TORONTO — As is tradition, the Toronto Raptors dropped Game 1 of their first-round playoff series, this one coming against the Orlando Magic.
Unquestionably a bad look for a Raptors team with championship aspirations, but this isn’t to say Toronto entirely shot themselves in the foot.
Give credit to the Magic, who not only never faltered under Raptors pressure during Saturday’s Game 1, but who actually rose to the occasion and managed to execute enough to, ultimately, capitalize on some bad Raptors’ luck to steal home-court advantage in this opening-round playoff series.
Orlando created those openings on Saturday by hanging its hat on what has become the team’s signature: Its defence.
Best exemplified in the second quarter, when Orlando managed to hold Toronto to just 29.2 per cent shooting — including an 0-for-5 clip for Kawhi Leonard — as Magic head coach Steve Clifford’s pack-the-paint style of defence appeared to flummox the Raptors and make them increasingly desperate with each three-point brick they were laying.
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During that second quarter, Toronto attempted 12 triples — the most they put up in any quarter in the contest — but only made three. Yes, a lot of those three-point looks were wide open and should’ve been knocked down, but it’s not as if the Raptors weren’t feeling any pressure from the Magic, even when open, either.
In order to make a pack-the-paint defensive scheme work best there are a few things teams require: Bruising big men who can clog up the lane and contest at the rim, a well-coached, disciplined collection of guys who won’t deviate from the game plan even when teams start to make outside shots against them and long, athletic wings who can communicate with each other and close out hard to contest what should be open threes — turning those attempts into mid-range two-pointers instead.
Orlando has all three, but most pertinent to Game 1 is that third point. With players like Jonathan Isaac, Evan Fournier, Aaron Gordon, Michael Carter-Williams, Wesley Iwundu and Terrence Ross, Orlando has a collection of wing players who can attack prospective three-point shooters and force them into making rushed passes, bad decisions and taking shots they probably don’t want to, as can be seen here:
The simplest counter to this, from the Raptors’ perspective, is to just make those open shots and punish what appears to be a scrambling defence. But even if Toronto had made more of those looks, it’s not like it would actually deter the Magic in any meaningful way.
After all, this is a team that’s found belief in this style of defensive play because it’s what helped them get to the post-season dance in the first place.
“We find the confidence in the way we play,” Isaac said after Game 1. “The way we play wins games and it’s just been night-in and night-out just sticking to our game plan and I do think we have a confidence that’s growing in the group.”
This is self-assurance that’s been derived directly from Orlando’s defensive prowess.
Since Jan. 19, the Magic have been the league’s top defensive team, sporting a defensive rating of 106.0 points allowed per 100 possessions — a 37-game sample size that’s become the backbone of who the Magic are and why they’ve been so successful.
“We just carried things over from the regular season,” Orlando centre Khem Birch said after practice on Monday. “For the past two, three months we’ve been the best defensive team in the league. So even though it’s the playoffs I still feel like we have to come with the same approach we had in the regular season.”
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Added Magic all-star Nikola Vucevic: “The numbers don’t lie for us on that end. When we defend well we do a good job and we’ve got a chance, when we don’t those are those games when things don’t start working so well for us and we understand that.”
The Magic also understand that coming into Game 2, they will be seeing a Raptors team that’s going to treat Tuesday’s contest like a must-win. Thankfully for them, however, facing desperate teams is nothing new to them and they appear poised and ready for the inevitable haymaker that will be coming their way from Toronto.
“I think with the teams we played over the last two and half, three weeks when we’ve been playing well we’ve gone into tough buildings and won big games,” Clifford said.
Like all Clifford teams, this Magic squad is a defensive fortress that can disrupt any team’s offence thanks to the bigs it has who can clog up the painted area and especially because of how well their wings can close out on shooters and recover.
The Raptors found this all out the hard way Saturday evening and may be in for an even harsher lesson Tuesday if they can’t find a way to crack this tough Orlando shell.
