https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTgpXWGizoM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg9_eZmQjjk
NBA: Raptors lose to Wizards in OT despite Siakam’s 44 points – Yahoo!
Five — Excellent: Siakam was great in this game, matching his career-high with 44 points, which he notched last season against the Wizards. Siakam dominates this matchup because the Wizards don’t have a tall wing defender, their transition defense is shoddy, and they don’t protect the rim. Siakam was able to get into the paint repeatedly, including in the dreaded clutch scenarios. Over the last 10 minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime, Siakam scored 14 of the Raptors’ 31 points on 5-of-8 shooting, and his only mistakes were rimming out three free throws and the aforementioned charge on Westbrook. It wasn’t perfect, and the missed free throws were poorly timed, but it’s hard to nitpick this specific showing.
Koreen: The play-in tournament wasn’t intended for a team like these Raptors – The Athletic
A quick rewind: After the Raptors lost to the Clippers in Los Angeles on Tuesday, coach Nick Nurse referred to Thursday night’s game by invoking the above British idiom. The idea was that if they did not win against the Wizards, their hopes for making the play-in tournament would basically disappear, even if infinitesimal odds would remain. A win, and the Raptors would have been two games behind Washington with the tiebreaker in hand, and three games back of the Pacers pending their game against Atlanta, which they ultimately won, with a chance to win the tiebreaker with them in the last game of the season. Making up that ground with only five games would be unlikely, but within the realm of possibility with a win.
In response, the Raptors sat OG Anunoby for the third straight game, as they manage a strained calf that he suffered months ago. Yuta Watanabe’s sore ankle sent him plummeting down the injury report over the span of 24 or so hours, from probable to questionable to out. Kyle Lowry, who was remarkable in Sunday night’s win over the Lakers, missed Tuesday’s game with back stiffness. On Thursday, the Raptors sat him again, citing only rest. Nurse said the decision about whether to rest Lowry, or any other player, involves conversations between him, general manager Bobby Webster, president Masai Ujiri, and focuses on which players they want more time to evaluate. It also likely involves the medical staff, although less at this point of this particular season than at other times, it can be assumed. In all, the Raptors had 10 available players.
In other words, it looks like the Raptors were not terribly interested in a memorable night in The Last Chance Saloon. From the outside, it has not seemed like they’re too bummed about having to visit in the first place.
“Well, I don’t get outside much, so I guess I’ll say what do you think about it?” Nurse said before the Raptors lost 131-129 in overtime, a contest befitting their weird history with the Wizards. “Oh wait, you already told me what you think about it.”
The coach does not lie. Quite clearly, the Raptors have not been super invested in making the play-in tournament for a while now. While there have been hints of legitimacy to several of the Raptors’ decisions to rest players, or manage their injuries, depending on the nightly nomenclature — Fred VanVleet had a real hip ailment, Anunoby’s calf strain is the type of soft tissue injury that case be easily aggravated, Lowry had a toe infection earlier in the year, the former two two players and Pascal Siakam missed multiple weeks in the COVID-19 health and safety protocols in February and March — they have certainly been conservative more often than not. It is not that the Raptors have occasionally erred on the side of caution; it is that they have done so regularly, in spite of being within a few games of one of the two extra play-in spots created this season.
No other team fighting for a spot has done this as flagrantly as the Raptors. The Spurs, currently 10th in the West, rested four starters on Sunday, but they were playing their lone home game in a nine-game stretch, and have a league-high 40 second-half games because of their bout with the protocols in the first half. The Raptors’ 72 games this season were evenly split before and after the All-Star break.
Raptors’ intentions for remainder of season now crystal clear – Spotsnet
Gary Trent Jr. contributed 25 points and VanVleet 22, while Toronto held Bradley Beal (28 points) and Russell Westbrook (13 points, 17 rebounds and 17 assists) below their season scoring averages.
There was plenty to like, but how upset – really – were the people that sign the cheques about Toronto’s seven-year post-season streak almost certainly coming to an end?
We can make assumptions, but that’s all. It’s been crickets all season, for the most part.
Raptors president Masai Ujiri should make himself available alongside general manager Bobby Webster to express to a fanbase that has carried the franchise through highs and lows, thick and thin, what the medium-to-long-term goals for the team are.
They don’t have to say “we’re tanking.” But they can tip their hand: talk about development, growth, the future. They can wink.
They could have traded their franchise icon, Kyle Lowry, at the trade deadline.
At the very least they should relieve head coach Nick Nurse of the nightly obligation of trying to explain how a team that won an NBA championship two years ago and had the second-best record in the league last season is doing everything in its power to take the 2020-21 season off.
