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With just under three minutes remaining in the second quarter, the Toronto Raptors held a healthy 15-point lead on the road against the Portland Trail Blazers. By the end of the first half, the lead had shrunk to five. Chris Boucher had entered the game for the first time with 4:37 remaining in the first quarter and had given his team a tremendous jolt of energy. He had played for over 14 straight minutes and needed a rest. Alex Len checked in and that’s all it took for things to unravel.
In a snapshot, all that needs to be said about this Raptors season thus far can be captured in that stretch. Boucher is thriving after biding his time behind Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka last season, but Toronto’s overreliance on him and the extent to which Nick Nurse and his staff can’t rely on either Len or Aron Baynes speaks to the margin for error this roster faces on a nightly basis.
Pascal Siakam’s play has returned to All-Star form but a near-triple-double performance against the Golden State Warriors followed by his first triple-double the following night both ended in heartbreaking one-point losses. Save for the fourth quarter against the Warriors where he scored 16 points, it was a rough couple games for Lowry. OG Anunoby was terrific against Portland but not so much against Golden State. The opposite can be said of Fred VanVleet. Hopes that Norman Powell’s newfound consistency last season would carry into this are steadily fading away.
A road trip that could just as easily have seen the Raptors come away with three wins from four games has seen them sink their record to an abysmal 2-8, tied for worst in the Eastern Conference. They have improved quite significantly since the first week of the season, of that there is no doubt. But Kawhi Leonard isn’t walking through that door to help close out games and neither are Serge Ibaka or Marc Gasol to provide help on the backline. The other shoe of the moves the Raptors made to acquire their first championship has dropped and this is part and parcel of the bed they made. Things indeed get tougher as after a couple of games against the Charlotte Hornets, Toronto faces a six-game stretch against the Dallas Mavericks, Indiana Pacers twice, Miami Heat twice, and then the Milwaukee Bucks.
Making a trade to address the glaring weakness at centre and perhaps a reinforcement on the wing is talk for another day; the Raptors players and the coaching staff—much like they did a season ago—must believe they have enough to make do with what they’ve got in the meantime. Here are some ways they can improve in the here and now:
Cut down the mental mistakes
The argument that the record isn’t reflective of the team’s play thus far is fair, but only for the stretches in which they’ve looked their best. There’s no hiding from the fact that the bad stretches have been downright ugly, like when they managed just three points over a five-minute stretch of the fourth quarter against the Blazers, or when Powell and Terence Davis combined to make costly mistakes against the Warriors, or the blowout loss to the Boston Celtics when they were overawed by both superior talent and effort.
Winning is just as much of a habit as losing, and some of the mental mistakes the Raptors have committed are flat-out unacceptable. Yes, the talent and experience of this team has taken a hit the past couple seasons, but Toronto can do more to stop self-inflicted wounds. Nurse referenced needing to reduce the gap between the ceiling and floor of their play at the moment, and it’s absolutely true. The swings are too wild and basic mistakes—such as ball-watching instead of boxing out or diving for a ball going out of bounds only to throw the ball into an opponent’s hands—are ones this team simply cannot afford.
Aron Baynes must show up
Even the lowest, most basic expectations of the Australian are currently not being met. It is clear he isn’t a starter and doesn’t fit the Raptors’ preferred style of play, but he should at the very least be able to provide a serviceable backup big option and it’s hard to see a path to that right now.
Baynes’ ability to anticipate passes and catch on the run have been a serious detriment to his offensive game while his lack of mobility on the defensive end and inability to battle for 50-50 balls off the glass have hurt the team’s rebounding. This was supposed to be one of his strengths as he has long been a driving force of better rebounding but that has just not been the case. After making close to 35 per cent of his three-point attempts the last two seasons, he has made just three of his 16 attempts (18.8 per cent) thus far.
Len has been a tertiary option for his teams at centre over the years and the Raptors are getting what they paid for, but Baynes is certainly capable of more and with how tiny the team’s margins are, him becoming playable again would go some way to giving Toronto some breathing room.
Coach better
The front office deserves its share of blame for the roster construction and the players take their share of the blame for the results, and the coaching staff is certainly not exempt. Nurse has been patient with veterans who have a body of work showing better performance but has had more of an iron fist when it comes to those with less of a resume. With the tough stretch of games ahead, now is the time to simply rely on those getting the job done.
Nurse may have had the luxury of talent being able to overcome any of his in-game experiments that went sideways in the past but now is the time to be a bit more rigid with what’s working.
What’s the reality of this team as currently constructed? Perhaps somewhere in that 7-10 seed range where a play-in tournament would determine who makes the playoffs. But this franchise has prided itself on exceeding expectations for the past seven years and Nurse should embrace the challenge to do so once again.
The Orlando Magic and Charlotte Hornets currently occupy the fifth and sixth seed in the East at one game over .500, which is to say, as bad as things have been for the Raptors, it’s still early enough to not deal with the randomness of play-in games (yes, this coronavirus-stricken season is all very random).
All is not lost on this season in terms of Toronto finding the best version of themselves. The poor record, though—however underserving—is a hole they must dig out of over the next month before big decisions from the front office may be necessary.