TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have not been playing their best basketball of late, finishing a 15-game month of December with a 0.7 net rating that ranks 13th in the NBA. And that might be a little flattering. Toronto’s assist rate is the NBA’s sixth-worst in the month. Its rebounding rate is in the bottom-10. True shooting, effective field-goal percentage, and pace are all in that bottom third, as well.
There are obvious reasons why. Core pieces Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas have been out of action for much of it. Important contributors like Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and Delon Wright have been streaky. Sergbe Ibaka has been in and out of the lineup due to injury. Kawhi Leonard’s been in and out, too, as the Raptors endeavor to manage his workload. It’s been a challenging month, with a lot of moving pieces.
This is a team playing the long game — trying to get through the grind of an 82-game regular season relatively unscathed, ideally putting all the pieces together just as the playoffs begin in April. It’s a tough balance. But, as the Raptors close the book on an eventful 2018, it will soon be time to start ramping things up.
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“We’re halfway through already. So, we’ve got to have a little bit more urgency coming up,” VanVleet said Monday, after the Raptors held their final practice of the year. “Maybe that can be our New Year’s resolution. We’re going to figure it out. But it’d be a lot better if we figured it out, like, tomorrow.”
Tomorrow will bring a new, yet familiar test for the Raptors, who host the Utah Jazz on New Year’s Day at Scotiabank Arena. The Raptors have faced a string of slow-playing opponents of late, which has dragged down the team’s pace, a problem exacerbated by Lowry’s injury woes.
Lowry will miss Tuesday’s game, his eighth absence in Toronto’s last nine, which won’t help the issue. And the Jazz like to play big with Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors up front, which doesn’t exactly speed things up.
“It’ll probably be another slowed-down type game,” head coach Nick Nurse said. “I think we’ve been finding ourselves in these a little bit. Miami as well. I think teams limit possessions and try to stay in the game and that’s just the way a couple of the guys want to play, etcetera.”
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The Raptors have also struggled recently against teams with prominent big men, as Valanciunas remains sidelined with a thumb injury. Miami’s Hassan Whiteside went off for 16 points and 12 rebounds in a plus-22 effort last week. And on Friday, Orlando’s Nikola Vucevic had 30 points, 20 rebounds, and a plus-33 night in one of the worst games the Raptors have played all season.
Gobert comes in averaging 15 points and 12.5 rebounds per game this season, while Favors is putting up 11 and seven. A top-10 rebounding team in the NBA, the Jazz will present many of the same problems the Raptors have struggled with over the last month. The Raptors will need a strong effort from Ibaka, who had an off night on Sunday in a win against the Chicago Bulls.
“Obviously, the game’s different with [Gobert] in. It’s try to pull him away as much as you can. We can do that a little bit with Serge,” Nurse said. “We’ll position Serge in different areas. Can’t be afraid to go at [Gobert] some. Especially with his matchup. Sometimes, you have to go at him. He’s much better as a floating shot blocker, weak side shot blocker. So, sometimes you’ve got to just line him up and go at him once and a while, too. It’ll be a challenge, that’s for sure.”
Nurse has been working over the last week or so to continue adding layers to his team’s defence, even as it plays without several key rotation pieces. Sunday against Chicago, he introduced a pair of new full-court presses, hoping to generate steals or, at the very least, disrupt the opposition’s offensive rhythm.
On one Bulls possession against the new press, Chicago wasn’t able to initiate its offence until more than half the shot clock had already been eaten up. Nurse sees that as a success.
“I’m pleased with some of the things we’re doing. I think we’re making some huge strides at some areas,” he said. “We’re still polishing up that zone, which has been awfully good to us. We started double-teaming a little bit more in Orlando in the low post. There’s still lots to do and look at and polish. Again, we want as big a menu as we can have going into the playoffs, defensively.
“That’s basically it. Give teams some more things to prepare for. Look for some energy sparks with those kind of things too sometimes.”
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It’s a difficult balance for the Raptors right now. The team hasn’t been entirely healthy all year, and several players have taken cautious approaches to injuries with an eye towards staying fresh for the playoffs. But as Toronto works to continue growing and evolving its offensive and defensive schemes, it needs players in the lineup regularly to grow comfortable in the team’s systems and build rapport with various lineups.
Toronto’s depth is one of its greatest strengths, and it’s certainly beneficial for young players like Wright, OG Anunoby, and Norman Powell to be gaining as much experience as they have been in recent games. But eventually the Raptors are going to need to get their frontline players healthy, active, and working together.
“At some point, we’re going to have to start building our championship habits,” VanVleet said. “And I think that we have been. But I think we can do a much better job of going out there and being kind of boring in the way that we attack our details. And be annoying with being sticklers about every little thing that we know is going to pay off in the playoffs.
“You’ve got to build that every day and every game. And we’ve done a pretty good job but we could do much better. And I think that we’re going to turn the corner here shortly.”
