TORONTO — A tough thing about being an athlete professionally, aside from everything, has to be that you get so little time to enjoy your victories. The jubilation of a win in any given game is immediately overshadowed by the looming challenge of the next one.
That’s no more apparent for an NBA player than at this time of year, when you play the same team at least four times consecutively, and as many as seven, with each result carrying massive consequence. The only win you’ll truly get to revel in is the one that comes with a trophy. And for 15 of the 16 teams competing for that trophy, for the overwhelming majority of the 250 or so players on rosters during these playoffs, that win will not be realized.
By way of example, shortly after his Toronto Raptors put it on the Philadelphia 76ers Saturday, 108-95 in Game 1 of their second-round series, Kyle Lowry casually mentioned that he’d be reviewing film of the game later that night, focusing on his own mistakes. A day later, Fred VanVleet admitted that he couldn’t entirely enjoy the boat-racing of Philadelphia’s starting lineup (71 points combined) by Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam (74 points combined) because he was so pissed off with himself for the way he was playing.
That’s tough. It’s insane to suggest the Raptors shouldn’t be pleased with Saturday’s victory. It was proficient, hard-earned, and narrative-busting. But these guys aren’t where they are because they’re easily satisfied. So, as the Raptors gathered the morning after for a lively film session, the focus was on the many things that went wrong, rather than all that went right.
“We made a lot of defensive mistakes,” VanVleet said, before rapid-firing a catalogue of errors. “We fouled a couple of three-point shooters. I think they had 13 offensive rebounds. Our end of quarter execution wasn’t great. We fumbled a two-for-one in the third quarter. Blew some coverages. There’s a lot of things we can clean up.”
It’s true we’re all our own worst critic. But VanVleet’s not wrong about any of that. Philadelphia’s offensive rebounding in particular has to be troubling for the Raptors, who are at an inherent disadvantage as simply a smaller team than the 76ers, but likewise simply cannot give up a baker’s dozen boards off their own glass. Philadelphia scored 14 second-chance points Saturday, and could have had even more considering they missed six of their 11 second-chance opportunities.
Giving a team those extra possessions — Philadelphia took 89 attempts to Toronto’s 79 — can make it awfully difficult to win, particularly if a missed two-point attempt leads to a made three-pointer instead. While uncommonly tall, strong, and athletic humans like Joel Embiid and Boban Marjanovic are going to ultimately fight their way to an offensive board here and there, you can be sure Raptors head coach Nick Nurse doesn’t want to look at the scoresheets from subsequent games in this series and see players like Tobias Harris (four offensive rebounds in Game 1) and Ben Simmons (three) leading the way.
“I think it was troubling. I think 10 in the first half is double what you probably want to give up, right?” Nurse said. “But they’re very big. I’ve got to look on the bright side — if there’s a lot of offensive rebounds, there must be a lot of missed shots. I thought we did an overall pretty good job of blocking out. I thought we leaped out a little bit on the perimeter, which we can’t do. We’ve got to get as many hands and feet in the paint and around the elbows and et cetera to track those down. It’s certainly a concern.”
One presumes another is the performance of Toronto’s bench, which contributed only 10 points on Saturday, continuing a disconcerting, playoffs-long habit of struggling to find a rhythm while being comprehensively outplayed. You can bet its why VanVleet was so upset with himself. And he was actually the best of the bunch, finishing the game as the only Toronto reserve with a plus/minus in the positive.
Serge Ibaka was minus-9, while Norman Powell was minus-7. They’ve each had their moments throughout the playoffs, such as Powell’s phenomenal performance in Game 4 of the opening round, and Ibaka’s defensive impact in the latter half of Saturday’s game, which included a pair of resounding, volleyball blocks. But considering their pedigree, both players plus VanVleet must know they’re capable of playing much better.
“We’ve got to continue to find ways to impact the game,” VanVleet said. “There’s a few lapses that we had, and we looked at it today. We’ll try to clean that up going forward.”
Look, it’s tough being a bench player. Especially at this time of year when every possession is extremely consequential and played under a microscope. You enter a game cold and have zero runway to find your sea legs. You’re jumping on a treadmill that’s already running at its highest speed.
And the 76ers present a unique challenge in the way they stagger the minutes of their primary players. Toronto’s bench is often matching up with Philadelphia’s starters in the middle minutes of the first and second halves. But that’s the job.
“There’s no time to feel into it. There’s no time to warm up. You’ve got to come in and make an impact,” VanVleet said. “Each possessions is so vital and so big. As the sixth, seventh, eighth option on the floor, you’ve got to be ready to make open shots when they come to you. And make good decisions with the ball, guard your position, and, when you get the opportunity, try to make the most of it.”
Throughout the playoffs, Nurse has used Siakam with his bench — VanVleet, Jodie Meeks, Powell, and Ibaka — to bridge the gap between his starters’ initial shift and their gradual return in the second quarter. And while it’s an inadequate sample to make any sweeping judgments, the returns so far have not been good.
That lineup posted a minus-20.7 net rating over 13 minutes in the first round, thanks to an okay 100 offensive rating and a dismal 120.7 defensive rating. It was the only one of Toronto’s four most-used lineups in the series to get outscored. And a much-too-low 37.5-per cent rebound rate, combined with a much-too-high 17.9-per cent turnover rate, didn’t help.
And Saturday? In the minute and 13 seconds the lineup was on the floor late in the first quarter, it was outscored by three. It felt like more. Embiid beat Ibaka to the rim for a dunk, J.J. Reddick stuffed a Powell drive, and James Ennis III completed an and-one on VanVleet, who missed a pair of his own free throws at the other end. This is, of course, an extremely granular critique of one minute of game time. But it still wasn’t a pretty run of play for Toronto’s bench.
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Really, Toronto’s reserves should be a massive advantage for the team in this series. If you have to pick one of the following three-man groups of basketball players — VanVleet, Powell, and Ibaka vs. Furkan Korkmaz, Ennis, and Marjanovic — the choice is rather obvious. And subbing in Jonah Bolden, T.J. McConnell, Greg Monroe, or the currently-in-a-walking-boot Mike Scott for any of the latter three doesn’t exactly move the needle.
It stands to reason that on the nights when Leonard and Siakam are not pillaging at will, Toronto will need more from its bench in order to win. It’ll need to stop players like Harris and Simmons from crashing the offensive glass. It’ll need to ace all the little things, offensively and defensively, to secure the margins where playoff games are often won.
That’s why Lowry was up late looking over film; why VanVleet was so pissed off; why the Raptors spent so much time focusing on the negatives their film displayed. Wins are nice. They’re all that matter at this time of year. But you can’t enjoy them for long. Every victory has its flaws. And every challenge begets another.
“I thought as the series went on in Orlando, we got better each game. So, hopefully we continue to see that throughout this series,” VanVleet said. “I thought we kind of — I don’t want to say went through the motions last night — but there were some lapses you can’t really have. And we were just bailed out by two guys having great offensive nights. We’ve got to keep stringing together stops and keep staying five guys together on the same page on the defensive end. That will carry us. If we continue to guard like that, we’ll be fine.”
