With OG Anunoby back the Toronto Raptors are now at full strength for the first time since their COVID crisis hit in late February and even well before that if you count the minor ailments that seemed to keep one starter or another sidelined through much of the year.
Now the Raptors’ challenge is getting their game back, especially defensively.
The Raptors have lost six straight and eight of their last nine and are currently 20th in the NBA in defensive rating on the season, allowing 112.1 points per 100 possessions. Last season the Raptors were second in the NBA in defensive efficiency.
During their nine-game slide, which has them lodged in 11th place in the East with a 17-23 record, the Raptors picture is even grimmer as Toronto is giving up 118.3 points/100, which is 27th in the NBA.
Being short three starters and two other rotation players is a factor, obviously. But with Anunoby now available, the Raptors will need to put their staffing issues aside and find a way to plug the leaks.
“The thing is, it’s a learning process or a re-learning process or whatever,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse who is trying to get his team ready for a date with the NBA-leading Utah Jazz on Friday night at Amalie Arena in Tampa “[But] … you’ve got to be realistic too, right? Like, I mean you can be upset about it and get mad about it but you’ve got to have some realistic (views) … I mean those guys stepped onto the floor for the first time in [nearly three]weeks and the game is moving as fast as heck. … You have to have some understanding that they are not in full fitness, they are not in full cardio shape. It’s hard mentally just to get back … but, we got to teach them, we got to talk about it, we’ve got roll through it on film, we got to walk through it and we got to run through it.”
The to-do list is long. This is a team that hasn’t held a playoff-bound team to under 100 points in a month and has given up 129 and 116 points to the Pistons and their 24th-ranked offence in consecutive losses to the Eastern Conference basement dwellers.
“The bad news is there are a lot of things … I think when you have a list of issues, you gotta try to prioritize and tackle some. You can’t tackle them all. [So,] we’ve got to get our defence set better. We are doing a really poor job in transition, really poor job when we’ve been as good as anybody in the league at that as a focus.
“[And] we are doing a really poor job at the end of possessions. So, the middle is not too bad, right? If we can get our defence set and hold them to one shot, we get a lot of stops. There are still a lot of really good things in between there. But we’ve got to clean up the beginning and the end, man.”
But these things are complicated. Two of the Raptors bright spots this season have been Norman Powell, who has shown himself to be one of the most efficient and lethal scorers in the league but is an inconsistent defender and Chris Boucher, who has lifted the bench time and time again with his busyness around the basket on offence and his ability to hit threes at a high rate otherwise. But outside of his ability to block shots the slender six-foot-10 centre is a liability on the defensive glass – the Raptors are 29th in defensive rebounding percentage – and it still learning his way as a perimeter defender, which limits the lineups Nurse is comfortable using him in.
Raptors Newsletter
The Raptors need his offensive punch but need him to make strides defensively as well.
“He’s got to be able to guard a four-man in this league … the only issue with that right now is a lot of the four men look like Jerami Grant and Pascal Siakam. They’re high-powered scoring guys. … It’s a tricky spot we’re in, I’ve got to be honest with you,” said Nurse. “It’s a tricky spot we’re in because he looks great on offence. Even the blocked shots look great. But we’re giving up a lot of things at the other end. We’ve got to figure it out.”
Boucher, who is achieving career highs in nearly every statistical category and may get some consideration for the league’s Most Improved Player or Sixth Man awards, knows that he’s still got strides to take.
“I’m just trying to figure out ways to help this team and figuring out ways to be a contributor on defence. Sometimes it’s not just blocking shots, sometimes you’ve just gotta put your body there and him seeing you there might prevent him from driving the ball,” said Nurse. “When it comes to contesting threes, I just have to stay down a little bit more. I know I can get some of them but sometimes you’ve just gotta stay down and contest it, and if he makes it, we’ll live with it, but having blow-bys and all that, that doesn’t help our defence.”
Similarly, Nurse hasn’t seemed all that impressed with Powell’s scoring exploits of late – coming off a career-high 43 against the Pistons Powell is averaging 30.3 points a game on 49 per cent shooting from deep over his last seven games – he’d much prefer a sounder brand of team play, rather than having one player have to carry the attack, no matter how well he’s doing it.
“We [only]had Norm and Kyle out of there and there was gonna be a lot more opportunities for Norm, right? So, we’ll see how it integrates back in [now they the Raptors are healthy],” said Nurse. “I’m more concerned with playing winning basketball, playing both ends, making the right play, I think Norm’s had the capability to score, I’ve known that for a long time. I didn’t need to see him score 40, 30, 40, 30 … [but]we need to play the possessions to win them and [the scoring]will move around night to night.”
There’s a lot to do, and not a lot of time to do it with the trade deadline on March 25th. Presuming the Raptors are still intact after that, there are still 32 games remaining to play the kind of basketball – especially defensively – of which the team has historically been capable, but progress has to be made sooner than later.
“I’m not even talking about winning and losing. I think that from my standpoint as a coach, I have to have some realistic outlook on it,” said Nurse. “The realistic outlook on it is it’s going to take a little time, [but]nobody is waiting for us. The games keep coming. Right? So we have to kind of figure it out on the fly and we’re not going to make excuses. We’ve got to do it better and as fast as we can or it’s going to be hard to win. … [but]we’ll get there if we can just keep everyone on the floor for a little bit. … I think everybody is committed and focussed to try and get back our foundational principles here as quickly as possible.”
