If you made a list of possible culprits of the fatal flaw of the Toronto Raptors’ season, there would be a number of suspects. Right at the top of the list a week ago? The vibes. But after Toronto’s miserable snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory 122-116 loss to the Utah Jazz, it seems we can no longer consider the vibes to be the problem.
The vibes were fine. (We’ll see if they are now.) The outcome was not fine. We’ve seen this game many, many times before. Like a sports version of a Sartre play or a Bill Murray movie, the Raptors can start in a totally new place and end up in the same torture chamber in which they’ve found themselves over and over. Hell is Other People (not being able to fix the Raptors’ problems).
Nick Nurse is contractually obligated to speak with media after every game. He is often quite honest — sometimes at the expense of his players. He is also usually generous with his time. After this loss, he spoke for 90 seconds, blaming Utah’s parade to the free throw line for the loss, and was unwilling or unable to discuss further. Likely if he had been honest after this loss, he would have said some things he would have regretted.
The game was Toronto’s for the majority of the night. It was utter domination for three quarters. Late in the first quarter, a Pascal Siakam-Jakob Poeltl pick and roll turned into an and-1 for Poeltl, and Siakam was as expressively joyous as he’s been all year. The vibes were more than fine; they were grand.
But the seeds of defeat lurked, quietly sprouting, throughout the evening. Toronto’s defense remains scattered and frantic — although there were stretches during Poeltl’s 17 minutes that the team settled into some moments of normalcy. But every piece of solid ground turned out to be a fault line, every moment of stability fleeting. (Less significantly but more hilariously, Poeltl committed an offensive foul on his first possession — a moving screen. Nick Nurse had incorrectly thought he was done with those prior to the game.
“He’ll probably come in and probably be our best screener,” Nurse said. “He’s good at it. He got all of those illegal screens out of his system when he was here the first time around. He’s a good screener.”)
There were other issues, if we’re nit picking. (And after a loss like that, we should be.) Fred VanVleet’s pick-and-roll chemistry with Poeltl came in fits and starts, and though Poeltl created plenty of advantages with his screening, VanVleet had trouble finding him on the roll. That should come around, of course. The two created too many advantages, and are both too smart, for them not to find a fruitful partnership.
And for a long stretch in the third and the fourth, the defense was spectacular. Nurse bottled some magic with jumbo lineups that included Poeltl at center, Precious Achiuwa at power forward, and two other long forwards of a rotating cast of Siakam, Chris Boucher, and Scottie Barnes on the floor as well. The group defended excellently, not scrambling across the court, but instead playing foundational ball and closing off the rim. At one point in the fourth the Raptors had their shooting guard — Boucher — throwing down putback dunks in traffic.
The new-look Raptors had a fair number of positives. Despite the loss, it would be unfair not to mention the things that did go right.
Toronto is embracing this moment as a new start. The team had new introductions, tweaking the wordings. The rotation was new. The vibes especially seemed new.
Poeltl wasn’t the only addition. There was plenty that looked new not just from the new addition but from the players who’ve been here all along. Faced with potential floor-cramping, Siakam and Achiuwa were the spacers, combining to connect on 7-of-11 from behind the arc. (Siakam set a new season high for made triples.) Gary Trent jr. passed with as much intention as he has all year. He finished with four assists, tying his season high. In fact, every starter had at least four assists, with Barnes gathering a game-high nine. The passing was great! At one point, Trent caught the ball in the corner against a rotating defense, and rather than taking the open shot, he faked the jumper to get the ball to Achiuwa for the layup. Achiuwa and Chris Boucher seemed to be in a friendly competition of “who can have the bigger dunk” against the Jazz.
The Raptors will have to prove any of that growth is here to stay. It has been one game, and we’ve seen them take steps forward so far this season just to slide back down the mountain the next week. Against the Jazz, we saw them fall back down the mountain the next minute. The new Raptors sure ended up at the same destination as the old Raptors. The vibes may have been good to start the game, but they sure were terrible afterwards.
Nurse blamed fouls in his momentary appearance with media. VanVleet blamed fouls in his time on the hot seat. Only Achiuwa, perhaps too young to know better, discussed in depth the actual play from the Raptors. Showing leadership beyond his years (or just being brutally honest), he took full responsibility.
“I take 100 percent blame on that,” said Achiuwa. “Got to do a better job of anchoring the defense back there, getting guys where they need to be. Just got to be better.”
The follow-up question even offered him the opportunity to blame the whistle. He declined, saying he can only focus on what he can control.
More will change. Poeltl will likely find his way into the starting lineup, and he could help stabilize the defense to some extent. Everyone on the team, from Masai Ujiri to Nick Nurse to players seems to think he fills a role that the team needed. The Jazz took 44 percent of their shots at the rim (huge) and made 78 percent of them (oof). Poeltl, when he is worked into the system on both ends and has gone through some practices, has to impact those numbers in a positive way. If he can’t, then the entire Raptors’ experiment must be given up as a failure.
So who or what is at the top of the list of suspects now for Toronto? The defense, just like it has been for months.
At the trade deadline, the Raptors faced a poor record and upcoming free agents, and they doubled down on their current approach. As a result, they are walking on the edge of a knife for the rest of the season and offseason following. There is a path to success, somewhere, visible a long way in the distance through the haze. It’s a narrow and fraught road, and they can only take it one step at a time. Toronto took its first step on Friday night against the Utah Jazz, and it immediately lost its footing. The knife only gets sharper, now.
