas on just how to manufacture offense.
One of Nurse’s biggest challenges will be to get Pascal Siakam going in a two-man game (read Louis’s fantastic piece here). Siakam remains a lone wolf on offense which partially explains why he struggled against a defense that only had to plan for Siakam creating for Siakam. How Nurse elevates Siakam’s game while integrating him so he’s a natural fit with VanVleet is going to be a subplot worth subscribing to. Siakam isn’t going to surprise anyone with his unorthodox release (both positionally and mechanically) and will need a partner to aid his scoring. Up until now there were natural experienced options for Nurse to rely on in Leonard, Lowry, Ibaka and Gasol. Now he has to design and create more of his primary motions.
The development of young players while remaining competitive has become the DNA of this franchise. Much of the younger generation was a rotation removed from meaningful play, but as the Raptors become less top heavy, their young players will be required to make larger leaps in shorter amounts of time. On any depth chart the Raptors will have at least Malachi Flynn, Terence Davis, Chris Boucher and quite possibly Oshae Brissett or Stanley Johnson vying for rotation minutes. These were players who you didn’t depend on but were happy to take production from. Now their contributions are mandatory.
Nurse’s challenge will be how to transition players whose contribution you could live without to pieces in the puzzle that make the difference between winning and losing. The “bridge year” branding helps relieve the pressure on this front but it remains a challenging proposition for Nurse.
As we search for story lines at the start of the season it’s natural to focus on the players, but Nick Nurse’s road ahead will be one of trials and tribulations. He has been a resilient force that is known to innovate in the face of duress, a characteristic that only the truly great coaches possess. As challenging as the championship year was, Nurse’s greatest accomplishment might be how he shapes this roster in the mould that’s required to make a title run the following season.
“I know who I am. And after all these years, there’s a victory in that”, mused Cohle while pulling on a Camel. Nick Nurse relates and it’s this conviction which will be the abutments to the bridge which this year leads to: a hopeful season four.
