Here are 10 takeaways from the Toronto Raptors‘ 113-109 loss to the Orlando Magic.
1. The Raptors’ losses have become formulaic. This was yet another example of a road game where they didn’t come out ready to defend, gave up nearly 40 points in the first quarter to fall into a double-digit deficit, then chased all game to gain it back only to lose it in the end. If the script sounds familiar, it’s because the same game played out twice last week, which led to a team meeting about defence and throwing the first punch, which was then forgotten within a week. The team is clearly not responding, it’s unclear what they want to do on either end of the floor, and the result is more inconsistency and frustration. Having heard from Nick Nurse, and now the veterans, when does the front office get involved to break this cycle?
2. Pascal Siakam is alone out there. Siakam had it going early and often, nailing a smattering of jumpers in the first quarter, and finishing strong with a comeback push that featured an emphatic dunk, two putbacks, and a highlight block to erase a dunk. His effort was admirable, and it was nearly enough, but the bigger picture is worrying.
Siakam was asked to do way too much against a tanking team to a degree that was unhealthy. Despite the 36-point effort, Siakam isn’t at the level of a Luka Doncic where every play must hinge on his decision. The Raptors badly need a secondary creator to keep the team afloat while Siakam sits. Toronto was outscored by 17 points in the 10 minutes while Siakam rested, and they didn’t even maximize his minutes by starting with a suboptimal lineup. He is the one player this season who has consistently held up his end of the bargain.
3. The last minute of the game was regrettable. First, the Raptors can’t take the lead even though their best foul shooter in Fred VanVleet is at the line in a one-point game. Then, Gary Trent Jr. forces a miss from Markelle Fultz, but VanVleet doesn’t seal Franz Wagner who flies in from the arc for a putback. Siakam then attacks but gets trapped, yet nobody has the awareness to cut to the ball and it was nearly a turnover before Nick Nurse calls timeout.
But with the game on the line, the ensuing action was an unimaginative play call that saw Siakam isolate at the top, which then flowed into a dribble hand-off to VanVleet which the Magic promptly switched to contain the drive, VanVleet didn’t take the chance to hit Siakam on the roll, and ended up hoisting a contested rainbow jumper that came nowhere close. For a team with the vast edge in experience, the Raptors have nobody but themselves to blame for how the final moments unfolded because it was right there to be won.
4. VanVleet continues to shoot blanks and shouldn’t have even been in that position to take the final shot. Whether there are extenuating factors or not, the simple fact is that VanVleet has struggled for so long that it’s inaccurate to just call it a slump. His three-point shot was so off that at one point he hit the glass on a contested jumper.
It’s one thing to make the right reads and being aggressive within those looks, but VanVleet continues to see it as his responsibility to will the team with momentum-breaking shots that he did make last season, but now it feels oblivious. He can eventually come back to these looks when he rediscovers his form, but right now it’s best that he plays within the flow of the offence, rather than trying to force anything. At the very least it will be better for his floundering percentages.
5. The lows can’t be this low with Scottie Barnes, who was totally disengaged. You can always find reasons like the offence didn’t feature him, or find examples where the pass didn’t come to him, but the bottom line is that you can create your own chances by playing harder. There’s no reason why Barnes had fewer shots than someone like Chris Boucher, who got his chances through sheer hustle.
Granted, Boucher was wasteful with those looks, particularly at the basket, but the hustle was there. Barnes not only has the ball in his hands as the main decision-maker when Siakam sat, but he didn’t attack with the same urgency as Boucher, aside from a pair of offensive rebounds in the fourth. Barnes needs to take ownership of the team’s results no matter how he’s playing, instead of disconnecting from the team. It’s becoming a pattern and it’s very noticeable when he is involved or not.
6. The Raptors got absolutely zero production at centre. Christian Koloko is a second-round rookie who is overmatched, and it is leaving the Raptors to play 4-on-5 at the start of games. Koloko’s job is to contest every shot at the basket, yet it was a layup line to start the first and third quarters. The problem is that Nurse has no other viable options on the bench. Khem Birch was quietly decent in his shift, but he is not the answer, nor is playing Thad Young out of position against a team of springy athletes.
This is a blatant weakness of the roster that has not been properly addressed for going on three seasons since the championship duo of Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka walked. It’s not so much that they needed to be retained, but they simply weren’t replaced. Fundamental basketball principles like paint protection and rim pressure are flagrantly ignored in this roster build. They lose the center matchup every night.
7. Trent Jr. keeps plugging away as a bench scorer. His game is the same regardless of whether he starts or not, and it speaks to his professionalism and preparation. He is the Raptors’ only threat for pull-up threes at the moment, and the Raptors were wise to feed him more looks through off-ball curls so that Trent Jr. could get a head of steam for either a driving floater, or stepping back for a jumper.
Trent Jr. pairs well with Siakam, who often needs a release valve at the top of the floor as a counter for the double teams he routinely faces in the paint. The only issue with bringing Trent Jr. off the bench is that it limits his playing time. Trent Jr. played the entire fourth quarter, yet he only played two more minutes than Barnes who wasn’t producing.
8. It’s discouraging that O.G. Anunoby is back to being an afterthought in the offence. He is called upon for spot-up jumpers, which he isn’t being as aggressive on since he’s also quietly in a slump from three, and cutting layups. There are fewer chances for Anunoby to create out of curls and post-ups which had been the case when Siakam was out, which was always going to be the trend yet it has swung too far away from the optimal balance. On a night where VanVleet and Barnes didn’t have it going, Anunoby should have been given a chance to play second or third fiddle.
9. The Raptors’ front office must see that the current situation is untenable. It’s not that they need to panic about a random loss in December, or that they have slipped too far in the standings since most teams are at or around .500 in a historic year for parity in the league. But rather, there seems to be two timelines that are completely at odds.
Whether they try to win now and add pieces to support Siakam’s efforts — a starting calibre centre and a third guard are must-haves in that case — or they need to take a step back and assess what they can get for their underperforming veterans. Right now, the mood around the team is one of frustration, players aren’t being maximized in their current roles, and most importantly, they’re not winning.
10. Raptors fans have every right to demand more from the situation. The promise going into this season was that they were ready to build on last year’s success and potentially take the next step if some of their young players grew, and the team has delivered on neither front. VanVleet and Barnes have alarmingly taken a step back from their level last season, which has somewhat been offset by Siakam’s leap.
Meanwhile, most of the prospects haven’t even shown enough to get Nurse to play them unless half the team is absent. Precious Achiuwa was called out by Nurse, then suffered an injury, and Koloko is getting time but he isn’t producing enough results to contribute towards winning. The halfcourt offence scores at the worst rate in the league, in part, because their three-point shooting only keeps plummeting, and even their defensive effort wavers despite the roster being built with defence in mind.
