The peak of the Kawhi Leonard-era Toronto Raptors seems distant.
Looking back – and until further notice – it was Dec. 1 when the Raptors ho-hummed their way through a win against the horrible Cleveland Cavaliers to improve their record to an NBA-best 20-4.
It was a glorious time. The league-wide buzz was building, there were successful outings on national television across the United States, Leonard was healthy and Kyle Lowry was rolling. Pascal Siakam was exploding and the Raptors had one of the best one-two punches at centre in the league in Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas.
The Raptors could do no wrong. Everything first-year head coach Nick Nurse touched seemed to turn to gold.
But as the Raptors prepared to play the woeful Chicago Bulls at Scotiabank Arena Sunday night their golden carriage to the NBA Finals seemed stuck in the mud.
They alleviated things but only barely with their wholly uninspired 95-89 win.
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The win improved Toronto to 7-7 since that win in Cleveland (which came on the heels of the glorious overtime win over the Golden State Warriors that they ended November with) as they limp – literally – into the yawning middle of their season.
Over that stretch they have been the definition of mediocre – tied for 15th in a 30-team league for winning percentage and ranked 22nd offensively and 13th defensively. Their net-rating is just a hair below break-even at -0.6 and stands 16th in the league for the month.
Yawn.
All of their middling (of late) traits were on display in the early going against the Bulls, who are in the running for the NBA’s most boring franchise at the moment – seriously what could a Chicago fan possibly be excited about when it comes to this group?
The Raptors shot horribly. They defended indifferently – the low-scoring affair more a reflection of new Bulls head coach Jim Boylen’s determination to slow the game to a crawl than any kind of defensive genius by either side. Toronto played down to the level of their competition and they couldn’t rely on anyone to lift them. Even Leonard (27 points on 22 shots) seemed out of gear.
“I think there’s got to be a fine balance, I think that we can’t keep sweeping it under the rug,” said Raptors point guard Fred VanVleet, starting again in place of an injured Lowry (back). “Obviously it’s been an issue for us, I’m not going to stand here and lie to you and say it’s all sunshine and roses, because it’s not. But I’m not going to overreact to it and start changing who we are. We just have to fix it and get some good practices in and get better.”
They have a lot of room to improve based on recent performances. Rather than blow a bad team away on their homecourt, the Raptors were nip-and-tuck to the wire, with the Bulls pulling within three after a Laurie Markkanen triple with just over a minute left. Leonard got two at the line and but inexplicably gave up the ball late in the clock to let Ibaka dribble himself into a poor shot. Fortunately Siakam (20 points, 12 rebounds and four assists) – the best of a bad lot of Raptors on the night – chased down the rebound, got fouled and made two more free throws to put Toronto up seven with 25.8 seconds to play.
Getting pushed to the limit at home by the lottery-bound Bulls (10-27) says everything about where Toronto (27-11) are at the moment.
The Raptors started in a 20-14 hole after the first quarter – the lowest scoring quarter of the season for the team. Coming on the heels of their abysmal showing against the Orlando Magic on Friday night where Toronto scored just 87 points and shot a franchise-worst 26.2 per cent on two-point field goals, it suggests cause for concern.
In 48 minutes (the last three quarters against the Magic and the first 12 minutes against Chicago) the Raptors managed just 72 points.
“One of my biggest concerns is the pace we’re playing at,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse after the game. “Defence is still pretty good, there is still some pretty good work being done defensively. But when they do score, it’s several bounces of the ball, and that’s not really what we want. We just assume once they score, forget about it, get it in, get up the floor with a little juice and energy and we didn’t do that at all in the first quarter… but it’s okay. Let’s not go crazy. We got a win in an NBA game and we’ll take it and move on, and try to play with a little more pizzazz the next game.”
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There are mitigating factors, obviously.
The Raptors’ swoon has coincided with a steady drip of injuries, to be sure. Lowry missed his seventh game in the past eight and Jonas Valanciunas (out until the all-star break, probably, with a dislocated thumb) were out of the lineup against Chicago. All told nine rotation players have missed time over the past 14 games including all five starters. It has been 10 games since Leonard and Lowry played in the same game and given there was no indication that Lowry would be ready for Tuesday night’s game against Utah, the Raptors all-star duo will have played together in only four game games in the month of December, going just 1-3.
Leonard says there is nothing to worry about, that a little time together is all they need, but in the Lowry-Leonard chemistry building project, December was a write-off.
“We still have plenty of time,” said Leonard. “But it’s not just me. Guys have been banged up and in-and-out of the lineup, it kind throws you team chemistry off a little bit and we have to figure out ways to win games and match our personnel on the floor. Once we get a consistent lineup again like we were at the beginning of the season things will start flowing a little better and we’ll get a sense of who we are.”
Just as significant is the Raptors’ injuries have coincided with an exceptionally challenging stretch of opponents. Toronto played all the home seeds in the East and the West with the exception of Oklahoma City, and eight of their 14 games were on the road.
So it would be wrong to read too much into the level of play the Raptors have arrived at of late. But what their recent struggles do argue rather persuasively is that their electric start was just that – a beginning, not a guarantee.
Even as they remain at or near the top of the Eastern Conference there are red flags.
For a team that is committed to shooting threes at a high volume (33.5 a game, or ninth-most most in the league) they are consistently poor at it – worse with Lowry sidelined. Through three quarters against the Bulls Toronto was just 6-of-20 from deep and finished 9-of-33. On the season they are shooting just 34.3 per cent (24th) and over their past 14 games they have shot league average (35.2 per cent) or better just four times.
For a team that has depth as a calling card their depth has only occasionally been an asset. What was one of Toronto’s chief strengths a season ago has been at best neutral for most of the year. Nurse used all of his rotation pieces except Malachi Richardson and the struggling C.J. Miles as he looked for some spark – even Montreal’s Chris Boucher got some early run – but there was nothing there other than a pair of blocks and a triple from Boucher. The Raptors barely out-scored their Bulls counterparts, holding a 20-16 edge.
For a team with two quality back-up point guards in VanVleet and Delon Wright behind Lowry, the Raptors seem vulnerable at the most essential position if Lowry is injured for any length of time. VanVleet has been positive as a starter but was not at his best against the Bulls (10 points on 3-of-12 shooting) perhaps owing to a hard fall on his shoulder against Orlando Friday. Wright simply doesn’t seem to be able to assert himself running the point alone, as opposed to playing minutes alongside VanVleet or Lowry, which was the case last season so often.
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And as a team with three quality centres in Ibaka, Valanciunas and veteran Greg Monroe, the Raptors routinely struggle on the boards, although they were good against the Bulls, winning the rebounding battle 52-44
Bottom line: the Raptors won the game, as they should against the lottery-bound, road-allergic Bulls.
But their recent struggles – as understandable as they are – suggest that all that was promised at their glorious best a month ago won’t be handed to them on a platter held aloft by Leonard’s massive hands.
If the Raptors are going to reach the summit they are going need to be a lot better than they have been since they were at their peak.
