Morning Coffee – Fri, Jan 22
A special guest joined to say congrats to Sid…#WeTheNorth #Masai pic.twitter.com/dNa2eoL7oe
— Tim and Sid (@timandsid) January 21, 2021
What do Raptors, Ujiri do next after middling start to season?
What is the point of sitting at .500? Isn’t that a problem unto itself?
It may be harsh to judge the Raptors season on a sample of 32 minutes, especially when they are plus-six in nearly 700 minutes this season, which ranks 13th behind the Boston Celtics. But again, what is so impressive about being average? The Raptors have been fully healthy, have miraculously ducked any effects of the pandemic despite other teams missing half their roster on a consistent basis, and yet they are still average. It would be a stretch to say the Raptors have performed at their best, but it is true that with all their best players available they have still performed around average.
Similar to last season, the Raptors have been average offensively, ranking 13th. The big change has come on the defensive end, where the Raptors slipped from being elite — and arguably the best in the league with Gasol on the floor — to now being 19th in defensive efficiency. Nurse tried to run the same system with aggressive perimeter defence promoting frantic decisions and funnelling drives towards the middle, but it doesn’t work without a stopper. Gasol and Ibaka struck fear into the hearts of their opponents, whereas Baynes and Chris Boucher present an invitation. Baynes was thought to be a player in the same mold as Gasol, except he’s looked like the Gasol from the Celtics playoff series, and the undersized Boucher is learning on the fly after being handed the biggest role of his career. Look no further than the matchup against Joel Embiid. Gasol and Ibaka held him to a total of 15 points in three appearances last season. In his lone appearance against the Raptors this season, he had 18 by halftime.
Without solidity in the middle, Nurse is reinventing the Raptors as a switch-happy perimeter team. By relying heavily on switching and zone coverages, the Raptors can at least mask their weakness by cutting off drives at the source. Stanley Johnson has been a bench staple as a stopper who can guard all five positions, and lineups featuring Johnson and another versatile forward in Pascal Siakam or OG Anunoby have been effective. There are still mismatches, particularly when Boucher is left on an island, but it’s the best the Raptors can do unless Baynes miraculously rediscovers his mobility. At least they look like themselves when they downsize.
Offensively, the Raptors are just short on weapons, which was made abundantly clear in the Celtics series. Lowry, Siakam and Fred VanVleet are not elite scorers who can carry the offence and it leaves the Raptors prone to long and untimely droughts. Siakam comes the closest, and he did have a strong five-game stretch on their road trip out west, but he is also just as likely to be off and gasping for air against teams who can capably shut off the paint. And when Siakam struggles, he compounds his problems by forcing bad shots and switching off on defence, which is why he has the second worst net rating on the team ahead of only Baynes. He doesn’t just struggle, he craters. VanVleet and Lowry have been more steady, but they are six-foot guards who can only do so much. As compared to other “Big Three” combinations around the league, they are middle of the pack.
The supporting cast is inconsistent, as is the case for most supporting players.
Can the Raptors regain their elite 3-point defence? – The Athletic
It requires decision-making as well as effort. And whatever the Raptors are doing this season, it is not working as well. The Raptors are still allowing a ton of 3-point attempts, the fifth-most in the league, on a per possession basis, but their opponents are knocking in 37.2 percent of those shots, 11th in the league. Not coincidentally, the Raptors are 19th in the league in defensive rating, allowing 5.5 points per 100 possessions more than they were last year.
Not all of that is due to the type of contesting they’re doing. An early season bugaboo of losing track of great shooters popped up again Wednesday, as the Raptors lost Duncan Robinson, one of the best shooters in the world, for four first-quarter 3-pointers. With shooters as good as that, especially with Robinson being 6-foot-8, the contest is almost irrelevant. To paraphrase Drake, if you’re seeing this shooting motion, it’s too late.
In addition, there is an ongoing debate of how much a defence can truly impact an opponent’s 3-point percentage? Frequency, sure, but accuracy is less certain. Anecdotally, though, opponents seem to be more prepared for the Raptors cadre of shot-bothers to fly by them. Yet, it remains part of the strategy.
“It’s a really fine line in the game,” Nick Nurse said before the win over Dallas earlier in the week. “We normally want to jump by when we know the shot is going to be taken. What you’re doing there is putting a maximum contest on it. It takes a little bit to be able to do that. Kyle (Lowry) is really good at that, those experienced guys like Fred (VanVleet). Those guys, they’re in there helping, it gets kicked out to their guy, they know he’s loading up to shoot it, so they’re going for the hardest contest they can. Or if they know it’s a little bit of a shorter run, they know they’re going to be able to press up, sit down and get their body on ‘em to stay in front of ‘em. Either/or. Some teams game plan for that against us.”
Nurse went on to say that it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it can lead to opponents stepping inside the arc to take non-paint 2-point shots. Even if those looks aren’t well contested, allowing such a shot is a pretty good result on a possession. On the other hand, flying by doesn’t necessitate a step in.
