The Toronto Raptors got challenged twice on Sunday night in Cleveland.
Just before halftime, high-scoring Cavaliers guard Colin Sexton got into a battle of words with first Fred VanVleet and then Norm Powell.
Both Raptors guards rarely get into nose-to-nose encounters with other players. They each play tough, but don’t waste their time with extracurriculars. But something Sexton did brought it out of VanVleet, and Powell was over there like he was shot out of a cannon, eager to get his two cents in.
Shortly after halftime, it was Raptors guard Kyle Lowry who challenged his teammates as a group. The reeling Raptors were trailing the lowly Cavs by nine, head coach Nick Nurse had called a quick timeout to stall a growing Cleveland run, and you could see Lowry imploring his teammates to play harder, to pick up their defence, to make a difference.
Nothing worked. Despite a spirited fourth quarter push, the Raptors dropped their eighth straight and 10th in their past 11, falling 116-105 to the Cavs, who are 14th in the East.
Indeed it’s a sign of how deep a hole the Raptors are in that neither being tested by one of the league’s up-and-coming young guards or having their undisputed veteran leader trying to get them to snap to attention lit a fire under Toronto, at least right away.
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The Raptors ended up giving up a 12-0 run immediately after the half, with Sexton scoring seven quick points, clapping enthusiastically after each one. And even after Lowry’s exhortations, Cleveland kept rolling, pushing their lead to 17. By the time the third quarter was over, Sexton had put up 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting, on his way to a game-high 36.
The Raptors have certainly struggled this season, but they’re not this bad. With five players in either their third game back after missing nearly three weeks due to COVID-related health-and-safety protocols or – in the case of OG Anunoby – just their second, it could just be that they don’t have the legs to keep up with a young, energetic club like the Cavaliers.
It could be that Lowry and Powell, who had to carry such a heavy load when the Raptors were short-handed, are starting to feel the weight of that.
Or maybe it’s the trade deadline fast approaching this Thursday that has somehow cast a pall over this group, with Lowry and Powell widely rumoured to be among candidates to be on the move.
Or it could be their chronic rebounding woes – Toronto got outworked by a 47-28 margin – or their lack of quality depth as the Cavs bench outscored Toronto 25-10.
It could be Toronto’s inability to play defence all of a sudden – Cleveland shot 51 per cent from the floor and an uncharacteristic 17-of-33 from deep.
Or it could just be a little bit of all of the above, and then some.
“I’m trying to keep a smile on my face, [but]it’s been about as hard as it possibly could’ve been, to be honest,” said Nurse before the game when asked about how the season has been going. “I mean, the relocation [to Tampa]was one thing, the short pre-season was another. Changes in the roster. Some early injury. The list continues to go on and one. I remain optimistic that I think things balance out during a season. So our road should be looking awesome here, pretty soon.
“I think we should be through the worst of it, and hopefully the balls start bouncing our way a little bit.”
The Raptors finally began to show some life in the fourth quarter, but not before Toronto was trailing by 22 points with 10 minutes to play.
At that point, all the stops were pulled out. Nurse put in Pat McCaw, the scarcely available defensive stopper who appeared in just his fourth game this season after missing time as he recovered from a knee injury and then missing time due to health and safety protocols.
McCaw helped spark a better-late-than-never defensive stand by Toronto with some defensive pressure that helped the Raptors get out in transition as part of 13-0 run that cut Cleveland’s lead to nine with 7:18 to play.
It helped that Cleveland kept turning over the ball – they finished with 26 to 14 by Toronto – and a VanVleet three off one turnover and a Stanley Johnson layup after his own steal got the Raptors to within six with 6:11 to play. But Sexton kept coming, as he scored 23 points in the second half alone. His three with 3:59 to play pushed Cleveland’s lead back to 11.
A pair of VanVleet triples including a leaner with 53 second cut the Cleveland’s lead to five, but that was as close as Toronto could get.
The fallout from the pre-halftime skirmish is interesting, in retrospect. Sexton certainly backed up his words and VanVleet, who scored 16 of his Raptors’ best 23 points in the second half, let his play do the talking. Powell? Not so much. He was red hot with 14 points on nine shots in the first half, but scored four points from that point on.
The loss was Toronto’s eight straight, the longest losing streak the franchise has had since they lost eight straight in the 2012-13 season, the last time the Raptors missed the playoffs. It dropped the Raptors’ record to 17-24, the first time they’ve been that far under the .500 mark, as the Raptors remain mired in 11th place.
The challenges will only get bigger from here.
