Raptors' effort level not a problem amidst trying season

INDIANAPOLIS — Rick Carlisle isn’t one to throw around compliments for the sake of it. He’s been a head coach in the NBA for too long — this is season 24 for the 65-year-old — to say nice things to hear himself talk. 

So let’s take his assessment of the Toronto Raptors at face value: 

“I’ve said this many times this year, it's become a hard-play league, and not just a skill and talent league. And that's an exciting thing,” Carlisle said. “It brings the competitive quotient of everything up. And Toronto in particular is a team that plays exceedingly hard. You know, there are five teams that I think really separate themselves with hard play. I think we're one of them (and) Toronto is one of those teams … and we've had a lot of trouble with Toronto this year, and it wasn't much fun last year either.

“There's a genius to hard play, which is an idiotic statement, but it's true. Hard play is really the basis of having a successful team in this league,” Carlisle continued. “ … It takes a lot of depth and a lot of wherewithal to apply full-court pressure through an entire NBA game in January, but January was our best month, and, not coincidentally, Toronto had a big run in January as well. They won eight out of 10, between the 13th of January and the second of February. We've taken careful note of that … I mean, you got to be ready or you get smashed in the face by these guys.”

There was no risk of that Wednesday even if Toronto did its best to extend the fight as long as it could. The Pacers were able to duck the Raptors' best punches at Gainbridge Fieldhouse as they pulled away for what ended up being a relatively easy 111-91 win. 

It was the Raptors' second straight loss and fourth in their past five as they fell to 18-41 at the start of a four-game road trip that picks up in Chicago on Friday. It's a game that could be an important outing, regardless of whether you’re hoping the Raptors make a run at the play-in — the Bulls are 10^th — or keep gathering lottery balls. 

But there were some extenuating circumstances Toronto had to deal with against the Pacers. 

Even as Jakob Poeltl returned to the lineup — and contributed 10 points, five rebounds and two assists while being limited to 24 minutes after being out since Feb. 4 with a hip pointer — the Raptors found themselves without Scottie Barnes who was scratched after bruising his hip in a fall early in the Raptors loss to Boston on Tuesday. 

And the Raptors were playing on the second night of a back-to-back and their third game in four nights while Indiana was home and resting Tuesday. 

And the Pacers (33-24) are pretty good. In their first full season with Pascal Siakam (who had a relatively quiet 15 points and eight rebounds in 32 minutes against his old team) in the fold they’ve followed up their surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals last season with a run up the standings so far in 2024-25. After starting the season 9-14, Indiana is 24-10 and would host a first-round playoff series if the season ended today. 

None of those are excuses. Good NBA teams beat other good teams even in adverse circumstances. But the Raptors aren’t yet a good NBA team — no secret there as they’ve had the fifth-worst record in the NBA or thereabouts for most of the season. 

But they aren’t a horrible NBA team. They can stand on that. They play an identifiable brand of basketball, built on cutting and ball movement — they rank ninth in assists per game and third in potential assists. They also make a point to run (ranking fourth in percentage of points scored in transition) and they pressure the ball (ranking 8^th in deflections, for example). 

But what should give the Raptors hope long-term as they sort through the inevitable roster shuffling and growing pains associated with a rebuild, is that nearly 60 games into a season in which they are 23 games under .500, they still try hard and are proud of it. 

The Raptors hit the floor, get up, and hit the floor again on most nights. 

“That’s part of the identity we try to bring into every single game, no matter what the result is,” said third-year wing Ochai Agbaji who had 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting (2-of-5 from three) in 31 minutes starting in place of Barnes. “We want to know that at the end of the game, we put our hardest effort out there, it’s what we’re all about. We know in the long-term it’s going to pay off, playing this way, and playing this hard.”

It's been the message Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic and his coaching staff have been preaching — if a player hits the floor drawing a charge or diving for a loose ball, it's Rajakovic who is leading the pack to offer high-fives and recognize the effort as much as anyone else — and it seems to be sinking in. 

“For me, it's paramount. There's the foundation that you're building, the style of play, how we want to play, what style of game you want to play, and playing hard is something that has to be in our DNA,” Rajakovic said. “And that's what we're looking in players. That's what we're looking in coaches, that they have that fight, that resiliency — that's extremely important for us, and we're spending a lot of time trying to wake up that fight in the players that might not be showing it every night. 

“It's a skill that you can learn. It's nothing. There's not something that you're born with. It's something that you develop.”

There’s more to winning games in the NBA than just trying hard. The other teams are very good, and a lot of them try hard too. 

And then there are the really good players to deal with. Pacers all-NBA guard Tyrese Haliburton was on one Wednesday, as he led all scorers with 33 points and 11 assists while shooting 12-of-15 from the floor including 7-of-9 from three, several of his makes coming from well behind the three-point line. 

In Barnes' absence, the Raptors tried to manufacture their offence by committee with seven different Raptors scoring at least eight points and none more than the 18 points on the 8-of-15 shooting Immanuel Quickley put up. Rookie Jonathan Mogbo backed him up with 16 points, six rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot in his 22 minutes in one of his better games of the season.

But the Raptors shot just 6-of-27 from three, which makes it hard to win when the other side is going 15-of-36 from deep. And for all their good intentions against the Pacers, their best efforts were undone by their own mistakes, which could well have been fatigue-related. A couple of turnovers late in the second quarter cost the Raptors as they helped spark a 10-3 run that allowed Indiana to take a 51-41 lead into the second half. 

There was more in the third quarter. The Raptors were gamely hanging around, keeping the game within reach when they served up six of their 21 turnovers in the space of just over three minutes that helped the Pacers go on a 14-4 run. The Pacers had an 81-64 lead to start the fourth quarter that Toronto couldn’t cut into meaningfully down the stretch. 

“My message to the team was that this game might be our most important of the season so far,” said Rajakovic. “Coming back from the All-Star break we did not have a day off for eight days and now we’re playing on a back-to-back and what it means for your body, what it means for your mind, what it means for your decision-making. It’s small things.”

The effort certainly counts, and while it doesn’t count for everything, without it you have nothing. And that’s a problem the Raptors don’t have, even if the wins haven’t always followed.