As the far as the Cleveland Cavaliers are concerned, the Toronto Raptors shouldn’t take it personally.
When it comes to Eastern Conference playoff dominance, LeBron James and his crew of shot-happy veterans don’t play favourites. They crush everyone equally.
“We’ve had our way with a bunch of teams,” pointed out Channing Frye, just another in a seemingly endless lineup of quick-trigger pros that have surrounded James, spreading the floor and taking names in his inevitable march to the NBA Finals.
“We have a lot of guys who can shoot threes … it’s amazing,” said Frye, the 6-foot-11 stretch centre who has made 198 of his 996 career three-pointers since being traded to Cleveland midway through the 2015-16 season.
The Cavaliers were practising at Air Canada Centre on Wednesday in advance of their game against the Raptors Thursday night. It’s a matchup that has been circled on the Raptors’ calendar for weeks – along with their Saturday-night meeting with the visiting Golden State Warriors – although the edge may have come off slightly given that Toronto will be without starters Serge Ibaka (suspension) and quite likely Kyle Lowry (bruised tailbone and back spasms).
Everywhere Frye looked at the ACC practice court there was – from the point of view of the Raptors’ team defence – a major problem.
“You have LeBron and Kyle [Korver] and Kevin [Love] all out on the court, anyone of those guys can go off for five or six threes,” said Frye. “Then you have Jeff Green, who is traditionally a roller and Jae [Crowder] who is traditionally more a slasher, going to the hoop and they’re shooting five or six, making two or three. It starts to add up. Kyle makes five, LeBron makes two, [Dwyane Wade] makes two, Jeff Green makes two … I’m bad at math but that’s a lot. And that doesn’t include Kevin. He shot 6-of-12 the other night, think about that?”
The Raptors spent a lot of time thinking about just that this past summer.
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For all the talk locally about a “culture reset” and shifting the way they do things offensively due to their post-season struggles, figuring out how to compete defensively against the likes of the Cavaliers was a big part of the soul-searching also.
What were they doing to allow teams like the Cavs feel so comfortable from beyond the three-point line and what can they change to fix it?
“This summer we spent a lot of time coming up with different ways to guard the pick-and-roll and limit the rotations we were having to make defensively,” said Raptors assistant coach Rex Kalamian, who serves as the club’s defensive coordinator. “A lot of problems defending the three come from having too many bodies guarding pick-and-roll and getting caught in rotations.”
The Cavs represent the ultimate test. In their four-game sweep of Toronto last May, the Cavaliers shot an astounding 46.6 per cent from three, converting on 61 of 131 attempts. Their offensive rating was 120.3 per 100 possessions, far outpacing the current Golden State Warriors’ 113.2 mark, which will be the highest ever recorded if it keeps up.
Against the Raptors, in other words, the Cavaliers were better than the best offensive team ever.
This season, the Cavaliers have continued the same path as they are third in the NBA in three-point attempts with 33.9 and second in makes with 12.5 a game.
But Toronto (28-11), which enjoys a 2.5-game advantage over the third-place Cavaliers (26-14) in the East, isn’t the same club either.
“They’re different,” said Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue. “They have a lot of young guys playing well. Offensively they’re doing a good job moving the basketball, moving bodies and defensively they look pretty good also. It’s kind of a makeover for those guys, but they really look good playing the game.”
Kalamian said the Raptors’ off-season defensive soul-searching yielded a commitment to three primary defensive principles.
The first was better man-to-man defence; an emphasis on playing the ball-handler straight up, rather than shading him to a help defender or funnelling him into a trap.
“We’re asking our guys to guard your man for two dribbles,” said Kalamian.
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The longer the ball handler can be kept at bay, the less likely it is other defenders will have to leave their man to help, which in turn requires a defensive rotation that can set off a chain reaction of openings that an offence run by James can turn into an uncontested three.
The second is to switch as many screens as possible. In the past, the Raptors would try to have their defenders stay attached to their man in some shape or form when screened, using quick hedges to create delays when necessary. The thinking was that it avoided mismatches. But by switching on almost every screen you avoid those split second gaps that can give a sharpshooter like Korver the time he needs to rise up for a three, or again avoid triggering a series of rotations that can be beaten with good ball movement.
The third was to play a more versatile defensive lineup. With players like Ibaka, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, DeMar DeRozan, Delon Wright and Jakob Poeltl, among others, the Raptors have a collection of players more suited to being in position to contest three-point shots from multiple spots on the floor.
“The more we can stay solid, not having our guys get caught in rotation, the better off we are,” said Kalamian.
The year-over-year results are showing promise. The Raptors are fourth in the NBA in three-pointers allowed (9.2 per game) compared to 14th a season ago and eighth in opponents’ three-point shooting percentage (.353) compared to 12th. More crucially they have improved at guarding corner threes which are typically converted at a much higher rate than those around the arc. Corner threes are the ones that often get left open when the defence scrambles in rotation and can be exploited with a couple of quick swing passes around the perimeter or a kick-out from a rolling big man.
Last year, nearly a quarter of the 794 threes the Raptors gave up came from the corners, this season they’ve cut it down to about 20 per cent and are tied for first in the NBA in allowing an average of just two made corner threes per game.
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Still, with a team as experienced as the Cavaliers it’s nothing they haven’t seen before. What the Raptors are doing is what most teams do.
“Teams, for the most part, switch a lot of stuff with us,” said Frye. “What makes us good at the three-point line is when we drive to the basket. We got guys who drive to the basket whether it’s D-Wade cutting, Kevin’s post-up, LeBron driving to the hole and now we have Isaiah [Thomas] looking to get in there around the free-throw line and kick it back out.
“Teams try to take that away: keep guys in front, not having to help too much and just knowing where shooters are and contesting them.”
Is there any kind of defence that could rattle the Cavs’ collective confidence?
“No. No, no, no,” said Frye, gesturing to the talent on the floor once more. “What is [Korver], fourth in all-time threes? What is D-Wade in scoring? ‘Bron is up there in scoring. Kevin Love has made 1,500 threes; I’m almost at 1,000. J.R. [Smith]? Any time these guys shoot I’m like, ‘OK, that’s a good one.’”
Still, the Raptors couldn’t stand around and watch any longer, not if they want exhaust every possibility of advancing to the NBA Finals. Having been scorched defensively trying to do it their own way against the Cavs, Toronto devoted the regular season to a defensive makeover every bit as significant as what’s been done offensively.
Will it be enough to slow down the Cavaliers? Nothing much has, but the good news is when it comes to slowing down Cleveland’s three-point train, the Raptors have nowhere to go but up.
