It’s hard to get picky about a team coming off a six-game winning streak and sitting in second in the Eastern Conference, but the Toronto Raptors’ 96-91 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers is another one this season where a win was right there for the taking and was left to shatter on the floor.
In the end you are what your record says you are, and the Raptors are 15-8, which is pretty good, but they had a chance to pick up a game on the East-leading Celtics, who were upset by the Chicago Bulls.
The Raptors were up seven with 6:13 to play to the injury-depleted Clippers and watched as Los Angeles went on a 14-3 run to take control of the game. The loss joins a list that includes winnable games against San Antonio, Golden State, Boston, New York, and Indiana. Split those six and the Raptors would be knocking on the Celtics’ door for first place.
Some takeaways from Monday night’s contest:
JV grief not entirely warranted
Every once in a while, when the cries of anguish about Jonas Valanciunas and his role and his future and the space his $17-million salary takes up on the cap become louder than normal I like to look at his stats – both basic and advanced – to remind myself that he’s not actually as much of a problem on the roster as he gets made out to be.
For the past four years – on a per-36 minutes basis – he’s averaged 17 points and 12.5 rebounds on 57 per cent shooting and a surprising 1.5 blocks. Those numbers aren’t the be all end all, there are issues with his defending and spacing offensively and other bigs may indeed be a better fit, but Valanciunas is not a horrible NBA player. Not even close.
When he plays with the kind of bounce and energy he came out with in the first half Monday he showed (again) he can positively impact an NBA game. He had 15 of his 23 points and five of his 15 rebounds in the first quarter, while shooting 8-of-10 from the floor, and yes, he made a three.
His efforts earned him some early fourth quarter minutes but in down the stretch Raptors head coach Dwane Casey turned to Serge Ibaka with mixed results.
Lowry just didn’t have it
When Kyle Lowry gets on the kind of extended roll he’s been on for the past month or so, it’s easy to take it for granted.
A year ago in December the Raptors point guard had one of the best months of a Raptor ever, and one of the best shooting months in NBA history as he became one of just five players in league history to shoot at least 50 per cent from three for the month of December while making at least 50 threes (he was 59-of-117 last December, with a true shooting percentage of 72.7.) His offence was a huge reason the Raptors were just a few notches behind the Golden State Warriors in offensive rating midway through last season.
Lowry hasn’t been quite that hot lately, but for an 11-game stretch prior to the Raptors win in Sacramento he was shooting 47.4 per cent from three on more than eight attempts a game. The Raptors were 9-2 in those games, which was no coincidence.
Lowry struggled against the Kings, but the Raptors dominated. Against the Clippers? They needed more from him as he ended up 0-of-8 from three, scoring just 14 points while making five turnovers.
He didn’t score his first field goal until he finished a three-point play in transition set up by a Fred VanVleet steal late in the third quarter. He made a long two a moment later but he was not in takeover mode and the Raptors paid for it down the stretch.
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Ibaka on an impressive run of late
What Ibaka’s three-year, $60-million contract he signed this past summer will look like in a year or two is a worthy question.
When he started this season looking like he had sandpaper in his knee joints it looked the Raptors might not even get one year of value on it. The last couple of weeks, however, there has been hope.
It may be because the Raptors – even after last night’s back-to-back – have only played six games in 18 days and Ibaka has some jump as a result. It may be because Ibaka simply needs a quarter-season to warm-up, but the energy he’s been playing with, the way he’s been running the floor, and blocks that actually matter – when Ibaka snuffs out obvious scoring opportunities – gives the Raptors some optimism that they might get some return on their investment.
Did he run out of gas down the stretch? He missed a three and two long jumpers in the final three minutes, going 7-of-17 for the game to go along with five rebounds and three impressive blocks.
Bench Mob disappoints
The Raptors bench has been their rock this season, but they were – for once – the primary reason they couldn’t get past the Clippers, who were missing Blake Griffin, Patrick Beverly and Danilo Gallinari.
The Clippers’ Lou Williams and Co. outscored Toronto’s second unit 50-15 and it was some of the stalwarts who were victimized. Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, VanVleet and Norman Powell were a combined 2-of-14 from the floor in 57 minutes.
They looked uncharacteristically weak and indecisive offensively, despite some good defensive moments to go around. I’m sure this was the first time in a while Casey was wishing he could turn to Lucas Nogueira (calf) and/or Delon Wright (shoulder) for a spark.
The regulars off the bench didn’t have it and the Raptors suffered.
Culture (un)change
There is no doubting the success of the Raptors’ transition towards and better passing and shooting to become, arguably, a smarter offensive team. But there are still lingering doubts about how their ball movement and their egalitarian shot distribution will hold up when things get mucky and the pressure gets turned up.
That last four or five minutes of their loss Monday night offer a template of what it looks like when it goes wrong. All the ball movement in the world doesn’t matter when you shoot 7-of-29 from three and the lack of ball movement that led to Ibaka taking three straight shots in the final three minutes gave the Raptors the look of a team that can still be easily swayed from their principles when things get ugly late in games.
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