TORONTO – The Toronto Raptors are very good. All anyone has to do is peek at the standings to confirm that. By record, only the Milwaukee Bucks are having a better season and that’s despite Toronto’s herky-jerky lineups and Kawhi Leonard working part time.
But every once in while it helps to go out and prove it – to yourself and everyone else.
The Raptors came into their TNT-broadcast showdown against the Boston Celtics having won eight of 10 games, sure, but when was the last they had really played well against a quality opponent?
It’s been a while.
Depending on your standards, you might have to go back to consecutive wins over the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers in the first week of January.
If the question is when was the last time the Raptors fired on every cylinder – getting Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry involved, while accommodating emerging star Pascal Siakam and getting something from their bench too?
Considering Lowry was injured when the Raptors had their little burst after the New Year you would have to go back to 2018, which might as well be a decade ago.
So much of this season has been whack-a-mole – solve one problem and another issue would pop up before you could catch your breath, and just when you thought you had, it would be time for Leonard to have a rest.
But what could this team really be like? The promise has been out there, shimmering more as an ideal than a blueprint. There have only been more questions of late after adding Marc Gasol at the trade deadline and signing Jeremy Lin in the buyout market.
On Tuesday night against the Boston Celtics, Toronto provided a 48-minute glimpse — well, more of a 36-minute window as the game was over after three quarters — of what the rebuilt-on-the-fly Raptors could be and it was almost blinding.
The 118-95 final score was only part of the story.
It was the back story that really mattered.
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The ball flying around without hesitation; the defensive rotations on point; hustle plays followed up by clever execution and each part of the roster bolstering the next.
Jeremy Lin has only been a Raptor for four games. The recently signed back-up point guard may not be versed in playoff horrors of the past and was too busy with the Atlanta Hawks to track the Raptors progress this season when they’ve been generally very good, but rarely great.
But after a night like last night, he can’t help but be impressed. He sees big things. He sees Siakam go off for a game-high 25 points or Kyle Lowry engineer plays out of nothing or Kawhi Leonard score with ease or Marc Gasol split a defence with a pinpoint laser from the top of the arc and he sees no limits.
“I’m new here, so I have no idea what the ceiling can be [for this team],” said Lin. “[But] I’m looking around, and seeing, and I’m amazed by the talent that there is.”
So maybe blowing out the Celtics to even the season series between the two clubs wasn’t a peak, but only a beginning.
Granted, reality dictates that performances like this don’t come together on a routine basis. It certainly helps when you shoot 14-of-28 from three as Toronto did through the first three quarters, while holding Boston to 4-of-22 from distance over the same stretch.
But it wasn’t like those results occurred in a vacuum. The Raptors defensive effort was outstanding – a contrast to their sleepy effort on Sunday against Orlando – and they got it from everywhere as they held Boston to 38.4 per cent shooting.
“From what I could see tonight, that was as well as we’ve helped each other in a long time,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “Not maybe all year but in a long time. It was early help, it was often, it wasn’t perfect but it was a hustle. It wasn’t quite the right rotations all the time but it didn’t matter, we were pursuing the ball early when we were beaten, making them make another play and when they would zing it out, somebody would be right underneath that guy and we did it all over again.”
The Raptors had their lunch handed to him by Kyrie Irving in the first three games of the season series, with Irving averaging 30 points and 10 assists. This time around the Raptors used multiple defenders on the slippery Celtics point guard, which allowed Lowry to roam, help and draw charges, sparking a defensive effort where Toronto challenged every shot Boston attempted it seemed. With everyone chipping in, Irving was limited to just seven points and five assists.
Meanwhile, Toronto was able to find enough touches to go around for Siakam to dominate any match-up the Celtics tried on his way to a hyper-efficient 26 points on 16 shots — including four of five from three — while also keeping Leonard active and engaged as he chipped in 21 points on 15 shots himself to go along with four assists.
Ball movement underwrote the whole enterprise as the Raptors had 33 assists on 46 made field goals, a ratio that they would sign off on every single game if they could.
It seemed like everyone had a hand in it. Gasol — who looked lost against Orlando — was often the fulcrum around which everything revolved. His eight assists in 23 minutes came on outlets to a streaking Siakam and from quick swing passes to open shooters, as well as slick dribble hand-offs that set up rim attacks. He didn’t commit a turnover. Lowry had 11 assists as he let his offence operate as background music only, taking just six shots but setting up countless open looks for others.
The game was played at a high level, it’s just the Raptors kept turning it up a notch and the Celtics couldn’t keep up. If the win signalled what could be possible in the near-term for the Raptors, the loss was another in a long season of frustrating performances by the Celtics [37-24] who have more talent on the floor than a year ago, but a fraction of the chemistry.
“Nah, this is real,” said Celtics head coach Brad Stevens about his team’s lack of sharpness. “… The reality is that we’re taking a lot of short cuts and not being as solid … it’s not like we don’t know what we need to do but, for whatever reason, we’ve taken too many short cuts. You can’t do that against any team. Certainly tonight, they exposed us and played great.”
Each club showed their intentions early both by the measure of their energy and the quality of play. The Raptors first possession saw the ball touch every player and all edges of the floor before Siakam missed a wide-open three, but it was the process that counted. Three of the Raptors first four field goals were assisted, while five of Boston’s first seven came from good ball movement. Mistakes were at a minimum, too, as the two teams combined for 64 points and 15 assists against only four turnovers in the first quarter as Boston led 32-30.
The pace didn’t let up and the effort was high – Lowry selling himself out for an offensive rebound for example – but the execution was there, too, as he zipped the ball out to Gasol, who flipped it to Norm Powell who knocked down an in-rhythm triple, part of a welcome bench push — another element that has been missing too often this season. A moment later, it was Gasol knocking in a triple on a Lowry dish as the Raptors opened up their first crack of daylight as part of an 18-2 run to start the second quarter that escalated into a 36-13 beatdown during the period. Toronto took a commanding 66-45 lead into halftime and didn’t look back.
The Raptors — who improved to 45-17 with the win — like what they have, but believe they can get more out of their season yet:
"We kind of are where we are right now," said Nurse, implying his club is trapped somewhere between good and how good they can really be. "I think it’s continuing to learn through these last 20 games, especially for us, we’ve got some new guys and we’re still trying to figure out a few things here and there. You know, if the playoffs were starting this weekend, I’d feel pretty good about who we are and where we’re going [but] we’ve still got 20 games to polish some things up and learn some more about who we are."
“There’s a lot of talent here, so I don’t know what the ceiling is, but I know there’s more … we just need a little more time,” said Lin. Even from that standpoint, we’re going to grow more and more.”
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Meanwhile, the under-achieving Celtics [37-24] have a good idea about what they could be, but even now, three-quarters of their way through the season are searching for the key to unlock one of the NBA’s most potent potential lineups.
But for one night at least it appears the Raptors have found something they can build on: elite hustle, elite execution, big doses of ball movement and input from every segment of the roster.
If they could bottle it, replicate it and carry it with them to the playoffs right now, you know they would.
Easier said than done, but at least they know what the formula looks like, and it’s a winning one.
