LOS ANGELES – You can’t win them all but there are some games you better win. And when you’re 0-2 heading into the halfway point of a challenging six-game road trip, a game against the openly rebuilding Los Angeles Lakers is one the Toronto Raptors have to get.
But you needed to do more than simply show up at a Staples Centre that was decidedly ‘B’ list with most of the big names at home watching the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.
For much of the their 101-92 win against the Lakers it looked like the Raptors might be similarly distracted, as it seemed like the they had left their game by the pool or on the golf course or wherever else you might forget your effort like it was your cellphone.
They pulled it out. And they did it the old-fashioned way as with the game tied, the ball found DeMar DeRozan possession after possession and he delivered three straight scores, punctuated by a layup on a runout by Pascal Siakam, who was the hardest working Raptors all night long.
That 8-0 spurt broke open a tie game and the Raptors were able to hang on in the final three minutes to improve to 3-2 on the season.
The Raptors overcame another tough night from three – they were 7-of-29– thanks to 24 from DeRozan, almost all in the half court, and 18 from Siakam, starting again in place of Jonas Valanciunas (ankle). Siakam got almost all of his points running down long passes from Kyle Lowry, who struggled shooting (4-of-14) but finished with a triple-double on 11 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists. Lowry’s third triple of the game, coming in the final minute, acting as the dagger.
But it shouldn’t have come to that, and the Raptors know it.
“Myself and DeMar – we have to bring it from the jump,” said Lowry afterwards. “Our team is going to need us to and we need to push to put our team in places we can be successful. We have help but it starts with us.”
That Toronto held the Lakers to 36.5 per cent shooting in the second half after allowing them to shoot 55.3 in the first 24 minutes helped too.
Their fancy defensive adjustment?
“It’s called playing harder,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey.
The result of their early carelessness was that midway through the second quarter they were down by 17 to the Lakers, and entirely on merit.
And if they came into the game lacking focus, it seemed to get worse as it went on as the Lakers beat them to loose balls, beat them to the glass and the results were evident in the score.
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This matters because for now the Raptors’ three-point shooting is threatening to become an issue that undoes the rest of their good efforts offensively. They have surged to second in the NBA in attempts in the early going of the season – they were 22nd last year – but without the commensurate rise in ability to make them. They are now shooting just 29.5 per cent for the season on 173 attempts.
Until Lowry pulled up and hit his first triple with 3:43 left in the second quarter, the Raptors had missed 10 straight attempts going back to a Siakam bomb from the top of the arc on the Raptors’ second possession of the game. At one point they had more air balls than makes – and even heading into the fourth quarter it was four makes (on 22 shots) to three air balls by the gang that can’t seem to shoot straight.
And early on the misses seemed to be getting to them as their effort sagged in all other aspects. This was a problem because even as the Lakers are in their ‘wait for LeBron to come as a free agent’ stage of their rebuild, second-year head coach Luke Walton has his collection of long, lanky athletes playing hard, especially on defence as they came into the game ranked 11th in efficiency.
The Raptors were trailing 47-30 before Lowry broke the streak and the Lakers’ length, athleticism and effort seemed to be wearing them down as Los Angeles showed its teeth defensively.
“It’s early,” said Walton, whose club held Toronto to 42.4 per cent shooting on the night. “We’ll have a lot more failures to learn from coming, but the thing we keep shoving at them is that it has to be with this kind of energy and effort … that has to be a constant, then when we get to film and go to coaching we can break down how to get better at it. When you don’t have that the rest doesn’t matter, you can’t tell if they’re working or not if they’re not playing with enough energy.”
After losing consecutive close games against the San Antonio Spurs and Golden State Warriors and three more to come against Portland, Denver and Utah – playoff aspirants all – the Raptors seemed to be trying to remind themselves that they couldn’t overlook the Lakers.
“We didn’t show up the first half,” said Casey. “For whatever reason it’s not important, it was as I was afraid of after two emotional games with San Antonio and Golden State but we found a way the second half, pulled together, found some toughness. I thought the Lakers did an excellent job in the first half of coming out and punching us in the mouth and I thought we responded in the second half.”
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Not helping was the Lakers’ penchant to run hard, which in turn is fuelled by much talked about – and not just by his father – rookie Lonzo Ball’s willingness to push the ball and reward his teammates’ efforts. It’s a simple formula, although Ball finished with a pedestrian line of five points, seven rebounds and six assists in 32 minutes.
“It’s something we drill and talk about,” said Walton. “We want to run those lanes, but Lonzo naturally throws the ball ahead … so it makes it easier for guys to follow that game plan and guys will run harder and faster when they know if they’re open he’s going to throw the ball them.”
The Raptors got out and made some efforts of their own, following up Lowry’s triple in the second quarter with a couple of steals that fuelled attacks at the rim and trips to the free-throw line, sparking a 12-1 run that allowed the Raptors to go into the half trailing 51-45.
By that point the Raptors were locked in and coming hard. A Lowry three and a fade away by DeRozan completed the comeback with eight minutes to play in the third quarter, but the starring turn was again taken by Siakam, making the most of his chances after being shut out of the rotation for the first three games. He’s shot 17-of-22 and has arguably been the Raptors’ best player in his two starts.
“Pascal has one of the best motors in the NBA,” said Lowry. “… He comes in to work even if he hasn’t been playing very much. He does his work and the last two games he’s been unbelievable.
“What was he, 8-of-10 from the field? The kid is unbelievable, man.”
It took them a while, but like Siakam, the Raptors, in turn, made the most of their chances to bank a win on a trip where the so-called ‘winnable’ games are few and far between.
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