Raptors’ problems are focus and cohesion, not effort: Koreen – The Athletic
No questions there, but let’s not conflate a lack of belief with a lack of effort. The Raptors have not been in this position, at least in the regular season, since the earliest days of Masai Ujiri’s presidency, so there is little internal knowledge of how to combat it. Take away Pascal Siakam’s struggles, which require separate analysis, and there is not much hesitancy with what the Raptors are doing. Indeed, whether it’s a quick 3-pointer, or a cross-body swipe for a steal or a loose-ball foul in trying to grab a defensive rebound, the Raptors are very much trying to fix things. So much of it seems to be about immediately stemming or flipping momentum on an individual basis.
However, as Lowry pointed out, they are failing in cohesive execution. It is those errors that then lead to the plays in which it looks as if the Raptors are disengaged or defeated. When you put forward maximum effort and you fail, it is difficult to continually call on that effort again and again.
Perhaps that is why of everyone who has spoken with the media during the struggles, it is Lowry who is most clearly focusing on the lack of cohesion, not the individual failures. He was around in 2012, 2013 and 2014, when the Raptors were still trying to form an identity. For many of the other key cogs on this team, this type of repeated failure is new, and so the tendency is to do everything possible to fix it as quickly as possible.
“This is probably unchartered territory for most of us,” VanVleet said. “Just speaking for myself I’ve never been a part of something like this. But we can’t hang our heads, no one’s feeling sorry for us. (The Raptors’ opponent on Wednesday) Phoenix, they don’t give a damn what our record is. They’re gonna try to punch us in the mouth. They’re gonna try to kick our butts and nobody’s coming to save us. We gotta do this ourselves and probably do a little soul-searching and look ourselves in the mirror and ask what each individual could do better to help contribute to the team and go out there and figure out ways to win. That’s one thing we gotta do, we just gotta find ways to get the job done, there’s no secret recipe, there’s a boatload of problems and we gotta find ways to solve them.”
The idea of there being so many problems you cannot focus on one is overwhelming, often the literal cause of anxiety. The easy thing to do is to try to make a grand gesture to fix things. It is harder to focus on being part of the solution in a way that only you can make a difference. It is difficult to reign it in and be specific and targeted with your answers.
That is what the Raptors have to do right now, though. A four-game, six-night Western Conference road trip starts on Wednesday in Phoenix, and it is not a stretch to say their season depends on channelling their urgency efficiently. Everyone wants to be the spark that leads to change, especially when you’re a player who isn’t guaranteed minutes if things don’t go well. It’s decidedly less sexy to play a tiny but crucial part in cohesive reform.
Reeling Raptors searching for answers as challenging road trip looms – Sportsnet
Struggling though they may be, there will be no respite on this trip and the fact the team looks like it won’t even get any sort of mental break while on the road — let alone having no real home-court advantage in Tampa — certainly doesn’t help things.
With that said, that still isn’t enough reason for the team to not perform, according to VanVleet.
“I mean there is a long list of excuses to be honest with you,” VanVleet said. “I mean, you can’t lock into that way of thinking. Like I said, we’re not moving, we’re going to be here in Tampa, it’s not our home, fans are going to cheer for the other team and that’s the reality of the situation. So you can sit around and cry about it or figure out a way to work through it.
“But I do worry about guys’ mental health as a brother and a teammate and a friend. It’s not an easy situation. I don’t want to discard that. But at the same time it’s a situation we’re in, and the season is not gonna stop. We can’t hang our hats on that. We’ve gotta find a way to get through it. It’s definitely different from being in Toronto, obviously, but here we are.”
Adding to this point, Kyle Lowry acknowledged that while the team is in a tough situation at the moment, put into the grander perspective of life, things could certainly be a lot worse.
“My life is based on basketball, my family. Life is fun in general. I get to wake up every day,” Lowry said. “That’s a blessing, and when it comes to, you know, what we had to do, I mean this is what we have to do for our jobs. Our job had to relocate. We relocated in a bubble and we were fine, we relocated to Tampa and guys go figure it out. We’re grown men. This is what we do. We’re paid to play basketball and if we have to relocate, we relocate. And off the court and stuff, just living your life is fun and we get paid very handsomely to be professional athletes.
“But my job is fun. I wake up, I’m alive, I have a beautiful family, kids, and I get to go do basketball for a living. That’s fun in general. You know things are different. Yes, we got a virus out there that you know no one knows how to check [for it] or stay away from it so that’s a little bit, you know, mentally stressful, but other than that you should be happy to be alive. That’s just how life is.”
Ultimately, what Lowry said is correct. Just because the Raptors have lost a lot of basketball games to start the season doesn’t mean life is suddenly ending. But, as he himself also mentioned, his life and his teammates’ still revolves around the sport, and right now, as VanVleet noted, the Raptors are “just not playing good basketball.”