Instead, all he can do is praise a group that has played hard, played well, but all too often has been limited by having multiple key players sit out for the most flimsy of excuses. It made sense at one point when the Raptors were coming off a 1-13 March. But given how competitive they’ve been regardless of the circumstances, pulling the rug out from under them over and over again doesn’t seem right.
“I hate to sound like a broken vinyl record. We are [playing well],” Nurse said. “We were trying to execute the game plans and we’ve done an excellent job of that … tonight, again, [we had] 43 minutes of executing what we’re trying to do. I guess what I keep saying is that we’re doing what we’re trying to do, man. We put a game plan out there, we want to know if you can execute it and can we play offence with some composure and I thought we did that all night …. I’m not frustrated at all and I’m very proud of the guys, actually.”
He should be. Siakam, in particular, is finishing the season on a high after a slow start and plenty of ups and downs along the way. He’ll be a better and stronger player for the experience, but he won’t have a chance to redeem himself in the post-season after his disappointing playoff performance last season.
“Obviously we’ve been through a lot. It’s been a crazy year,” said Siakam. “As for me, my mentality is just that eventually the storm ends, so just got to continue to keep pushing to get better, continue to work on my game. Learn things that I think are going to get me to the next level. I think that’s my focus. Try to win every game we go out there, give it everything we’ve got. Do everything that you can to help the team win. Again, just live with the results.”
NBA Recap: Wizards defeat Raptors with 131-129 OT win – Bullets Forever
With Bertans joining the starters in the second half, the thinking had to be that another shooter would cause Toronto to pause before sending a double/triple-team Brad’s way. But Nurse continued to send the double, and Pascal Siakam commenced his onslaught on the Wizards frontcourt defense. Ultimately finishing with a career-high 44, Siakam ruthlessly hunted for a matchup with Bertans. Who could blame him? But Siakam wouldn’t be the only one setting a new career-high. For countering this onslaught from Pascal was none other than our plucky sparkplug, Raul Neto.
Coming alive in the third quarter, Raul Neto splashed in some timely threes, as his play helped the Wizards go on a 20-7 run to close the third, leaving the team with only a 4 point deficit to make up in the fourth. And which they did. With Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook coming alive down the stretch, the Wizards held a three-point lead with under 20 seconds left to play.
But that was more than enough time to send the game into OT. Inexplicably leaving Fred with too much room, Russell Westbrook let him raise up for a game-tying three that had all of us wondering if this would be yet another #SoWizards L. Heading into OT, the mood was gloomy. Until it wasn’t.
Bringing brighter days as he rained down hook shots, Robin Lopez carried this team during OT. From grabbing offensive boards to knocking down clutch free throwers, Captain Hook put the Wizards in a great position to close out the game. Davis Bertans defense and a bonehead lapse of judgment by Russell Westbrook, however, nearly undid all of the Captain’s good work. Davis couldn’t slide his feet against Siakam, and but for Siakam’s splitting of two pairs of free-throws, these fouls nearly proved costly. Even more potentially costlier was Russell Westbrook’s double gaffe. With Toronto pressuring the ball, Russ decided to politic for a foul. When he didn’t get it he did what every coach abhors: left his feet to make a pass. The pass, of course, was intercepted, and the Raptors were given a chance to cut the then-4 point lead down to 2. Why? Because Russ, after the horrible turnover, decided to foul a very, very good shooter.
The rest of the game proceeded just as tensely. Siakam converted a three-point play to bring the game within one. Garrison Mathews split a pair of free throws; and the Raptors, without any timeout’s, had about 3.4 seconds to snatch the Wizards soul. But to no avail, as Siakam’s long-distance heave careened off the backboard and into the waiting arms of the victorious Wizards.
Leading the way along with Birch was Pascal Siakam, who had his entire offensive repertoire working tonight. His outside shooting kept the defense honest, his whirling dervish drives kept the Wizards on their heels, and he was active and aggressive in transition. His offense was much needed as the team had little creation elsewhere. In the process, Siakam tied his career-high of 44 points, but missed some key free throws down the stretch that could have given the Raptors a better shot at a W. As has been the case all season, if some things broke a different way for Siakam, the outcome here could have been quite different.
Although Beal and Westbrook were held in check for the bulk of regulation, other players on the Wizards got outsized opportunities as is wont to happen with the Raptors’ star-stopping strategy. Raul Neto seemingly could not miss, especially from distance, and Robin Lopez has completed his transformation into 2013 Brook Lopez, putting in work in the post.
