TORONTO – After getting blown out by the Boston Celtics on Christmas Day at home, the Toronto Raptors will get an opportunity at some immediate revenge Saturday when they head to Beantown in a pseudo home-and-home and the first half of a back-to-back.
“It’s another game and obviously they kicked our butts and it’s nice that they’re right there for us, but we’ve still got to go out and perform well and play well,” said Raptors guard Fred VanVleet after Toronto practised Friday afternoon.
The problem with that statement is that, given the circumstances the Raptors find themselves in – banged up as they are – they played fairly well Wednesday, and still got bombed out by the Celtics.
Toronto shot 47.5 per cent from the field and a respectable-but-not-outstanding 34.8 per cent from three-point range. Additionally, Chris Boucher had a career-high 24 points off the bench and VanVleet continued his strong run of play since returning from an injury of his own, scoring 27 on 11-for-21 shooting.
These are all nice-enough looking statistics, but weren’t indicative of what ended being a poor Raptors loss on probably the most-watched regular-season game of the entire season, something that exacerbated some of the feelings of embarrassment from some sections of Toronto’s fanbase.
But when your opponent shoots 50 per cent from the field and 42.4 per cent from deep, and features three players averaging more than 20 points per game – plus a fourth at a little over 17 per contest – blowouts like the one on Christmas are going to happen.
The question for the Raptors now is how are they going to prevent the exact same thing from happening again?
The truth is, as short-handed as the team is now, the Raptors may not have the depth at the moment to sustain all of what the Celtics can throw at them.
“They’ve got a lot of weapons. That’s the problem,” said Raptors coach Nick Nurse.” Kemba (Walker) with his speed and shooting is a handful every night. He’s gonna shake free at parts of the game to prevent problems. (Jaylen) Brown and (Jayson) Tatum, obviously are becoming really good players, really good scorers, and then they’ve got a bunch of guys around them.”
This isn’t to say the Raptors are already waving the white flag heading into Boston, of course, but given their injuries, the outcome is probably highly dependant on how hard they play and how much effort they manage to put into games to stay competitive and, perhaps, come up with a victory against teams of the Celtics’ calibre.
“They’re a talented group that can make shots when they’re open, and you’ve just got to make them work a little bit harder and make them feel our presence and make them go get it at the end of the day,” said Raptors forward Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
“We want to kind of focus on those things. We’ll live with the 15 dribbles and they score — we’ll live with that. But we want to make sure we get them moving and get them working.”
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And, in light of the fact that Nurse said Friday there’s “nothing imminent” on the status of Marc Gasol, Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell, all these handicapped Raptors may now be able to bank on is their own work ethic to make it through what’s looking like could be a tough stretch.
Quick Dribbles
• Adding to Nurse’s non-update update on the status of some of the injured Raptors, Matt Thomas, who has missed Toronto last 16 games with a finger injury, is still a little ways away as the nature of his injury means he can’t risk playing in contact yet.
“Matt’s out there doing everything non-contact,” said Nurse. “He’s still a little bit away from getting into contact. As soon as they clear him for contact, we’ll get him out there.”
• Gasol, Siakam and rookie Dewan Hernandez, who is out with a right ankle sprain and was spotted in a walking boot Wednesday, aren’t travelling with Raptors to Boston on Saturday.
This sounds a lot more serious than it actually is as it’s a one-day trip for the Raptors, who return to Toronto on Sunday to face the Oklahoma City Thunder.
• As previously mentioned, VanVleet has been on quite the run since returning from a knee injury. In four games since he’s been back, the 25-year-old is averaging 19.0 points and 6.5 assists per game. His shooting percentage – especially from deep – isn’t where he wants it to be yet, but in this time when the Raptors have been hit hard with the injury bug again, VanVleet’s stepped up in a big way offensively.
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• Lastly, though he doesn’t seem like much of an offensive threat, the Raptors want Patrick McCaw to be more aggressive looking for his shot.
“Patrick’s very, very talented and I think sometimes he’s just a little too passive,” said VanVleet of McCaw. “Hopefully, getting the ball in his hands, getting him more rhythm and getting him more reps, letting him feel the game out, he can get a feel for the game.”
This season, McCaw is averaging 4.4 points per game on 39.5 per cent shooting from the field and 30.4 per cent from outside. He did have a nice game against the Washington Wizards last week, when he scored 11 on 4-of-8 shooting, but so far what he brings to the Raptors offensively hasn’t been the most apparent.
Maybe with more opportunity to let it fly, we’ll see more tangibles to go with the intangibles he brings to the table.
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