Are the Toronto Raptors entering their first real joyless period since 2013? – Raptors HQ
It’s not just the losses, either. It’s how the Raptors are losing. Giving up double-digit leads in all but one of their games, Toronto has spent most second halves hitting a brick wall once the other team turns up the intensity. Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell have been flat, the reformed bench hasn’t provided much of anything, and the centre rotation has yet to find a footing.
All this adds up to Toronto navigating a territory they haven’t treaded since Rudy Gay was shipped out of town back in 2013. That trade instigated what we’ll remember best about the Masai Ujiri era — basketball played energetically and as a team, culminating in a trade for Kawhi Leonard and a title in 2019.
That said, it hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. The Raptors were well-known for playoff flameouts before the Kawhi trade, as teams adjusted to the play of Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. There were losses, there was collective misery.
Does remembering other bad times make today more palatable? No, and there’s a time for diagnosis. Perspective, however, is always key to digesting less than savoury information.
Toronto Raptors’ lead guards need help from underperforming supporting cast – TSN.ca
Neither Baynes nor Len have had much of an impact on either end of the floor, with the former getting benched in the second half against Boston after he bricked four layups in 14 scoreless first-half minutes.
Boucher has been a pleasant surprise, and might be the only Raptors player at any position – outside of Lowry and VanVleet – to exceed, or even meet expectations early in the campaign. But his skill set and physical limitations don’t align with the team’s most pressing need from its bigs. They’ve been out-rebounded in all but one of their games and were bested 56-37 on the boards by Boston.
Although Nurse’s Raptors have always embraced the concept of positionless basketball, there’s a limit to it. They need some size out there if they’re going to compete on the glass and hold their own against bigger clubs defensively.
The roster construction is such that it’s difficult to optimize the talent on this team. That hardly seems like the biggest concern at the moment, though. After all, it’s not like any of their excess guards have done much to separate themselves or take advantage of their opportunities.
Even Flynn, who fans had been clamouring to see, resembled a first-year player and 29th-overall pick that is still learning the NBA game when he finally got his shot. Is it odd that it took this long to finally give him a look, given how underwhelming the alternatives have been? Sure, but Nurse deserves the benefit of the doubt in that regard.
More often than not, he’s pushed the right buttons with his players and tends to reward the guys who have earned the playing time. The reality is he needs at least a few people to step up and do more with their minutes.
You’ll recall that he was similarly critical of his role players around this time last season. Leaning on the seven holdovers from the championship-winning team, he challenged his bench to raise their level of play. It wasn’t until injuries hit during a tough West Coast trip eight games into the campaign that some of those other guys had their breakout moments and Nurse realized he had more depth than he initially thought.
With the Raptors heading out West for four games in six days this coming week, beginning with Wednesday’s visit to Phoenix, they’re hoping for a similar result. Last year it was Boucher, Davis and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson who met the challenge and sparked an unlikely road win over the Lakers.
Yes, they’ll need Siakam and Anunoby to play better if they’re going to turn the corner and rescue their season, but who else will emerge to help take some of the pressure off Lowry and VanVleet?
The Raptors Have Lost Their Swagger. Can They Get It Back? – The Ringer
Siakam is at his best when he can attack in space and use his combination of size and speed to get to the rim. He always has been great in transition. But he hasn’t gotten as many of those opportunities this season. Not only is he dealing with different types of defenders, he’s playing in different types of lineups. He was paired with a platoon of stretch 5s last season in Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka. That was the best of both worlds: The Raptors had one of the biggest frontcourts in the NBA while still possessing elite floor spacing. Their entire rotation was 3-and-D players, allowing them to punch above their weight despite losing Kawhi Leonard.
That is no longer the case, with Gasol and Ibaka replaced by Aron Baynes and Chris Boucher. Baynes has the worst net rating of any player in their rotation (minus-13.2 in 122 minutes) besides Siakam. He’s shooting 20 percent from 3 on 2.5 attempts per game this season, and doesn’t have the size or athleticism to be a threat at the rim. He needs to regain the shooting stroke he found in Phoenix last season. There have been too many sequences like this, in which the Celtics collapsed on Siakam and Baynes couldn’t punish them for it:
Boucher has given the Raptors some offensive pop, averaging 12.7 points per game on 51.9 percent shooting and 33.3 percent from 3 on 3.0 attempts. The problem is that he’s so slight (6-foot-9 and 200 pounds) that he gives them the defensive and rebounding issues of a smaller team without the offensive benefits of having another ball handler and playmaker on the floor. Toronto coach Nick Nurse dusted off journeyman center Alex Len for nine minutes on Monday, but that didn’t work, either.
