Last night’s game was very ugly, with very few redeeming qualities. A game where the Raptors didn’t lead for a second.
Is Dwane Casey’s continued dominance of these Raptors the NBA’s greatest current bit? The man has had an inferior roster for every single matchup, and yet (!) he’s gone 8-3 vs. the Raptors since leaving. Winning these games by 13 points on average. I can only imagine the game planning that goes into this stuff makes him appear as if he were looking for Pepe Silvia. Does he cast spells? Did he utter: “Make every perceived weakness of the Raptors a reality, and tenfold!” before a boiling brew?
Fred VanVleet, who has made significant strides as a scorer inside the arc, well, he didn’t. If you don’t understand what I’m saying – I’m saying VanVleet didn’t hit a shot from anywhere inside the 3-point arc. He was 3-10 until the 4th quarter began, and finished 6-14 – which is a great night of shooting had he not missed everything else he put up.
The spirit of Tracy McGrady that possesses Precious Achiuwa from time to time awoke last night as well. Only, he’s working with the functionality and reality of Achiuwa’s limitations as an on-ball scorer. There were possessions where he made sure that no other teammate touched the ball, and that the viewers eyebrows furrowed or rose to cartoonish degrees.
After handling the large and in charge presence of Deandre Ayton in what was an incredibly gritty performance against the Suns, the Raptors were ravaged by none other than Trey Lyles to the tune of 21 points, 7 boards, and 10 free throws attempted.
Scottie Barnes had a bad game, but he commented afterwards that he’s dealing with knee tendinitis. He’s going through the rigors of an NBA season for the first time, this is gonna happen. Hope he feels better soon.
Khem Birch played 3 minutes then had his nose broken! He’s flying back to Toronto. Get better soon.
The fouling problem that has plagued every member of the frontcourt hit a fever pitch, as virtually everybody in the vicinity of the Raptors frontcourt was in trouble. Achiuwa had 3 in his first 18 minutes played, Chris Boucher had 3 in the same time frame as well, Justin Champagnie added 4(!) in 12 minutes, and Pascal Siakam finished with 5 after playing most of the 4th quarter with that number. If you were around the basket? You were catching a whistle. Both teams combined for 19 fouls in the second quarter, also known as: “the quarter from hell”. The players, on both sides, were confused onlookers. Almost as if they felt subjected to this horrifically bland brand of whistleball, with no recourse to fix it.
And finally, the thing that Casey didn’t have to game plan for: The destitute scoring of the Raptors bench. They provided a dependable 16 points on 21 shots, and 4 turnovers, with Chris Boucher providing most of the scoring. There just isn’t much to do when you drive towards a packed paint, you find the open man, and nearly every single one of those possessions is fruitless. Some of this is related to film that’s available on these players at the NBA level. Your strengths are known, so teams push you away from them – is what’s left weakness or helpful? With the Raptors bench being a collection of young players a lot of the impact is one note. Some of these guys will develop, but it’s not particularly helpful this season. This is what happens when your bench is made up mostly of recent 2nd round talent and G-League players. The only route to viability is to play your starters over 40 minutes and heavily overlap those minutes with your more limited players. There is no veteran presence. No known quantities.
The Pistons paid no price for leaving shooters open. In fact, outside of VanVleet and OG Anunoby, the 3-second violation was the Raptors best spacing tool. The rulebook states that a player has to vacate the painted area every 3 seconds (although it’s typically longer) and that was the saving grace of Siakam’s willful drives. He never had a straight line. He had to segment his drives into bite sized moves until the rulebook allowed for him to beat his man and punch a gap. Hell, sometimes he just went directly at guys and it worked. But, it didn’t work often enough to keep the Raptors afloat.
The only concrete takeaways I have from this game is that we saw the worst of this team. You try and come back against the Bucks today.
We move.
Have a blessed day.
