TORONTO – Maybe it was the jet lag, or just realizing that a clearly rebuilding New York Knicks team was coming in for a sleepy matinee game after a historically successful four-game west coast road trip.
Whatever it was, at the start of the Toronto Raptors’ eventual 128-112 victory Saturday afternoon, the team’s sixth straight, it was clear this team didn’t have the same spark as usual.
Committing five turnovers within the first six minutes of the game and finishing the first frame shooting just 42.1 per cent from the field, the Raptors, who have been averaging 29.5 points per opening quarter, only put up 25 points at the end of one, with star duo Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry scoring just two points on 0-for-5 shooting from the floor.
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For the game, Lowry and Leonard were just 5-for-13 from the field for a combined 22 points, but it didn’t matter as the a very familiar sight fro the Raptors’ not-so-distant past changed everything and made very clear what had been just thought of, but never really proved over the team’s first 12 games.
The Raptors have depth. And the second quarter Saturday showed it.
An all-second unit lineup of Delon Wright, Fred VanVleet, C.J. Miles, OG Anunoby and Jonas Valanciunas started the second quarter and gave the Raptors starters the lift they needed to build momentum heading into the half and blow the game open in the third quarter.
“They were good all game, I thought. They were playing the way they need to play, which is aggressive defence and moving the ball on offence,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said after the game. “I thought they were sharing it really well and we’ve been trying to develop that with them, that they ping it around a little bit more and use the offence to produce their points, not individual play, as much. So I was pretty happy with that.”
In total, the Raptors bench scored 22 of their 39 second-quarter points on 10-for-12 shooting, with Anunoby scoring nine of his 16 total points and Wright pitching in eight of his 12, total, during as well as the Raptors reserves scored 62 points, four shy of the starters’ 66.
Last season, the ‘Bench Mob’ were a league-best plus-296, more than 100 points better than No. 2 ranked Houston. This season, however, Toronto’s bench hasn’t been anywhere close to as productive, entering Saturday’s affair 21st in the NBA at minus-18.
Though it looks bad, the team’s 12-1 record shows that the emphasis on a stronger starting five pays better dividends both immediately and, as last season’s déjà vu-like post-season illustrated, down the road as well.
This isn’t to say a team can absolutely sacrifice its second unit for the sake of its starters, it’s more so using the bench for what they’re there for.
The second unit of an NBA team is there to give your starters a jolt of energy when the team needs it or gets off to a bad start, and then let the starters take it from there. And that’s exactly what Toronto’s bench did Saturday.
“I think we have one of the deepest teams in the NBA,” said Wright. “I think it was just a good day for us and sometimes you have to pick up the starters who are always picking up for us and play a team game.”
The Bench Mob was a very fun, very effective unit last season, but it was badly exposed in the post-season. This season, the best player from that vaunted lineup, Pascal Siakam – who finished Saturday with a career-high 23 points on just seven field goal attempts – has moved into the starting lineup to the detriment of the team’s reserves, but the overall boon of the team, and that’s all that matters.
But, every once and a while, the Raptors starters are going to need a pick-me-up from their second unit before they can go out and win the game.
“I’ve already spoken to how deep this team is, how many great players we have coming off the bench for us, guys that aren’t even getting minutes. We have so many threats,” said Danny Green, who knocked down three triples Saturday to become the 103rd player in NBA history to make 1,000 threes.
“On any given night, any guy can lead the team in scoring or come up big for us, even if it’s not scoring, it could be rebounding. Getting double-digit points could change the flow of the game for us. Every piece is very important to the puzzle we’re trying to build.”
That’s what true depth looks like.
The Eastern Conference just got better with Jimmy Butler joining the Philadelphia 76ers, and if the Raptors are going to want to remain the kings of the East as they still are now, their depth is what will keep them on top.
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