Process of elimination leads to one remaining option: smaller lineups with Siakam and OG Anunoby at the 4 and 5. Nurse, for all his flexibility as a coach, has never liked playing that small. He waited until the Raptors were facing elimination in Game 6 against the Celtics before he tried it. But that adjustment was the key to forcing Game 7. Siakam (6-foot-9 and 230 pounds) and Anunoby (6-foot-7 and 232 pounds) could match up with Boston’s undersized centers on defense, and shifting them up a position would make them more dangerous on offense.
Toronto would be giving up a lot of size in that scenario, but that adjustment might jump-start an offense that is no. 28 in the NBA right now. Both Siakam and Anunoby are relatively limited scorers who need the game simplified as much as possible. They need to play in more space, with more shooting and playmaking around them. It’s the one move Nurse has left up his sleeve. He has played those lineups only 12 minutes this season, with six of those coming in the fourth quarter against Boston.
Yes, there are significant flaws in the roster — the Raptors need more size, the various backup wings are too similar, and toughness is an issue — but there is talent that has underperformed so far this season.
Norm Powell is a proven scorer who has yet to take over a game; OG Anunoby is a big, tough wing defender who has been only so-so; backups like Matt Thomas, Stanley Johnson and Terence Davis have not given head coach Nick Nurse the consistency the team needs, so he lurches from one to another and another, searching every night.
“When you get an opportunity to play, you’ve got to come in and maximize it and play hard,” Lowry said. “We’re communicating and cheering those guys on. It’s just different right now. We’re just not playing good basketball. We’re straight up not playing good basketball.”
In normal times, a four-game western road trip so early in a season would be a perfect time for a struggling team to try and get together a little bit. There would be meetings and maybe a team dinner or two, some bonding time that couldn’t hurt. These, however, are far from normal times.
“You usually get a chance to bond on a normal West Coast, early-season road trip but road trips now seem to be kind of their own bubble,” Nurse said. “I mean, I literally haven’t left the hotel on our road trips yet. It’s like, you go to a city and you stay in the hotel.
“It’s not like we’re going out and doing a heck of a lot of bonding.”
So the bonding has to come individually, with more of the strength and will that has been lacking, dealing with adversity rather than giving into it.
WOLSTAT: Is the mental toll of bizarre season catching up to Raptors? | Toronto Sun
Look, playing in Tampa Bay is absolutely a distraction. Some are away from family and friends. Some have family and the complications of relocating that goes along with it. In an already weird year, the Raptors have it the weirdest. That’s not going to change anytime soon. VanVleet and Lowry are the team’s leaders and they are trying to support their teammates as best they can. VanVleet said post-game he’s worried about the mental health of his teammates (and a recent ESPN report noted staff members of other teams are starting to really feel the pressure of having to do their normal work on top of all the COVID-19 protocol stuff). Lowry is a bit more of a tough-love guy (though he has a soft spot for bringing along young players) and said they are all “grown men” and will have to figure it out.
That’s really the bottom line. Professional sports is about wins and losses above all. That’s the way it’s always been. While the well-being of athletes at least now factors in, whereas for decades it didn’t really, the Raptors either need to figure it out, or changes will be made.
VanVleet has played at an all-star level so far, carrying the Raptors as much as he can. Chris Boucher has been a bright spot too. Lowry’s been solid, if not as good as he has been in the past.
Another positive was Pascal Siakam’s second half after a slow start. While not yet his old self, looked a lot better on offence. He mixed three-point attempts with forays to the hoop better and even had one throwback sequence: Early in the third quarter he boxed out, blocked a shot when Boston still corralled the rebound (a story all night), then took the ball coast-to-coast for a layup and was fouled. Siakam needs to get out and run the floor more often, as he once did. Take advantage of his rare combination of length, athleticism and effort.
If you’re going to miss nearly all your free throws when you actually get to the line (as the Raptors did early) and also go 5-for-15 in the paint in the second quarter, you’re nearly always going to get into trouble. Monday was no different.
Shouldn’t Boston be a lot better? Tatum is an all-world player, somewhere in the range of the Top 7-12 in the entire NBA. Jaylen Brown isn’t far behind him.
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, can I say once again how much I hate NBA becoming a three-point contest? It is what it is, which was basically what Nick Nurse said about the subject in his pre-game availability, but doesn’t mean a lot of us have to like it. And that’s also not saying the 1980s or 1990s-style was way better. In some ways yes, in some ways no and this is still better to watch than the turn of the century defensive slogs that were mostly featured, but there’s room for improvement. Maybe moving the three-point line back would help? Maybe teams could be given an extra number of points if they shoot a certain number of shots in the paint each game? Just some ideas and I know many disagree.
Armstrong on Raps’ struggles: ‘There’s a lot of issues right now’ – Video – TSN
The Raptors dropped to 1-5 on the season with another loss on Monday, Jack Armstrong joins Kate Beirness to point out that Pascal Siakam shouldn’t be taking all the heat right now. While Josh Lewenberg adds that they haven’t shown that same fight we’ve seen from them in the past.
