TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors opened their 22nd season trying slay a dragon breathing much more fire than the Detroit Pistons.
Figuring out how to solve Andre Drummond was the easy part, relatively speaking. Turns out all you needed to do was unleash Jonas Valanciunas. Manoeuvring around the season’s first injury – free agent acquisition Jared Sullinger’s surgically repaired left foot – is all part of the course for any NBA team, and in any case that looks likes it’s rookie Pascal Siakam’s job to lose.
But for the first time in their history the Raptors are trying to figure out how to thrive under the weight of their own expectations, how to deal with prosperity, where prosperity is 56 wins and a run to the Eastern Conference Finals.
And you know what? So far so good. The Raptors have areas of concern, to be sure – depth being one of them. But any worries about a letdown or a slide into complacency after their visit to the NBA’s high rent district last spring can be put aside for the moment.
Setting the tone in their impressive 109-91 opening-night win over the Pistons – one of the teams that people point to when arguing the East has improved over last year – was DeMar DeRozan, whose 40 points combined with Valanciunas’s career-high 32 made them the first duo in NBA history to pass those thresholds in their team’s first game of the season.
Anyone who knows DeRozan a little was never worried he would let his five-year, $139-million contract signed in the summer go to his head. But just to make sure, breaking a 13-year-old Raptors scoring record set by Vince Carter – 39 points in a season opener – will make for a handy reference point.
He really didn’t look complacent. He looked amazing. DeRozan scored the first basket of the season, had 19 points in the first half and only then got rolling as he helped split the game open with 21 in the third quarter on his way to his record-setting 40.
“Get him the ball,” was point guard Kyle Lowry’s guiding strategy. “He was playing unbelievable, lights out. Honestly, when he was making some of the shots he was making, I said to myself a few times, wow.”
But complacency – or at least the failure to recognize how much of a grind reaching or surpassing last season’s benchmarks will be – is the enemy. That and the realization that winning “just” 50 games or making it “only” to the second round of the playoffs will be considered a disappointment by some corners of a fan base that will always want more after making due with so much less for so long. But that’s the tightrope good teams walk.
“The magical season of was only magical last year,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said before the game. “That’s what it’s about.”
The Raptors fortunes will always rely on DeRozan and Lowry and they certainly look like they are ready to keep shouldering that load. Christening the first year of his contract, DeRozan looked exactly like the elite shot-maker who got his game off against Cleveland in the Eastern Conference Finals. And after the game all Casey wanted to talk about was his defence as he switched on to the Pistons’ Tobias Harris, helping hold him to just seven points in the second half after he heated up for 15 of his 22 in the first.
In some ways Lowry’s showing was almost as impressive. He’s heading to free agency in the summer but if there is any chance that he might be too numbers conscious in pursuit of a big pay day, there was no sign of that Wednesday against the Pistons. Lowry’s first priority was finding Valanciunas early and often as the big man got to the line 13 times in the first half and 14 for the game while also making sure DeRozan got the ball while he was feeling it. Smart point guard play, in other words, as Lowry finished with 10 points, eight assists and five rebounds, although he was 3-of-13 from the floor.
Progress from Valanciunas is one of the ways the Raptors can improve over last year. Can he break out at age 24? The signs were there in the playoffs last year before he went down with an ankle injury, and he picked up where he left off as he man-handled Drummond and the rest of Detroit’s bigs, putting them all in early foul trouble.
“It feels good to play good,” said Valanciunas, who also grabbed 11 rebounds. “It feels good to win. We have to bring the same focus every night. The same play, the same physicality …. we were together tonight.”
Even more encouraging is that it looks like in the short-term the Raptors have a pretty handy solution to soak up the minutes they were counting on getting from Sullinger in Siakam.
Taken 27th overall this past June, the 22-year-old from Cameroon got his first NBA start at power forward and was rock solid – about the highest compliment you can pay to a role-playing rookie.
He scored his first NBA hoop by sprinting the floor, sealing his man and scoring on a running hook. He moved well defensively and stayed out of foul trouble while chasing down every rebound he could think of getting, finishing with four points and nine rebounds in 22 minutes.
The Raptors fell behind 11-4 in the first quarter but rolled after that, leading 33-23 after 12 minutes, 58-46 at half and never really being threatened after that point.
A year ago all anyone had to do to get the Raptors’ attention was mention their four-game dismemberment by the Washington Wizards in the first round of the playoffs. Humiliation is an athlete’s ultimate motivator.
This year? The Raptors’ best bet is to forget last year ever happened, or at least be clear that past performance doesn’t guarantee future returns. Sure LeBron James may have paid tribute to the Raptors and the ACC crowd in the moments after his Cavaliers crushed Toronto in Game 6, but James remains the Goliath all the Eastern Conference’s Davids are still trying to knock over with their sling shots.
“We haven’t achieved anything,” was Lowry’s take before the game. “We wasn’t there [in Cleveland] holding [championship] rings. That’s the ultimate achievement. For us it’s about never being satisfied … it’s not about what we did, it’s what we can do.”
Said DeMarre Carroll: “We made it to the Eastern Conference final. We haven’t done nothing. I feel like we’re trying to get to where Cleveland’s at. They’re the NBA champions and that’s where we’re trying to get. We had a great season and we had a great run in the playoffs, but we haven’t done nothing yet. You should want more if you’re a true competitor and a true basketball player.”
After a first game that couldn’t realistically have gone much better, Casey stuck to the script: “We got one down, 81 to go. It’s good [but] the grind begins. It’s one game and we haven’t done anything. There are a lot of areas we have to get better … we have to get those kinks out. Moving the ball, not turning the ball over, spacing, attacking the weak side. All those things we have to do a much better job of.”
Do you sense a theme here?
The Raptors are wise to put the past in the past, summoning it up only as a point of reference when things get a little sideway — a compass they can follow for where they want to go.
But for one night, at least, they are more than prepared to chart a new course, one that might take them to some pretty promising places.