With these contributions from their role players keeping Washington in it, the Raptors found themselves up by only one with five minutes to play. Back-to-back corner threes by Gary Trent Jr. and a transition dunk by Birch gave the Raptors some breathing room, but it was soon after that Beal and Westbrook put their stamp on the game with Westbrook’s drives and Beal getting to the line on multiple occasions late, including after getting fouled on a three-point attempt by Birch.
But it’s best not to count out the Raptors. Just as appeared that Westbrook and Beal had the game wrapped in regulation, a leaning Fred VanVleet three with just over a second left tied it up and sent it to overtime. Though the Wizards were playing on the second night of a back-to-back, it was the Raptors who didn’t have the legs in OT — including one sequence that saw them get about five shots in one possession only to front-rim most of them. If not for another brilliant flourish from Siakam, this one would not have been nearly as close as it was.
Beal, who finished with 28 points, was able to break out of the clamps the Raptors had him in for most of the game and took over the overtime period, forcing Toronto to play the intentional foul game down the stretch. There would not be another miracle this time, as a last-second Siakam three bounced harmlessly off the backboard, never threatening to drop in.
This game was the last real chance for the Raptors to cobble together a shot at the playoffs, and based on Toronto’s active roster, they didn’t necessarily even want this one that bad. Odds are that the resting of key players will escalate now, and the team will fade away as we prepare to say goodbye to a season that was really never going to be a success from the start. If anything, this game was a fitting punctuation mark on a strange, messy season.
Time to get back to Toronto.
Raptors’ play-in hopes are all but done after an overtime loss against the Wizards | The Star
It would have been comical if it weren’t so painful and so costly.
A missed Fred VanVleet floater, an offensive rebound. A missed VanVleet three-pointer, an offensive rebound. A missed Gary Trent Jr. three-pointer, an offensive rebound. A missed VanVleet three-pointer, a possession finally ended.
In many ways, it was a synopsis of a ruined Raptors season — good looks, no luck — a 14-second span in overtime Thursday that likely ended Toronto’s playoff hopes.
There were other moments in a 131-129 loss to the Washington Wizards that were turning points but none came so rapidly and so obviously as those four misses in the overtime period.
“It felt like everybody had a pretty good opportunity to knock a shot down,” Trent said. “We’ll take those looks from anybody on any given day, and they just so happened to not fall during that possession. There were a lot of other great things that we did … We’re just trying to put ourselves in a position to pull out a (win) and we just came up short.”
The easy hot take is to suggest the Raptors can’t find a way to win close games. They’ve lost four heartbreakers in their last five. That’s the wrong take.
“I know it’s really easy to kinda say, ‘look, it’s a close game’ and whatever, but I think it’s tremendous that we’re playing the hottest, best teams in the league and outplaying them, giving them everything they want,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “I look at it more like that. It’s more encouraging and probably spectacular that these guys are rising up and figuring out how to do that than it is to sit here and say ‘ah, we lost another close one; geez, they can’t win a close one.’ ”
With the Raptors now four games out of 10th place, the final play-in spot, in the East and only five regular-season games to go, it’s simply a matter of time and mathematics until the team’s string of seven straight playoff appearances comes to a screeching halt.
The fact is the Raptors, who gave Kyle Lowry the night off to rest, are quite willing to roll the dice with a limited roster of their own doing and to let youngsters play in the cauldron of big games. The decision to rest Lowry for such a significant game was an organizational one.
“How it’s determined is we — being myself and Bobby (Webster, the general manager) and Masai (Ujiri, the team president) — talk about who we want to play and who we want to see and who we’re going to evaluate, and that’s what it comes down to,” Nurse said before the game.
Wizards in control in OT win against Raptors | Toronto Sun
The Raptors were technically the better rested of the two teams with Washington having lost the night before in Milwaukee though Toronto was coming off a west coast road trip with just a day in between their loss to the Clippers and Thursday’s game in Tampa and a cross country flight cutting into that off day.
There’s no indication the Wizards are doing anything but going for it.
What transpired was a better-than-expected game.
Beal and Westbrook saw plenty of attention from the Raptors who were determined that those two would not beat them.
The strategy was successful for much of the game though Beal got hot late to reach 28 points while Westbrook had just 13 though he did have 17 assists and 17 rebounds for another triple-double.
All that attention meant open looks for the likes of Raul Neto and Davis Bertans but that was the tradeoff.
Neto would finish with 23 points.
Offensively the Raptors were jump-started by Pascal Siakam who is having a fine finish to this oddball season.
He came out flying and finished with a career-high-tying 44, the sixth time in the past 11 games that he has managed 25 or more.
