Young Raptors team needs to learn to keep an even keel in roller-coaster NBA season | The Star
The coaching staff, the front office and the older players all know there will be nights like Wednesday when the team just doesn’t play well, rookies look like rookies and the end seems nigh.
But it’s not.
There’s a game Friday and one Saturday and one Monday and maximizing the lessons to be learned is vital.
“It comes at you pretty fast in this league so you’ve got to learn what you can and quickly as you can, you’ve got to be ready to go,” coach Nick Nurse said. “You’ve got to wash that one off you even if you don’t like it and start fresh and new and see what happens.”
There were certainly enough deficiencies in the way the Raptors played Wednesday to work on.
They didn’t play with nearly the consistent pace they need to, they didn’t capitalize on transition opportunities, turned the ball over too often and fouled a bit too much.
None are crippling singularly but combined they were disastrous.
Tactically, the answers are obvious: The Raptors can’t shoot 31 per cent from the field and win; OG Anunoby can’t miss 11 of his first 12 field goal attempts; Fred VanVleet has to be more effective and the young players all have to bring more consistent energy.
That’ll all come, maybe in fits and starts, but it will come.
“We have to put this into (context) that it was the first game back,” Dragić said. “The building was electrifying. Everyone wants to do well. We had a lot of young players for whom it was the first game playing in the NBA. It’s just emotions.
“Of course you get a little bit discouraged when you don’t make plays. In the pre-season we’ve already shown we can defend and get steals and get in the open court. We didn’t have a lot of chances yesterday, but … it’s the first game. We definitely have to be better.”
They might be different, too. Nurse said immediately after the game that he didn’t feel comfortable with some of the combinations on the floor and that’s where some tinkering comes.
Toronto Raptors HQ Weekly Roundtable: Offense, Yuta v. Svi, Simmons – Raptors HQ
4) Who are the six Eastern teams who make the playoffs (so not play-in game), and if the Raps’ aren’t there where will they finish?
Mitch: Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Philly (Raps finish 9th!)Zakaria Abdulle: Brooklyn, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Miami, Philly, should be the top 5. I think 6th and below is very fluid. Boston, New York, Chicago, and Toronto could all make 6th if they stay healthy. I’m going to say Toronto makes 6th off the power of their home record. The tenth spot should be between Indiana and Charlotte
Conor: My six Eastern teams are Milwaukee, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Boston
Toronto will be in 8th but need to beat he winner of 9-10 to make the playoffs.
JD: I have Nets, Bucks, Heat as guaranteed, but I think there’s a middle of the pack of Celtics, Knicks, Bulls, Hawks, Sixers, Raptors, Pacers where the 4th-10th spot will be fluid throughout the season. Yes, quote me on that — the Raps will be in the mix. They tried to be as bad as possible last season and barely escaped the 10th seed by tanking.
Jay: MIL, BKN, PHI, ATL, MIA, TOR (I’ve got the Raps in the play-in range everywhere else, so I’ll hedge here)
This prediction is part bias (Raptors!) and part Debbie Downer on every East team outside of the top-4. Toronto’s going to exceed expectations because they have the right pieces to surprise folks. The post-Kawhi seasons have been an odd mix of the old (excellent individual defenders) and new (excellent team defenders). With everyone buying in on switching (partially because they all have the same physical builds), this will be a top-5 defense. The offense may not have the shooters, but hot damn is it filled with playmakers, board crashers, and transition starters! 30 home wins sounds like too much to ask, but they’ll surely steal a game or 5 with the Scotiabank Arena crowd starving like un-fed lions.
Joseph: I’m predicting something along the lines of a MIL, BKN, MIA, ATL, PHI, BOS top six.
As for the Raptors? They should be much more competitive than last year, especially if they can stay afloat while Siakam is out. But the top of the East is pretty damn good and it’s hard to see a path to the top six that doesn’t involve some bad opponent injury luck or Svi Mykhailiuk inexplicably scoring 20 points per game. I’ll say they make the play-in, and for specificity bonus points, they finish ninth.
GANTER: Raptors are built to defend, and now would be a good time to start | Toronto Sun
If there is a positive in a loss so stunningly complete, it is that no one on the inside was denying the carnage either or trying to spin it.
“We didn’t play hard enough, tough enough, smart enough,” Fred VanVleet said. “And that’s the stuff that you can control. But again, that comes with learning how to be a pro and learning what it takes to win which, you know, you look down the roster and there’s a lot of inexperience there. We let the crowd down, it was a hell of a crowd. The fans did their part. We just didn’t play well enough but, you know, it’s game one.”
Hours later, following a practice to work out some of those kinks, the mood was a little lighter but the message was the same: That Game 1 performance just can’t happen again.
“I look at it this way: We couldn’t play worse, so it’s only going to get better,” veteran Goran Dragic said as he dug deep for a positive to come from the game.
The reality of the NBA is there really is very little time to make things right once the season gets going.
The bulk of Thursday’s practice was a film session where they dissected all that went wrong with a few (a very few) of the things that went right thrown in so everyone didn’t leave totally discouraged.
Then, following some short on-court live action, it was on to the airport and a flight to Boston where the Celtics await coming off their own season-opening loss.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse expects to tweak things somewhat in terms of rotations and perhaps personnel, though he’s not about to discuss those plans in any detail publicly. It would be silly to give away the game plan to the opposition more than 24 hours in advance, but Nurse admits some change is in order.
“I think that after watching the film, I think there’s some other rotational things to look at,” Nurse said. “I think I felt that way during the game. Actually at halftime, I was thinking that this, this didn’t look quite right or that didn’t feel quite right or whatever and tried to stagger it a little differently in the second half. Nothing more than I’ve already said. I think there’s some interchangeable guys that maybe they’ll just look different the other way. I guess we won’t know that until I try some of them which will be ongoing I think here.”
Toronto Raptors at Boston Celtics: Preview, start time and more – Raptors HQ
Got their number
Dating back to the Bubble, the Raptors are 3-8 in their last 11 games versus the Celtics, and that includes getting swept 3-0 last season. The Celtics, with their perimeter scorers, have simply been a bad matchup for the Raptors since Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard left town.And this Raptors team is not as good as those Raptors teams that went 3-8.
Still, new guys like Precious Achiuwa and Scottie Barnes should have no institutional fear of this Celtics team. Maybe tonight will be different!
Contain the Js
Tonight will be different, if not in outcome, then certainly in personnel. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have been Raptor killers the past two seasons. The last time these two teams met, the Jays combined for 48 points and 19 rebounds.And while the Raptors have gotten longer and more athletic (see the aforementioned Barnes and Achiuwa) and are on paper a better perimeter defenive team, they’re also missing Pascal Siakam, who remains a top defender. And the Raptors still start two small backcourt players.
Asking a rookie, a sophomore and OG Anunoby to slow down Brown and Tatum is a tall order.
Get Smart (yeah, I know, you’ve heard that one before)
Alongside Tatum and Brown, you can’t dismiss what Marcus Smart has done against the Raptors either. Smart missed all three of last season’s matchups, but I know you don’t forget (can’t forget) what Smart did to the Raptors in the 2020 playoffs.First, there was Game 2, in which Smart dropped in five three-pointers in the fourth quarter as the Celtics came back from eight points down to win 102-99. Smart would go on to shoot 39% from three in the series; he’s a career 32% shooter from distance.
Then there was Game 7, where Smart blocked chased down and blocked a Norman Powell layup with under a minute to go and the Raptors trailing by two.
That’s the last time Smart faced the Raptors. I’m willing to bet he’s been looking forward to tonight.
