CJ Miles spent the all-star break at home, in Toronto, getting to know his two-month old daughter in a relaxed setting without the demands of the NBA season telling him what time he needed to leave her side.
Delon Wright opted for four days in Miami, getting some welcome sunshine. Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam did the same in Mexico.
The Raptors coaching staff and all-stars Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan were in Los Angeles for the main event, but the extended break meant some personal time before reporting to work on Thursday.
Those fun, easy vibes should be long gone come Friday night when Giannis Antetokounmpo and the rising Milwaukee Bucks roll into the Air Canada Centre.
The Raptors may be the Eastern Conference’s pre-all-star break champs, but that’s not when the top seed is won.
“I think you kind of go into the last…three, four days of the break thinking, ‘I’ve got to kind of be ready to step on that floor and pick up where we left off because they can come in here and embarrass you on your home court if you don’t’,” said Miles after a relatively lengthy practice at BioSteel Centre Thursday, the Raptors first full workout since scattering for the break on February 15th. “[The Bucks] are playing well, they’re fighting for something too, they’re trying to transform themselves into a championship team like the rest of us.”
Wright has enjoyed the Raptors seven-game winning streak as much as anyone else, but he’s ready to put it in the rearview for the moment, with eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead.
“I think the All-Star break wipes out that [streak] right now,” he said. “Guys haven’t been together for like seven days, so it’s kind of a fresh start. I don’t think we feel like we’re on a seven-game streak.”
That kind of talk is music to Raptors head coach Dwane Casey’s ears.
He’s not likely to let on how much he enjoyed his moment in the spotlight coaching Team LeBron on Sunday, regardless of how well deserved it was.
But there will be no easing into things in Casey’s mind now that it’s time to get back to work. He might have his team at 41-16 – good for first in the East by two games over the Boston Celtics and by 6.5 games over the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the best mark ever by a Raptors team through 57 starts – but it’s pushing hard through the remaining 25 games that matters.
Hosting the Bucks should help get the Raptors attention as Milwaukee, bolstered by a coaching change and the return of Jabari Parker from knee injury are 9-3 over their last 12. The Raptors follow up by hosting the new-look Detroit Pistons – 5-3 since trading for Blake Griffin – on Monday.
The Raptors focus – not to mention their winning streak – will be tested early.
“We got Milwaukee coming in here, Detroit coming in here and they are going to try and take our head off,” said Casey.
“Success in the NBA is very fleeting and if anybody thinks any other way they’re in the wrong business. You can look around the league, teams that you thought were king of the world hit a hard time, boom, and you’re not comfortable,” he said.
“My job with our guys is to make the comfortable uncomfortable and the uncomfortable comfortable… that’s the tone we’ve got to set. There’s nobody here that should feel satisfied or feel like ‘oh, we’ve got a cushion’. No. No way, no how.”
His prescription is simple: hold each other accountable, emphasize good habits and let the big goals take care of themselves.
“It starts with transition defence, one-on-one defence, shot challenges, all the stuff you could normally take shortcuts with, we’ve got to do all those things,” he said. “It’s simplistic [but] it’s something you can control… and those are the things we’ve got to do and we’ve got to take personal over these last 25 games.
“You do those things and you do them great, winning will take care of itself.”
The Raptors couldn’t realistically have gone into the break in better shape, having won seven straight games (and eight straight at home), nine of their last 10 and 13 of their last 16 to surge past the Celtics for first place in the East.
They are ranked fourth league-wide in both offense and defense – the Golden State Warriors are the only other team in the top-five in each category – and are third in net rating at 8.1 points game, only 1.9 points behind the Warriors, 0.6 points behind the Houston Rockets and 4.6 points ahead of fourth-place Boston.
The Raptors schedule is reasonably favourable. While it is not easy – 16 of their 25 remaining games are against teams that are either in the playoffs or gunning for them – they have 15 home games left and only 10 on the road, with none outside their own time zone.
Boston plays 14 of their last 23 on the road including three trips west, and while Cleveland plays 14 of their last 26 at home, they do have to navigate a six-game west-coast road trip.
A year ago the Raptors limped into the break having gone 11-15 since January 1. There was a rush of excitement around the trade deadline when the Raptors acquired Serge Ibaka and PJ Tucker, but that was quickly muted when Lowry required surgery on his wrist after the all-star break and missed 21 games. All that said they still managed to go 18-7 down the stretch.
If the Raptors can match that pace they will win 59 games, three better than the franchise record 56 set in 2015-16. Do it one better and they can win 60 – the benchmark of an elite regular season.
This time around their primary obstacle may be complacency and bad luck. They are deep and rested: Lowry and DeRozan – who ranked second and 13th in minutes per game a year ago – can barely get on the floor at times given how prolific the second unit has been. DeRozan’s 34 minutes a game is 30th in the NBA while Lowry’s 32.1 is 60th, and five minutes less than he was averaging a year ago.
While there is not much the Raptors can do about their luck, they are making every effort to avoid getting too cozy, their recent playoff struggles – routinely labouring against almost all comers; regularly being blown out by LeBron James and the Cavaliers – an all too handy touchstone.
“They’ve seen success and they’ve seen failure and that should be a great reminder for everybody – fans, the media – whoever’s going to listen,” said Casey. “We can all feel good and happy and all that but sooner or later somebody’s trying to come and take your position, take your spot at the top if you let them. The only way [they] can do that is if you get comfortable… there’s no place in the NBA for comfortable.”
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