BROOKLYN – If there is one trait good teams have when trying to eke out victories without their best lineups or even their best stuff, it’s the willingness and the patience to work the game.
In the case of the Toronto Raptors, it means not getting out of sorts when their Plan A, B or even C isn’t working offensively. It’s a matter of maintaining their composure and defensive will even when shots aren’t falling and answers don’t seem readily at hand.
It’s a formula the Raptors have had for years with Kyle Lowry at the head of the snake, and even more so with a championship under their collective belts and Fred VanVleet doing a pretty good Lowry impression himself.
That’s probably the best explanation for the Raptors’ 121-102 win over the fragile Brooklyn Nets on Saturday.
Toronto didn’t play particularly well for long stretches, but like a tennis player stubbornly holding serve, they hung in until their opponents’ mistakes put them in too deep a hole to prevent being buried by them.
The Raptors started out looking like they were going to get blown out – they trailed by 11 midway through the first quarter and by 16 with just under four minutes left in the second quarter – then ended up winning in a blowout.
The difference?
“Playing hard. Playing hard. That’s it,” said VanVleet, emphasizing the point rather than reaching for a cliche. “Guys took pride, stopped feeling sorry for ourselves and executed. Guys took pride in their roles and it’s that simple.
“I know we’re hurt, we’re banged up, but we just haven’t been good enough regardless. You know, we played good enough defence, I guess. But guys just gotta take pride in their roles, each guy individually, and play harder and step up.
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“And it’s hard, man. It’s hard to win in the NBA. It’s not easy. You gotta go and earn that (expletive). And I think that that’s something that we gotta keep reminding ourselves to do.”
It’s as good an explanation as any as to why Toronto is now 18-0 against teams under .500 and a more than respectable 5-4 since losing half of its top six players to injuries in a single game.
Toronto is 24-12 with a couple of days off before hosting the Portland Trailblazers on Tuesday.
They could use the rest. VanVleet – who led all scorers with 29 points on 11-of-19 shooting while adding 11 assists in 36 minutes – left the game late after feeling his back tightening up. He’s also been playing with a mild sprain of his index finger on his shooting hand. Serge Ibaka tweaked the same ankle that kept him out of 10 games earlier but declared himself fit.
With the Raptors missing Norman Powell (shoulder), Pascal Siakam (groin) and Marc Gasol (hamstring), the load on Lowry and VanVleet has continued to be heavy with the former playing nearly 43 minutes.
Lowry had some rocket fuel going as he got into some extra-curricular scuffles with Nets centre Jarrett Allen that earned him a technical foul and a Flagrant 1.
The veteran point guard denied it helped spark him, but he did score 20 of his 26 points after getting tangled with Allen with 8:54 to play in the third quarter.
“Nah,” Lowry said. “I just want to win games. I don’t care about none of that other stuff. I just want to win games.”
VanVleet didn’t believe Lowry’s story.
“He’s a competitor, I’ll say that … he doesn’t antagonize people, I’ll say that. He’s never the antagonizer, so to speak,” said his backcourt mate.
“He plays hard and he throws his body around, but he doesn’t really trash talk too much. But he doesn’t run away from it, either …. but you can definitely see the difference when he’s poked a little bit … I think that tonight he definitely flipped a switch there in the second half.”
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Of course, the Nets (16-18) have their own problems as they came into the game as losers of five of their previous six games with their one win coming against the lowly Atlanta Hawks. With Kevin Durant (Achilles) likely out for the year and Kyrie Irving sidelined indefinitely with a mysterious shoulder injury, their season is in limbo and their confidence shaky.
All they needed was a shove, and the Raptors gave it to them as they turned what looked like an unlikely win on the road into a laugher by blowing the Nets out in the fourth quarter and making them pay for almost every one of their 24 turnovers — which yielded 32 Raptors points. Toronto made just eight turnovers and won the offensive rebounding battle 15-6 as they ended up taking 30 more shots than the Nets.
A deep triple by Lowry with 2:10 to play was the exclamation point on a 38-22 closing surge that blew out what was a three-point game to start the fourth.
But the Raptors had every chance to mail things in after how they started. Just 48 hours removed from shooting 6-of-42 from three in a loss to the Miami Heat, the Raptors shot 1-of-11 from deep in the first quarter and 3-of-14 in the first half. They recovered to shoot 10-of-19 from deep in the second half.
The Raptors comeback started in earnest when Lowry hit a three in transition in the second quarter and OG Anunoby added another as part of a 12-0 run in the space of two minutes that allowed the Raptors to head into the second half within striking distance, down 52-48 after trailing 33-24 after the first quarter.
“It was tough (to start),” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “It was an ugly game and we were helping contribute to that, we were right in the middle of it but I think we stayed okay and made that run and that gave us some life.
“… Sometimes it just doesn’t go your way. You dribble it off your foot and can’t throw it in the ocean. That stuff happens and you can’t lose your composure in that (situation). I thought we did a little bit in Miami and tonight we didn’t.”
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Given the struggles they had against Miami’s zone on Thursday, Toronto was expecting to see a fair bit of the strategy from Brooklyn early and they were right. And the Raptors struggled, predictably.
An early second-quarter possession against the Nets’ zone saw Terence Davis pitching inside to Rondae Hollis-Jefferson in the paint and the former Net firing to Stanley Johnson for a wide-open corner three that the career 29 per cent three-point shooter missed by several feet. The only saving grace was Chris Boucher caught the airball and scored.
It wasn’t a pretty picture, but the Raptors refused to quit grinding until it was done more to their satisfaction. They were left with not a masterpiece, but a win, which is just as good.
Their willingness to stick with it will likely continue to be tested.
While Nurse said that Powell (shoulder) and sharpshooter Matt Thomas (finger) could be back imminently, he made a point of emphasizing that Siakam and Gasol aren’t all that close.
“I would still say, if I was guessing, the order of comeback would probably be Matt and Norm, Marc and then lastly, Pascal,” said Nurse. “But I think we’re still, I mean, we’re still a ways away with Marc and Pascal.”
Which means more of a short-handed team trying to figure it out as the game unfolds.
Fortunately, they’re good at it.
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