More and more, players alter their training regimens to account for aggressive contests.
“I would say, I work on those things just as much as, if not more than the regular catch and shoots because when teams guard me correctly, I don’t get many step in catch and shoot,” VanVleet said. “So just being able to have more chances to get a shot off and to raise your percentages on those type of different looks has been a focus of mine probably for the last three years, two years for sure. (It’s been) maybe three years of sidestep, one dribble, pull-ups shot fake, you know that type of thing.”
This is how things work in basketball, and most sports: The defence adjusts to stop the offence, and then the offence adjusts to overcome the newer defensive strategy. This is where the decision-making most comes into play, and not only basketball IQ but processing speed comes into play.
Scoring droughts, difficulty attacking zone defences holding Toronto Raptors back – TSN.ca
The Raptors have been held to 20 points or fewer in seven quarters so far this season, and in almost every instance those were fate-sealing stretches.
They were neck and neck with Philadelphia in a tight contest late last month before scoring 17 fourth-quarter points and suffering a tough loss. The January 2 game against Boston got away from them in the second quarter, when they managed just 14 points, and could never recover. Even in the first of two wins over Charlotte last week, their comfortable lead almost vanished with the Hornets outscoring them 22-12 in the fourth.
On Wednesday, Toronto went more than six minutes without registering a point early in the final quarter and scored just 19 in the frame. The culprit, same as it was in the near collapse to Charlotte last Thursday, was their inability to execute against the opposition’s zone defence.
Despite missing four rotation players – including Jimmy Butler, who remains in the league’s health and safety protocols, and Tyler Herro, out with a neck injury – you can expect a few things from an Erik Spoelstra-coached Heat team. You can expect them to play with toughness and physicality, and you can expect a heavy dose of zone, but the Raptors weren’t ready for it.
After an OG Anunoby dunk cut the deficit to three points early in the fourth, Toronto’s offence fell apart. They swung the ball around the perimeter, failing to penetrate the heart of the zone or create good looks from outside. They ate up clock, settled for tough shots and threw the ball away. When it was all said and done, they hit just six of their 21 field goal attempts, including 3-of-12 from three-point range, and committed five turnovers over the final 12 minutes.
“When it’s just pass, pass, pass, shot, three there’s going to be ups and downs with that, and unfortunately all our misses came at the same time,” said Fred VanVleet, who had a team-high 24 points but shot 1-of-4 in the fourth quarter. “I think [we] just [needed to] continue running our stuff, run our actions and try to put more pressure on the rim, maybe get some easier looks and layups around the rim and stuff [instead of] just kinda throwing it around and shooting threes… We just didn’t get good enough looks, I guess, or didn’t make them when we got them. And obviously when you do that against the zone it’s kind of a snowball effect, they get more aggressive and as an offence you kind of get on your heels a little bit.”
“It seems like the ball is getting a bit stagnant when teams are going to zone,” Chris Boucher said. “So I think we’ve got to get the ball moving, try to attack the zone. We’re waiting too much time before we attack it, so I would say get the ball moving, and we’ve always got to have somebody in the middle. We saw what happened when we all just stay on the perimeter and then everybody’s stagnant and everybody stays home. We’ve just gotta figure out a way to get open.”
Raptors will have to come to their defence in rematch with Heat | The Star
It would be easy enough to identify individual culprits. But a good team defence is a complex organism whose strength ultimately lies in its cohesion. So in a lot of ways, a dip in Toronto’s ball-stopping power was easy enough to see coming. The Raptors knew they were blowing a hole in the foundation of their defence when they allowed Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka to sign with the Clippers and Lakers, respectively, in free agency. The two represented a combination of veteran savvy and size and toughness that was essentially impossible to replace.
Not that the Raptors aren’t trying. The still-developing Chris Boucher has been an effective contributor in more than one area this season, but he’s a long way from understanding the ropes as an anchor of an elite NBA defence. And free-agent signing Aron Baynes, though he arrived with the reputation as a hard-nosed competitor with some of the qualities required for the gig, deserves more than a month with his new team to figure things out. Baynes has struggled to carve out playing time, being left out of the rotation entirely in three games on a recent Western road trip. Wednesday’s loss, at least, saw him contribute seven rebounds in 13 minutes — the most he has played since that three-game benching.
“I thought he did a good job around the rim (Wednesday),” Nurse said. “I said it last night after the game, I think he was hard done by (by the referees) … He’s got his hands up, they bang into his body (and he gets called for a foul). (Without those fouls) he would have had a really good rim-protection night. That’s where it starts, rim protection, rebounding on the defensive end or at least blocking the main rebounder out … The scoring, shooting, whatever. (The defensive side is) where we really need him for our team to be successful.”
With the Raptors now a wobbly 5-9, Friday’s cause probably won’t be helped by the uncertain status of Pascal Siakam, who skipped Thursday’s practice after taking an awkward legs-splayed fall in Wednesday’s loss, after which he appeared to be suffering pain in the groin area. Siakam said after the game that his groin had been bothering him even before he took that hit. He missed 11 games with a groin injury last season.