Trent Jr., back in the starting lineup with regulars Lowry and Anunoby out, again came through with 25 points which included five three-pointers.
But with the game on the line, it was Fred VanVleet, cool as he always is, rising up between defenders and sinking the OT-forcing three-pointer with just 1.3 seconds left on the clock.
VanVleet finished with 20 points, none bigger than that clutch three to force OT.
Don’t kid yourself though, the path to extending the season even with a win was going to be a steep climb. It’s almost impossible now with Washington four games up and the Indiana Pacers 41/2 ahead in ninth.
Murphy and Koreen: Raptors could be legends of the fall at Last Chance Saloon – The Athletic
In terms of known quantities, Anunoby is the most interesting part of things. I won’t belabour the numbers since you already did a good job of covering his ascent in your recent piece about Anunoby’s encouraging development. However, there are five Raptors who have had an above-average (20 percent or higher) usage rate in clutch minutes this year: Lowry, Malachi Flynn, Trent, VanVleet and Siakam. (Flynn and Trent have only played six such games for the Raptors.)
Anunoby? In his 23 games of clutch action, he used 11 percent of possessions. He attempted nine shots in 63 minutes! That includes seven 3s, which we can safely assume he didn’t create for himself. Obviously, as Anunoby’s role has changed the most since the season has gone on, this reflects what was happening earlier in the season much more than later. I’m projecting a bit, but I wouldn’t be surprised if his usage is a lot closer to VanVleet’s and Siakam’s next year.
Still, unless Anunoby actually becomes Kawhi 2.0, that will only make so much of a difference. Lowry has been the best of the Raptors’ three primary playmakers in the clutch by far, and that will make what the Raptors do with him — or at least, with the roster/cap space he vacates, should things go that way — the most important question of the offseason. There will be some time to dive into the specific names, but the Raptors need to become a more dangerous team when it comes to getting into the paint and finishing at the rim. Philosophically, we both lean toward picking the best player available when it comes to the draft, because nobody knows what your roster will look like when that player becomes a major contributor. Accordingly, the significant change has to come through a combination of internal growth, free agency and trades.
To my mind, the defence should be fine in the long term. Again, I think there are some legitimate questions for Nurse to ask himself about the style of play. While I’d consider VanVleet for an All-Defense spot this year, his on-ball work is perhaps a tad overrated. Siakam’s defensive play certainly fluctuated. But with Anunoby along with those two, I think the Raptors’ performance on that end this year is close to a worst-case scenario, which makes for a pretty high floor …
… so long as you’re not getting outrebounded on the offensive glass 16-7 every night. The, uh, clusterpoop at centre mostly played out offensively this year, but the Raptors have grabbed a downright good 78.7 percent of available defensive rebounds with Khem Birch on the floor. That’s probably unsustainable, but it hints at the difference a sturdy, mobile big could make for the team.
You asked how we got here. I’ve gone back and forth when considering how many wins the Raptors’ mishandling of the centre spot ended up costing them. Do you have a strong feel?
It is a tremendously small sample size — 41 NBA games for Flynn before Thursday, eight for Harris — and there are significant holes in their games, as should be expected given their inexperience. But getting the early stamp of approval from VanVleet should carry some weight.
Both rookies are in some ways reminiscent of a young VanVleet, willing to listen and learn from more experienced teammates and coaches, and with enough potential to be intriguing long-term prospects.
They don’t possess the most startling athleticism, they aren’t especially big and strong. But in very short snippets this season, they’ve shown a toughness that could allow them to become players.
Harris is more raw than Flynn right now and a bit behind. He lost much of the season to injury and played only seven games with the G League 905. Depending on how the last five games of the NBA regular season play out for the Raptors, he could be force-fed minutes to see how he develops but there is ground to be made up.
“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs throughout my whole career, so I think it’s just more of that,” said Harris, who broke his back and missed a high school season and sat out a college year while transferring from Louisiana Tech to Nevada.
“I’ve been pretty used to the adversity … that’s kind of been my mindset. I think opportunities are starting to come in and I’m just trying to maximize.”
The Raptors have seen more of Harris in practices and shootarounds than anyone has in games and they’ve come away impressed. It’s too early to suggest the former second-round pick has a future in Toronto but he’s given every indication of being worth a longer look.
“Obviously you see the confidence, the shotmaking,” VanVleet said. “He’s got to get his feet wet a little bit. He’s a little fresh out there but, as he gets more comfortable, I think you’ll see more of his game. But he’s just a baller. It’s not the prettiest, not the prototypical game, but he knows what he’s doing out there.”
