TORONTO — Tuesday night, not long after his team took a two-game lead over the Washington Wizards in a first-round series that might not make it back to Canada, CJ Miles was standing in the Toronto Raptors dressing room, talking about what just happened.
The Raptors had straight blitzkrieged the Wizards in the first half, putting up 76. That was thanks in large part to a wealth of three-pointers, as Toronto shot 11-of-22 from beyond the arc, with seven different players hitting at least one.
Miles had three of them (he finished 4-of-6, and is now 8-of-13 in the series) and was making a point about how much that shooting opens up the floor, particularly when the offence flows through the hands of aggressive ball-handlers off the dribble, such as Raptors guards DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.
“It’s as big as anything in the game on the offensive end,” Miles was saying. “The more space we can give them, the tougher they are to cover. Because, now, you’ve got Serge [Ibaka] making a couple threes. OG [Anunoby’s] made a couple threes…”
Suddenly, from across the room, an interruption.
“Hey!” hollered Jonas Valanciunas, observing from afar as he fastened the cufflinks of his trim white button up. “I made one, too!”
Miles grinned and shook his head.
“JV did make a three today,” Miles conceded, bemused. “He was one-for-two. We ain’t gonna talk about the second one.”
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Well, they don’t have to talk about the second one, but we can. After he was left wide open at the top of the arc and drilled his first attempt from range early in the first quarter, Valanciunas tried another in the third, this time from the corner with Marcin Gortat getting a hand in his face.
The shot was heavy. Like, way heavy, clearing the rim entirely and falling into the hands of OG Anunoby on the other side of the key (credit to the rookie who salvaged the possession with a dunk).
“Yeah,” Valanciunas said meekly in response to Miles. “It happens.”
And that’s perfectly fine when Valanciunas has a night like he did Tuesday. The Raptors weren’t short on standout performances. And considering how things went in the second half, when the Wizards improbably made a game of it, it could be easy to forget just how well Valanciunas played in the early going — and how critical his performance was to Toronto building that big lead.
In his first shift alone, Valanciunas was 3-of-4 from the field, hit that three, pulled down eight rebounds, dished out an assist, and blocked a shot in under 10 minutes. By the end of the first half, he already had his double-double, the 12th of his postseason career, tying Antonio Davis’s franchise record.
He finished a plus-27 with 19 points and 14 boards, and the only thing holding him back from putting up an even bigger performance was how small the Wizards played in the second half. Gortat saw only four minutes after halftime, as the Wizards regularly ran out guard-heavy lineups, which ensured Valanciunas stayed on the bench.
“They just went so small,” Casey said. “I looked out and they had three point guards out there. With a two-guard at power forward and a three-man at the centre position. So, it was tough for him.”
Ironically, Valanciunas’s strong play in the first half led directly to his inability to play in the second. The Raptors centre was absolutely dominant against Gortat, who had one of the worst nights of his career, missing routine shots, getting exposed in his own end, and playing so poorly that his head coach publicly ruminated about removing him from the starting lineup in his post-game press conference.
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It was an interesting turn of events, particularly after Gortat dominated his matchup with Valanciunas in each of the four meetings between these teams during the regular season, averaging 10 points, 9 rebounds and three assists. Gortat was a combined plus-25 over those four games (Valanciunas was minus-29) and outrebounded Valanciunas 39-20.
But things couldn’t have been more different Tuesday. And with the Wizards lacking any semblance of a reliable rim protector behind Gortat, Valanciunas was free to feast down low when Washington went to Mike Scott and Ian Mahinmi at centre.
Working with DeRozan and Lowry in the pick-and-roll, Valanciunas found minimal resistance rolling to the rim, as the Raptors guards were blitzed and trapped over and over, leaving easy dump offs to the big Lithuanian in the lane. He even caught the Wizards off guard at one point, as he took an inbounds feed from Lowry, faked a handoff that fooled two Wizards defenders, and cut straight to the rim for a finger roll.
Those types of action plays for Valanciunas are something Toronto’s coaching staff has implemented more of into its playbook this year in the hopes of keeping the their 25-year-old centre engaged. Valanciunas is a better ball-handler than he often gets credit for, and, more than anything, he likes to play a bigger role in the offence than simply setting screens or posting up.
“I thought the last few years, if you didn’t call a play for him, he just didn’t have that same juice running the floor and on the defensive end,” Casey said. “Him touching the ball, it helps him. It helps him be involved. And he’s making good decisions with the basketball.”
“It’s great.” Added DeRozan. “He works on it every day after practice. You can tell his knowledge of the game has heightened over the years. He initiates our offence at a high level now. The things he’s able to do, handing off the ball, making reads, it’s big when your big man can make plays like that.”
And it’s big when your big man can hit the odd three, too. After attempting only four over the first five years of his career, Valanciunas shot 40.5 per cent (30-of-74) from beyond the arc this season, as he successfully implemented a three-point shot into his game.
He’s not meant to take them often. Maybe once or twice a night when he finds himself wide open. But evolutions like that, not to mention his play-making, are what allows him to have a night like he did Tuesday. And what maintains Toronto’s belief that he could continue to develop into a more-modern centre, one who can shoot, ball-handle, and defend a wider variety of opponents.
“He’s going to come to a point in his career,” Casey said, “where he can go out there and guard a small forward in those situations.”
Long after the game, Valanciunas sat on the post-game press conference podium, squinting in the bright lights of the cameras, blue-purple bowtie poking out from his burgundy sweater vest. He joked about his English. He deadpanned a dry “whoops” upon the loud clatter of something being dropped behind him.
And, most importantly, he talked about how much he’s enjoying being a part of Toronto’s collaborative offence this season. How good it feels to have the ball in his hands.
“I think this is a team sport. And when you play together, when you support each other, help each other — it’s fun. It gives you that extra confidence to enjoy the game,” he said. “That comes with playing with each other. We’ve been here for a long time. Especially Kyle, DeMar — we know each other. It’s easy to make a play when you know your teammate’s next step.
“It feels good to do that — just make a play.”
