It has been four years since DeMar DeRozan stopped being a Toronto Raptor — but not much has changed, as far as he’s concerned.
The 14-year veteran remains the ultimate pro, the kind of dressing room presence that invites young players to learn from his years on the job, and carries a big enough load that fellow vets are free to focus on their own work. He’s got a smile for everyone he meets, and a pump fake for every defender who thinks they can disrupt his meticulously crafted mid-range game.
It ain’t happening. DeRozan eclipsed the 20,000-point mark on a mid-range (what else) jumper against San Antonio last week to become just the 50th player to score that many career points in his NBA career.
When Doug Smith of the Toronto Star — who has known the Chicago Bulls star since he was a shy Raptors rookie in 2009 — asked DeRozan how many pump fakes he used to get to his milestone, DeRozan thought for a minute: “It’s got to be about 12,000?”
Something like that.
DeRozan will always be missed and never forgotten in Toronto — the ovation he got pre-game was another in a long list since he was traded in the summer of 2018.
In that sense it was a perfect night for the sold-out crowd at Scotiabank Arena — a chance to say hello to an old friend while going home savouring a hard-earned 113-104 Raptors win over DeRozan and Chicago that improved their record to 6-4 and provided some encouragement that they’ll be able to weather the injury absence of Pascal Siakam.
Siakam in some way represents DeRozan’s legacy with his old team, though he wasn’t on the floor for the Raptors against the Bulls on Sunday night in what was the first night of a home-road back-to-back versus Chicago.
Before the game it was announced that Siakam will miss at least two weeks with a strained adductor (groin) muscle in his right leg suffered when the forward slipped while making a move against the Dallas Mavericks on Friday.
Before the injury, Siakam was putting up All-NBA type numbers and beginning to show the kind of patience in the mid-range that DeRozan has built a career on. DeRozan – a teammate for his first two seasons in Toronto – has been a role model as Siakam has built out his own offensive repertoire.
“He’s always been one of my favourite players,” said Siakam. “When he was here and everywhere he went [since]… the way he plays the game is so beautiful.”
Siakam has been using the mid-range as a place to score when he was stifled getting all the way to the rim last season and even more this year as his scoring has hit a career-high 24.8 points a game.
“ I just think that again, [Siakam is] getting to some clearance,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “The amount of times DeMar comes off at 17 feet and he’s wide open, Pascal’s starting to get a little bit of that too … I think now we’re expecting him, when he pulls up on those, to make most of those, like you do when DeMar does. Not there yet, but he’s getting there, but it is very similar.”
But without Siakam, the Raptors will have to find offence from somewhere, especially if they can’t get their transition game going and have to manufacture points in the half-court where Siakam has been their best option, especially late in games.
Toronto didn’t have to wait long to see how things might shake out as it started the final quarter leading only 83-82.
But the Raptors didn’t need to test their end-of-game offence without Siakam. Their formula was to crank up their defence to suffocating levels and slowly put the Bulls to rest.
Fred VanVleet got things rolling with a tough triple against former Raptor (albeit briefly) Goran Dragic to put Toronto up by one with six minutes to play. And while Toronto’s offence didn’t exactly flow, the Raptors were able to hold the Bulls to just a single field goal over the next four minutes as they doubled down on their strategy of making anyone but DeRozan beat them.
In the meantime Toronto got a put-back off a scramble by Chris Boucher, another lay-up out of a scramble, this time by O.G. Anunoby, an old-fashioned three-point play by VanVleet on a wild, off-balance two-point shot before Scottie Barnes put things to bed with a yet another putback, this time off a missed three by Anunoby.
The big Raptors forward finished things off with a steal on DeRozan — the third of the night for the NBA leader in the category — that he took the other way for a crowd-pleasing double-pump reverse dunk.
VanVleet led all scorers with 30 points and 11 assists in his first game back after missing three with a back strain. Anunoby had 22 and Barnes had 19 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. It was a career night for rookie Christian Koloko, who finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and six blocked shots. The Raptors had a 23-15 edge on the offensive boards and a 17-9 advantage in turnovers.
DeRozan? The Raptors held Toronto’s all-time leading scorer to a respectable 20 points, limiting him to just nine field-goal attempts, although he converted seven of them.
The Raptors benefitted hugely from the return to the lineup of VanVleet. And if there were any concerns about role definition given that Barnes had looked pretty good as the point guard or primary ball-handler in VanVleet’s absence, the all-star showed early that wasn’t going to be an issue.
On the Raptors’ first possession, VanVleet started off the ball and sprinted around a series of screes before taking a hand-off from Barnes and pulling up for a short jumper.
The Raptors otherwise took a little while to get going. Without Siakam, their offence seemed to lack an organizing principle. Toronto trailed 30-21 after the first quarter and was shooting just 8-of-26 from the floor. The bright spot was Koloko, who remained in the starting lineup, this time taking Siakam’s place rather than VanVleet’s. The rookie centre came up with three big blocks early in the first quarter, preventing the Raptors from falling into a bigger hole.
As it was, the Bulls pushed their lead to 13 early in the second period on their fourth and fifth made threes on just nine attempts. But with DeRozan on the bench, the tide started to turn, and it was VanVleet and Barnes playing perfectly off one another that helped the Raptors get rolling.
First it was VanVleet driving the lane and finding Barnes for an open three while a moment later it was Barnes getting a paint touch down on the block on a pass from VanVleet, only to pitch it out so the point guard could knock own an open three of his own — one of three by him in second quarter. His last of the period put Toronto up by three with a 1:40 left in the half as Toronto took a 55-49 lead into the intermission.
The Raptors were locked in on DeRozan, too. With Zach Lavine, the Bulls’ second-leading scorer, sitting out to manage his surgically repaired knee, the Raptors sent traps at DeRozan at every chance, limiting the Bulls’ 25-point-a-game man to just six points on two shot attempts.
It was the theme of the night, and on the other end the Raptors managed to get by without Siakam — who has taken so many of DeRozan’s lessons to heart — by ramping up the defense and finishing out the fourth quarter on a 13-4 run.