Toronto Raptors Investigation: Has the Matt Thomas experiment failed? – Raptors HQ
Before watching the tapes again, I thought that Nurse was severely under-utilizing Thomas on the floor, as there were many plays where he’s not involved at all. That may be true on plays where he’s buried in the corner, and he loses his value if the ball does not swing to his side of the floor.
It’s also frustrating that Thomas appears invisible to his teammates when he’s wide open. Here are some plays where a kick out/swing pass to Thomas would have had a higher scoring probability than whatever his teammates were trying to do:
I also noticed that Thomas’ usage does not go up whether he plays 5, 10, or 20 minutes. Looking closely, I came to the following conclusion: He rarely shot a semi-contested three-pointer. Thomas hunted those high percentage wide-open perimeter shots and passed up situations where there’s a potential closeout or if he feels the footsteps of a trailer coming after him.
Perhaps there’s a reason why Thomas doesn’t want to pull the trigger in such situations. Sadly, he’s not a legit 6’6”-6’7” like Duncan Robinson nor Kyle Korver that can shoot over their defenders. Thomas is probably closer to 6’3” without shoes like Powell. The difference between him and Powell is that Norm really elevates on his pull-up shot, whereas Thomas is more of a conventional shooter who would just use the elevation that he needs to get the shot off smoothly. However, there’s no reason for him to turn down a mildly contested shot on a late closeout from smaller players like JJ Redick, Seth Curry or Patty Mills unless he doesn’t feel confident that he can shoot over them even with enough daylight.
Looking at Thomas’ three-point compilation from last season, he made enough contested attempts, so unless it’s a Chris Boucher-type of closeout, he has to be ready to pull the trigger even for split-second daylight.
Every time Thomas would turn down a shot due to a closeout, his teammates would often have to reset and work against a shorter clock. However, sometimes, he would show good passing instincts. The other times? That’s when Thomas puts the ball on the floor and goes after his favourite, and most likely only counter: a midrange banker. However, a few times, he’s turned down a potentially semi-contested perimeter shot only to try to get his midrange shot against multiple defenders.
Thomas, especially once he makes a three-pointer catches the attention of the opposing teams. He would see quite a few hard closeouts, and his instinct is to avoid them by getting inside the arc. An airborne opposing player contesting a perimeter shot should be an automatic three free-throws for him (such a freebie would make Kyle Lowry envious). Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Thomas ever seeks to draw contact.
Raptors Notebook: Unusual schedule offers chance at rapid revenge vs. Heat – Sportsnet
Reviewing tape and then specifically working on something that was faulty in preparation for that same opponent is a task generally reserved for the playoffs, but with this new series-based schedule-making, moments like this are commonplace and could go a long way towards helping the Raptors make necessary adjustments in order to come away with a win the next night — especially considering this is something Nurse is accustomed to doing from his earlier coaching days.
“I’m used to it. I did a lot of years of it, kind of every weekend for a lot of years,” said Nurse. “I guess you get used to it. There’s nothing really not to like, in my opinion, especially since I’ve been through it a bunch.
And I guess I do like trying to make the adjustments from the last game and take ’em right to the court and see if you can do it, see if your guys can execute it, and can they keep the right mentality, even after a win. All those things that I think come into play later on. It’s the only time you ever get a chance to do it, really, you know?”
We’ll have to see if that experience from Nurse pays off Friday, but it sounds like he’s banking, at the very least, on a more focused group that might be a little upset at how things went down the first time.
“I’m hoping that we’re going to play with better effort, that the loss stings a little bit and we’ve got some more determination tomorrow.”
Heat is on Raptors to find better offence in Friday’s rematch vs. Miami | Toronto Sun
In Wednesday’s loss to the Heat, Toronto missed 33 three-pointers off 49 attempts.
“It seemed like we were stuck on 85 for a long stretch late in the game,” Fred VanVleet said as Miami ended Toronto’s three-game win streak with its 111-101 win. “We’ll have to get some better looks instead of shooting threes all the time.
“When you don’t make shots against a zone it has a snowball effect. They get more aggressive and it makes it harder.”
The Raptors made only 13 of their 43 second-half shots and were held to under 40% shooting for the game.
Miami mixed up its schemes well and seemed to vex the Raps when it went with a zone look.
“It’s irrelevant what the (defensive) scheme is,” Heat head coach Eric Spoelstra said of the Heat’s effective zone defence. “Our man defence was good as well. I was more looking to whether we were committed to multiple efforts and we had those.”
A rematch is on deck Friday night back in Tampa.
When the ball sticks and an offence suddenly turns stagnant, it plays into the hands of a defence.
After reviewing the night’s events, Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said it looked much worse during the game than it did when watching on film.
Better spacing, solid reads when the ball does get into the paint, there are things that need to be cleaned up, items Nurse readily acknowledges.
“Get that thing (ball) popping and make the right reads,’’ said the coach.
Morning Coffee – Fri, Jan 22 originated on Raptors Republic.