TORONTO — “You know, we’ve tried really hard to maintain an emotional balance, a level balance, this year,” Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said Thursday after his team completed its first of two full practices in preparation for Saturday’s post-season tip-off with the Orlando Magic. “That’s supposed to be for this time of year.”
Throughout his first season at an NBA helm, Nurse has continually stressed process over results. In years past, the Raptors had driven themselves hard during the regular season in pursuit of ultimately inconsequential goals — finishing with franchise-best records, placing first in the Eastern Conference, reaching the nice, round number of 60 in the win column (they never achieved that one). But in 2018-19, everything the Raptors have done has been designed to better prepare them for what begins this weekend.
Nurse perpetually experimented with his lineups, rotations, and strategies right up until the end of the regular season, turning over every stone in search of the best mix, and training his players to be creative and adaptable. He used 22 different starting lineups, and only five rotations accumulated more than 87 minutes together. (The Magic used only nine starting lineups, and 10 rotations played together for more than 87 minutes)
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Meanwhile, Toronto’s best player, Kawhi Leonard, watched a quarter of the team’s games from the bench in an effort to maintain his health and help him physically peak during the playoffs. That forced the Raptors to test the depth of their roster, and score in a variety of ways. Five separate Raptors will enter the playoffs averaging more than nine field goal attempts per game. Each of the last three seasons, that number was only three.
It was all in the service of better preparing the Raptors for the tests the playoffs will bring. They layered Plan B’s, C’s, D’s, E’s, and F’s into the team’s blueprints so there are natural, familiar solutions to access when the primary game plan is inevitably taken away over a seven-game series. It was in service of preparing players to be versatile, malleable. In service of avoiding the same dispiriting playoff outcome the Raptors have found their way to in each of the last five seasons.
“Playing the same team over and over changes things a little bit,” Nurse said, “One of the hardest things that I’ve noticed is, when you win a game, keeping your edge and your level of energy as high as it needs to be.
“When you win, sometimes you think, ‘Well, we’re going to roll out the same game plan again, because it worked.’ Well, they’re making adjustments, and sometimes you’re going to have to look at making some adjustments even though things went pretty well. Just for the sake of it, because you know no teams are the same. There’s a lot more strategy going on. There’s much more sense of urgency.”
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“I think we’ve got a mature team,” said 25-year-old Fred VanVleet, the fourth-youngest of the 16 players the Raptors currently roster. “A lot of us have kids.”
In Marc Gasol, Kyle Lowry, Danny Green, Serge Ibaka, Kawhi Leonard, and Patrick McCaw, the Raptors feature a half-dozen players who have played in conference finals. And four of them have gone beyond. If the Raptors fail this spring, experience will not be the culprit.
That’s got to be worth something. Just how much, we’ll find out. But if it helps the Raptors start the playoffs on the right foot, dispatching a vastly inferior team like the Magic quickly instead of getting dragged into a six- or seven-game slugfest, it can only help keep Toronto focused and fresh going forward.
“You add Jodie Meeks to the end of the roster, too,” VanVleet said. “It just gives you some more experience, some more level-headedness, and that professionalism. Just being able to come in, take care of your business, get prepared, and go out there and put together some good performances.”
Maybe the last thing for Nurse to figure out is just how he’ll use players like VanVleet off the bench. His rotations will shrink starting Saturday, as he leans more heavily on his starting group of Lowry, Green, Leonard, Pascal Siakam, and Gasol. Beyond that, VanVleet will have an important role to play, whether running the floor on his own or sharing ball-handling responsibilities with Lowry in two-guard lineups, as will Ibaka, who will work in tandem with Gasol.
But beyond that? Does OG Anunoby draw in frequently to counter Orlando’s length with his versatile, athletic defence? Is Norman Powell turned to for a source of energy if the Raptors look stale? Does the struggling Jeremy Lin have a role to play? Will Meeks enter if Toronto’s shooters are cold? Will McCaw get off the end of the bench if the Raptors are desperate for a spark?
“Some nights, it’s not a guy’s night. Or some series — certain series don’t fit guys or whatever. So, we’ve got to wait and see how it all filters out,” Nurse said. “That’s what makes these playoffs great. You know there’s somebody out there that is going to get the pinch hit double in the bottom of the eighth that you weren’t expecting. Or bang in a couple threes. Or make the big steal. Or get the big blocked shot.
“Somebody asked me this yesterday: ‘Who off the bench, or which one of the role guys, do you think will break out?’ And I said, ‘Geez, it could be any of them.'”
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“It’s exciting — it’s everything that you dream about,” said Pascal Siakam, the guy you’ve been hearing so much about. “To me, it’s the first playoffs where you know you have a bigger role. It’s fun, it’s exciting. That’s what you play for.”
In Siakam, the Raptors have one of the rarest, most-coveted NBA assets. The surprise superstar. The late first-round pick who, in his junior NBA season, is playing like a lottery selection. And the third prolific offensive threat the Raptors have always needed at this time of year.
In playoffs past, Toronto’s leaned heavily on Lowry and DeMar DeRozan to ball-handle, create, and score. It’s the way they were built. And opposition defences responded in kind, blitzing and trapping those two endlessly, forcing the Raptors to find another way to win. That other way was never enough.
Now, if Leonard is swarmed by defenders, and Lowry’s being nullified, too, Siakam will be available to bail the Raptors out. In theory, at least. It’s worked time and again, as Siakam finished the regular season as a top-10 net rating player, and had some of his best nights when Leonard was resting.
But it will surely be more difficult in the playoffs. The pressure’s higher. The defensive game plans are more complex. And there is certainly no remaining element of surprise to Siakam’s game. He’s about to be tested. But if Siakam keeps producing the way he has, the biggest difference between this year’s post-season Raptors and last may be coming from within.
“I think I’ve had enough games where I can look at things and see how people are guarding me and adjust. It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with, what defences and all that,” Siakam said. “But, for me, personally, it’s just understanding what works and just being myself. And I think when I’m myself, I can pretty much almost always get what I want.”
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“Listen, nothing matters until now,” Kyle Lowry said, leaning back in a chair ahead of his sixth Raptors playoff run, one he hopes concludes much differently than the previous five. “Now, this is what matters.”
And he’s right. Everything the Raptors have done since they gathered for training camp seven months ago has been about the run of play that begins Saturday. And just how successful they are going forward will almost certainly come down to Lowry.
He’s the catalyst that makes everything go. He’s the creator who finds Leonard in isolation, or Green beyond the arc. He’s the facilitator running pick-and-rolls with Gasol and Ibaka. He’s the quarterback bombing fly route passes to a sprinting Siakam in transition. He’s the sneaky scoring threat pulling up from 30-feet. He’s the little guy doing the little things, taking charges, deflecting passes, and ambushing offensive rebounds, filling up the hustle and grind categories they don’t track in box scores.
For all Nurse’s tinkering, all the unexpected role player performances, all the well-deserved acclaim around Siakam’s breakout, the success and failure of this team will rest in the hands of its best players, Leonard and Lowry. And considering all he does, the latter might just be more imperative than the former.
“It doesn’t matter what I do scoring-wise, assist-wise — my job is to go out there and lead with energy and passion,” Lowry said. “The regular season, it is what it is. We got to our point where we are. Now, it’s where things get a little bit different. For me, my game isn’t going to change. I’m just going to go out there and do my job — and help us get wins.”
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