TORONTO — Cory Joseph deserved every bit of the sustained applause he got when he checked in for work at the Air Canada Centre as a member of the Indiana Pacers for the first time.
Going one further: The Toronto Raptors dropped the ball when they didn’t organize a video tribute to Joseph. Sure he was only a Raptor for two seasons, but he was the first GTA kid to come to his hometown team in his prime; was a key rotation piece on the most successful teams the Raptors have ever had; and is quite simply as nice a person as you’re going to meet in professional sports.
But what has become apparent through 21 games is that the Raptors don’t otherwise miss Joseph, who was a solid backup to Kyle Lowry over the last two years.
It’s no comment on Joseph, who is thriving in a similar role with the surprising Pacers. But the Raptors have survived quite nicely without Joseph, a tribute to their surprising depth at point guard.
It was presumed that when Toronto traded Joseph to Indiana to make room for C.J. Miles it was because they needed to find a bigger role for Delon Wright.
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But with Wright hurt – he’ll be out for a few more weeks with a shoulder injury – it has meant a jump up in minutes for Fred VanVleet and the undersized point guard, undrafted out of Wichita State two summers ago, has proven up to it.
He’s providing a similar bang for a fraction of the price, too, given VanVleet is earning $1.3 million this season to Joseph’s $8 million.
He did in a variety of ways in the Raptors’ 120-115 win over the visiting Pacers, which pushed their record to 14-7 and 8-1 at home. He was key in the Raptors typical second-quarter surge and was perhaps even more important in the fourth quarter, playing all 12 minutes as Toronto tried to keep the game under control.
“You go out there, try to play the right way, do the things they’re asking you to do and you earn that trust as time goes on,” said VanVleet after scoring four of his 11 points and contributing two of his six assists down the stretch, while chipping in a steal as well.
“As a competitor, once you get past the first part about getting in the rotation, now it’s about being in there at the end of the game and everyone on the team wants to be in there at the end of the game so if you’re one of those guys out there you cherish those moments and try to contribute to the late-game execution.”
He did it on both ends. The Raptors had no solution for the Pacers’ Victor Oladipo who had 31 points on 18 shots through three quarters. He finished with 36 points. But VanVleet drew the assignment down the stretch, playing his handsy style of defence and the Pacers shooting guard was 0-for-4 in 11 minutes, with all five of his points coming at the free-throw line.
Not surprisingly this pleased Raptors coach Dwane Casey.
“He’s tough. He’s a winner. He’s come from a winning college program. He’s smart. He’s one of our high IQ guys. I trust him, I totally trust him,” said Casey of VanVleet. “He knows what every position on the floor should be doing. This is his second year. He’s earned it. He talks during the game. He talks to players. He’s telling other guys what they should be doing. He was on Jakob [Poeltl] a couple of times, he missed a couple of assignments offensively and he was on him telling him what to do. As a coach, you need that, especially from a young player.”
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VanVleet didn’t wait until the fourth to make an impact. As is the norm, the Raptors starters were just so-so coming out of the gate. DeMar DeRozan had some good moments, staking the Raptors to a six-point advantage after five minutes. But by the time VanVleet checked in four minutes later, the reserves had to repair a seven-point hole.
No problem. In 10 minutes of floor time, VanVleet, meshing perfectly with his friends on the second unit by scoring seven points on four shots and chipping in two assists. He won his matchup against Joseph, helped the Raptors regain the lead early in the second quarter, and had engineered a 13-point swing by the time Casey began filtering his starters back in early in the second quarter.
The second unit has been massive all season. Poeltl, getting all of the backup minutes a centre with Lucas Nogueira (calf) out, finished with a career-high 18 points. Several of his baskets came off plays engineered by VanVleet.
“Fred is a little different than Delon because he looks for the contact a lot and sometimes he needs an outlet late. If the big and the guard are on him, that’s when I need to be open right there for him to throw me that little push pass,” said Poeltl. “I think we got it a couple times today. We’re really working on it in practice and it’s been showing.”
It’s all part of why VanVleet, getting the first steady dose of playing time of his career with Wright out, is proving he may be more than third-string point guard insurance in his NBA future.
He’s averaging nine points, four assists a steal in 20.9 minutes a game while shooting 46 per cent from three and 47 per cent from the floor overall.
He makes “winning plays,” as Casey likes to call them, like keeping a loose ball in bounds and smartly tipping it to Pascal Siakam, turning what would have been a Pacers ball on the baseline into a scoring opportunity at the other end in the third quarter.
It’s part of the reason why the Raptors are plus-76 with VanVleet on the floor the past seven games. No other Raptor is close. He was a team-best plus-9 on Friday night.
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VanVleet wasn’t on the floor to start the third quarter and maybe that’s something that Casey should think about. The Raptors lost the quarter after halftime one more time, albeit just 31-29. It was a small triumph given the way the Raptors have blown leads after halftime of late. This time they led 65-58 entering the fourth quarter.
But as the Raptors began to assert control of the game, VanVleet was in the mix, something that has become more and more common as he ups the basketball IQ of the group.
Joseph checked out after the surged ahead with VanVleet playing a key role. It wasn’t the return Joseph was hoping for, given the Pacers lost and he finished with seven points on 2-of-9 shooting in 22 minutes. But his understudy VanVleet was on the floor until the final horn.
His layup with 3:18 put Toronto up 11, but it was the Raptors’ last field goal for nearly three minutes as they missed three straight attempts and made two turnovers, allowing Indiana to cut the lead to five.
But even during that chaos VanVleet found a way to contribute, disrupting six-foot-six Bojan Bogdanovic into a miss on an otherwise wide-open fast break.
It was another winning play, is trademark, although it was DeRozan who iced the game with four consecutive free throws as he finished with 26 points and five assists.
It was supposed to be a special night for Joseph – and yes, there should have been a video tribute — but if anything VanVleet’s performance was more evidence the Raptors have moved on from their homegrown point guard without missing a beat.
