Midway through the second quarter of the Toronto Raptors’ 132-121 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, Yuta Watanabe performed — as has become the norm for him — a picturesque closeout. He closed out to touch, taking away the jumper. He corralled the driver, taking away the lane, then shifted his weight and direction at the same moment as the offensive player. Then, moments later, he showed off with another perfect closeout.
Both plays ended in Solomon Hill triples. Play high-variance games, win high-variance prizes, as they say.
The Hawks ended up shooting a blistering 19-of-36 from deep, out-scoring the Raptors by 18 points from deep despite attempting fewer shots from behind the arc. Sometimes shooting does indeed make the difference.
It was Toronto’s gameplan to let the Hawks who aren’t spectacular shooters fire semi-contested looks. There were plenty of potential targets. The Hawks as a team are shooting 35.9 percent from deep, with plenty of high-volume, lower-accuracy players.
The thing is, those players connected on their shots. Toronto made it a scooch too easy, as they let John Collins, especially, fire away completely uncontested. Collins is a stellar shooter with no one else in the gym, but he can be rattled when forced to take side-step dribbles or to alter his motion because of contests. The Raptors did nothing to bother him, and once he was in a rhythm, he was much more difficult to contain.
“Our gameplan conceded some of those looks early,” said Fred VanVleet. “I know Collins had two wide-open ones to start the game that was just kind of a result of what we were trying to do defensively, and then they got comfortable, and it was just too late after that. Then we blew switches, we didn’t fire out hard enough. But some of it was a result of our gameplan, and the rest was on us as far as not running out and running to make them challenge.”
The Raptors played with fire in daring the Hawks to shoot. When the Hawks caught fire, Toronto needed to adjust. They didn’t.
On the other side, Toronto’s offense should have been enough to win, as Nick Nurse pointed out after the game. Toronto did struggle, in some ways, offensively. Kyle Lowry and VanVleet both shot poorly from the field, making Trae Young at times seem like a capable defender, which he is not. Though both guards did a respectable job setting up teammates for layups, Aron Baynes did a horrible job converting those shots. He shot 1 of 5 from the field and failed to hit the rim on multiple layup attempts. Pascal Siakam, after a solid first half, faded in the second and didn’t receive enough touches.
The Raptors still managed to reach a huge point total of 121. They did it behind offensive rebounds, a dominant Norman Powell, and, by and large, Chris Boucher. Boucher set a new career high of 29 points — many of which came after his seven (!) offensive rebounds. He hammered dunks, stroked triples, reached the free throw line, and dominated the paint. At one point he even showed off a little off-the-dribble juice that hasn’t been part of his NBA toolkit in the past.
That the Raptors are able to score plenty of points despite difficult nights from so many of their most important scorers is a positive. This loss, then, rests squarely on the shoulders of their defense.
“We can’t turn on and off, I think that’s one things we’re learning every game is that we can’t just feel like it’s a light switch and today we want to play and tomorrow we don’t,” said Boucher after the game.
Trae Young was fantastic for Atlanta. Despite some shenanigans in drawing fouls, particularly in the third quarter, he cut through Toronto’s defense like a knife. He’s more athletic than you’d expect. Though his floater wasn’t falling on the night, his jumper and passing together were enough to wreak havoc in Toronto’s defensive foundations. He finished with 28 points and 13 assists, connecting on all 14 free throws he attempted.
“When it’s fouls after fouls after fouls, it’s hard to play any defense when every time you touch them it’s a foul,” explained Boucher. “It definitely slowed us down. You know, we got a gameplan, and when we can’t get in the gameplan because of the fouls, it’s definitely hard to do anything.”
To be fair, both teams were plagued by an inconsistent whistle, as the teams combined for 52 fouls, four technical fouls, and 67 free throws attempted. For a long stretch in the third quarter, there wasn’t any basketball to be seen. But the issue applied to both teams equally, though it was Toronto who seemed to let the refereeing alter their game the most. For the Raptors, that has become perhaps the most consistent element of their young season: disagreement with the referees. Only one night after the Raptors performed admirably in not letting refereeing bother them, the Raptors wasted an entire quarter of play in frustration.
That’s life. Perhaps just as important, the Raptors played an emotional game of basketball the night before, and were the far more fatigued team. The Hawks’ hot shooting, on top of those factors, was too much to overcome.
All in all, it was not as disheartening as some losses can be. But the Raptors have issues that are common to many of their losses: fouling and the play of their starting center chief among them. Until Toronto finds consistent answers to those questions, they will consistently find any momentum they build halted in fits and starts as they progress through the season.
