Often, when the Raptors game-plan to stop one of the league’s premier offensive talents, said offensive talent has a really rough time as the Raptors sell out on them to the point where they are basically daring their teammates to beat them.
When the Raptors started Saturday’s game against the New York Knicks with OG Anunoby immediately guarding Julius Randle, it felt like it was going to be one of those games where the Raptors dared Randle’s teammates to beat them. Only that’s not what happened. Randle did what many other offensive stars haven’t done against the full-health Raptors: utterly dominate.
Radle scorched the Raptors from outside, hitting side-step threes and pull-up mid-rangers in Anunoby’s face, not even bothering to bully his way inside because every shot he took was falling. Randle finished the game 10-17 from the field, 6-8 from the line, and 5-7 from three, scoring 31 points, 10 rebounds, and an assist. It didn’t matter if the Raptors were in a zone, if they double-teamed Randle outside or inside the arc, or if they just kept the best isolation defender in the NBA — Anunoby — on him. He picked them apart with ease, displaying patience against double-teams and hot shooting when he had some space.
Not that the Raptors’ defence was perfect: their doubles felt less aggressive than we are used to seeing from them, and their rotations to cover up for teammates selling out on Randle were often too slow. But for the most part, the Raptors played well defensively, keeping guys in front of them and forcing 15 turnovers and only allowing 5 offensive rebounds, most of them late in the game. The problem, apart from Randle, was that the Knicks shot 56 percent from the field and 51.6 percent from three, with five different Knicks hitting at least 2 threes. Derrick Rose, in particular, hit tough shot after tough shot, outscoring the entire Raptors’ bench on his own.
The Raptors couldn’t keep up. While Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam, and Anunoby did their part, scoring a combined 80 points (of 103), the rest of the team was nowhere to be found. The bench, in particular, struggled to create or knock down many good looks against the Knicks, scoring a combined 11 points in 53 total minutes and a combined -79 on the night. Freddie Gillespie looked out of place for the first time since getting called up to the NBA, Malachi Flynn played only six minutes due to his inability to insert himself and be aggressive, Yuta Watanabe struggled to create offence against the organized Knicks defence, and Gary Trent Jr. was a ball stopper, taking almost every shot that came to him instead of even making a real effort to get to the rim, the free-throw line, or move the ball to his teammates.
The bench players need to be better, but the Raptors’ coaching staff also needs to figure out their rotations, and soon. In the first half, they separated VanVleet-Siakam and Lowry-Anunoby, grouping two of their starters with bench units. But in the second half, they switched it up, grouping Lowry-Siakam and VanVleet-Anunoby, a look we haven’t seen much at all this season, as Louis Zatzman wrote about here. Truth be told, all of those lineup combinations struggled against the Knicks, and the Raptors only had any success when all of their starters played together, but the sooner the coaching staff figures out the rotations, the quicker the Raptors will be able to develop chemistry in those groups and succeed (I have a piece coming out on this topic very soon).
VanVleet, for his part, did about all he could to carry the Raptors. While Anunoby and Siakam also hit timely shots and played solid defence, it was VanVleet that stood out to me as he develops important very aspects of his game and looks like an elite point guard on both sides of the ball. I thought he made great decisions in transition, finding teammates in stride and not forcing the issue if they didn’t have numbers, and while he only got 2 free-throws, I thought he did a much better job initiating contact around the rim, choosing his spots to go up for layups and initiating contact (or avoiding it for makable looks) when he did.
Sahal Abdi and I talked about all of these topics and more on the Raptors Republic post-game live show, The Rap Up:
