TORONTO – Coming off their first two-game losing streak in more than a month, the NBA schedule served the Toronto Raptors a fresh dish of Atlanta Hawk, under glass.
It was the kind of tasty appetizer the Raptors have been feasting on for most of December and Toronto devoured the visitor whole, their 111-98 win never really in doubt after a late second-quarter surge where the Raptors ran off a 10-2 run in barely 90 seconds before halftime to put Toronto up by 18.
Atlanta (9-26), in full tank mode only three seasons removed from winning 60 games and appearing in the Eastern Conference Finals, and wasn’t about to come back from that although it did come close to getting the deficit under 10 points a number of times late in the fourth quarter. Lucas Nogueira, playing in his first game in a month after calf injury, helped keep the Hawks at bay with three baskets on lobs down the stretch and DeMar DeRozan iced it with his second triple in four attempts.
The win was accomplished without the help of power forward Serge Ibaka, who was suspended by the team due to an “altercation” with a member of the team’s staff after the Raptors’ loss in Oklahoma City Wednesday night. The team was keeping the circumstances close to the vest although it’s believed it didn’t involve a coach.
“It’s already been resolved. We met about it, both guys apologized to each other,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey. “And those things happen in the course of living together for six-to-eight months. We have limits in our culture, how we want to live within our team, how we want to treat people, and it went over the limit and we’ve handled it.”
Ibaka’s been one of the Raptors’ best players for a month, but missing him didn’t matter.
With Ibaka out C.J. Miles started and while he chipped in nine points it wasn’t like the Raptors needed anything special from him or anyone else in their lineup. This was the last-place Hawks.
Whatever potential Toronto has as a championship contender is still a wide-open question but beyond doubt is that their blend of veteran scoring punch (DeRozan had 25 points on 18 shots) and the waves of young talent they bring off the bench (six non-starters had six or more points) is too much for most of the NBA’s weaker-thans.
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The win improved Toronto to 24-10 – tying a franchise best after 34 games and extended their winning streak at Air Canada Centre to 11 games, the second longest in franchise history.
Toronto now sits just two-and-a-half games behind the East-leading Boston Celtics – although they are tied in the loss column – and are a half-game up on the third-place Cleveland Cavaliers.
But coming off a sloppy post-Christmas loss at Dallas and getting thoroughly thumped the next night by the red-hot Oklahoma City Thunder the question remains just how good the Raptors really are?
All kinds of number say they are really good – they’re third in the NBA in net rating, trailing only the league’s two heavyweights, Houston and Golden State, typically a pretty telling measure of overall quality.
But is the Raptors’ best-ever start built on a lasting foundation of improved passing metrics, more voluminous three-point shooting and better perimeter defence?
Or is it a castle built on sand, plumped up with a 18-3 record against teams with below .500 records and hiding an uninspiring 6-7 mark against teams with winning marks as well as a knack for missing other team’s best players – Kawhi Leonard, Chris Paul, Kyrie Irving, John Wall, Blake Griffin, Kemba Walker and Joel Embiid have all missed one or more games against the Raptors.
You can only beat who you play, of course.
“I think every team in this league is capable of beating anybody,” said Casey. “You can’t look at records. You look at records in this league, you’re gonna get embarrassed. And then you’re gonna be writing about how bad the Toronto Raptors play against bad teams. So we don’t do that. We go out and try to approach every game the same way, and yes, some teams have better records, but I promise you the talent matchups and situations are still formidable for us.”
But some matchups seem more formidable than others.
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With the exception of their beatdown of the Rockets (sans Paul) Toronto has had a tendency to slip into old habits when things aren’t going well against better teams – fumbles down the stretch against the Spurs, Warriors and Celtics come to mind.
Their loss against OKC was another example where the ball stopped moving, DeRozan was stymied by a long, athletic defender and the game got away from them. It’s a movie Raptors fans have seen in the playoffs over-and-over again and a big reason Toronto has revamped their offensive and defensive approach for this season.
It has taken hold better than most would have predicted but sometimes …
“The biggest thing is us as a unit understanding the things we have to do to be where we want to be and continue to be a top-tier team in this league,” said Miles, who is rounding into form after missing three games and subsisting on a mainly liquid diet following dental surgery. “I think the biggest thing is us figuring out how to continue to be assertive but at the same time be creative offensively, not really getting stagnant and relying too much on one pass and attack things. Making the defence work.”
There was plenty of that against the Hawks. The win fit the profile of so many so far this season: Healthy ball movement (22 assists), solid perimeter shooting (13 threes) and enough defence to keep an over-matched opponent in check (the Hawks coughed up 18 turnovers and shot just 43 per cent).
But can the Raptors get a steady diet of that against the league’s upper echelon?
They’re about to find out. The Raptors went 11-3 in December while playing just one team with a winning record.
Beginning Sunday when they host Giannis Antentokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks – who gave the Raptors everything they could handle in their six-game, first-round playoff series last year – Toronto plays seven of their next 11 against teams that are firmly in the playoff picture, including dates with Cleveland, Golden State and San Antonio.
So in that sense their season is at fulcrum: What happens in the next could go a long way towards determining how they leverage what has been a great start, but only that so far.
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