DENVER – He’s not known for playing above the rim, but even his wife expected a little more from C.J. Miles when he picked off a pass at mid-court and had 40-feet of runway without a defender in sight.
The Toronto Raptors marksmen opted to ease the ball over the rim and squeeze it down rather than cock it back and try to bring some thunder.
Lauren Miles – herself a former college player – wasn’t impressed. Her Twitter feed is always entertaining and in this case she didn’t disappoint:
“Weak little dunk bro”
But her husband was just getting warmed up on Friday against the Portland Trail Blazers. His dunk might have left a little to be desired but the veteran wing showed signs of finding his three-point stroke which is his bread-and-butter and has been a moving target on his GPS for most of the season.
The Raptors fell short against the Trail Blazers — undone by a sloppy first quarter — but Miles helped spark a roaring comeback with a pair of late threes that got the Raptors within four after trailing by 14 with 4:28 to play as part of a season-high 13-point night.
Even if it came in a losing effort, the mini-breakout helped ease the sting of Lauren’s tweet.
“What she wanted more?” the 14-year veteran joked after the game when told of her commentary. “It’s not the going up, it’s the coming down. I’m not wasting my juice on that. Plus I wanted to make sure it went in, honestly. I’m not going to lie.”
It’s been that kind of season so far for Miles. He came into the year in great shape and was determined to make up for what he thought was a sub-par season a year ago and instead has found himself spinning his wheels – failing to find his rhythm with a second-unit that has struggled relative to a season ago and in turn having seen some of his minutes squeezed because he’s not contributing the way he’d like.
Through the first 27 games of the season, Miles was averaging just 4.9 points a game on 27.1 per cent shooting from three while getting just 13.8 minutes per game – the kind of numbers he hasn’t seen since the was being coaxed into the rotation in his first three years with the Utah Jazz after coming into the NBA straight from high school as an 18-year-old.
It’s a classic Catch-22 that bench players can fall into and even worse for someone like Miles who relies on his three-point shooting to make an impact – a high-variance proposition at the best of times: You need the minutes to produce, but it’s hard to get minutes when you’re not producing.
But there have been some signs of life over the past four games with Miles knocking down seven of his last 12 triples heading into Sunday night’s game against the 19-9 Nuggets. His timing couldn’t be better. With Jonas Valancuinas (thumb) out for the next six-to-eight weeks, someone is going to need to pick up the scoring with the second unit and the Raptors would love it if his burst on Friday night was the sign of things to come. And with Kyle Lowry (thigh) and Pascal Siakam (back) out Sunday and Fred VanVleet (back) listed as doubtful, it’s clear someone is going to have to fill the void if the Raptors are going to avoid going home with a split on their four-game road trip after starting off 2-0 with big wins over the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors.
“He’s really been a shell of himself and that looked like him tonight,” was Raptors head coach Nick Nurse’s post-game assessment. “He’s kind of inched his way back … he hit a three late in a blow out game, I think in L.A. and that was kind of the start. [He] played pretty good against Golden State [Wednesday] as well, made a couple late in that blowout game and then he came [against Portland] and hit some good ones. Really got us back in the game, there.”
While the Raptors bench unit was the picture of stability a year ago – a five-man team within a team with a steady lineup and roles – this season it’s been more of a grab bag due to injuries, changes in the starting lineup and a minutes squeeze on occasion. Miles has both played a role in their struggles and been a victim of them at times.
“Sometimes for me just because the rotation has been different, the players I play with have been different every time because I have been in and out,” said Miles. “It’s just about finding — and it’s on me too — to find some nights where I can consistently put some stuff together and then the more my minutes will stay the same way. There’s a balance with both of them.
“Then there might be nights where I’m playing OK, but Kawhi [Leonard] might be playing better [so his minutes get extended]. That is the problem when you have 14 guys playing extremely well. There are going to be nights where you are playing well and the guys before you have been playing good too and you have to get them back in the game. But I’ve seen everything. I have been here long enough.”
As he’s gone along, Miles battled with trying to force his offence and find his rhythm through volume to stepping back a bit and letting the game find him – which is nice in theory but a risky move when you might only get a four or five-minute sting to prove that you’re on your game on any given night.
His 19 minutes against Portland were the most playing time he’s received in nearly six weeks and the extended run allowed him to pick his spots on his way to 10 field goal attempts – tying a season high.
“Sometimes it is just me getting in my own way because you try to find that line when you’re in a slump,” he said. “You don’t want to overdo it but at the same time you want to let it come to you some and I got to a point where I was pressing, pressing, pressing. Then I tried to back off and I backed off too far and missed some opportunities. Now I just think I’m easing my way back into it. Sometimes you can’t run through the wall. You have to look for the weak spots.”
And if it’s a weak dunk that gets a guy going and provide the Raptors some desperately needed punch of the bench, who is really going to complain – except maybe Lauren.”
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