And now a break.
After a frenzied free agency, a last minute-move to Tampa, a horrible start, a rise to respectability through a steady drip of injuries and finally a COVID scare, the Toronto Raptors can rest.
The first half of the season is over. They don’t have to work again until March 11th, and with no Raptors having to participate in all-star weekend for the first time in eight years, everyone can pause.
It’s needed.
Playing their second game in as many nights, and while short five players – including starters Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby – plus head coach Nick Nurse and six members of his coaching staff due to the league’s health-and-safety protocols after the team had an undisclosed number of positive COVID-19 tests, the Raptors ran out of gas in the second half of their 132-125 loss to the Celtics.
The game turned in the third quarter after Toronto had staked themselves to a lead through two quarters with an up-tempo, energetic performance. But the Celtics exploded for 35 points on 12-of-19 shooting and Toronto could only manage 9-of-24 from the field while coughing up six turnovers that led to eight Celtics points. As Boston took a 101-92 lead into the fourth quarter, Jayson Tatum got on track with 11 points while using his length to cool down a red-hot Norman Powell at the other.
Toronto didn’t mail it at that point. They kept hanging around and when Kyle Lowry found Chris Boucher under the Celtics basket for his 17th assist, Toronto trailed by seven with four minutes to play. His career-tying 18th assist set up a Boucher triple that pulled Toronto to within three as part of a 10-1 run that allowed the Raptors be in a single possession game with less than three minutes to play.
But Tatum kept the pressure and manufactured buckets. His difficult, fading two over Stanley Johnson put Boston up by seven with 38 seconds to play. Lowry’s career-high 19th assist set up another three for Boucher that gave him 30 points in 35 minutes off the bench and pulled the Raptors to within four, but they couldn’t pull off a miracle from there.
A little more defence would have helped. The Raptors allowed Boston to shoot 60.8 per cent from the floor and 13-of-29 from the three while putting them on the line 40 times to just 29 for Toronto. Tatum scored 18 of his 27 points in the second half. All of that negated Lowry’s career-best assist game as well his 14 points, Boucher’s huge game, a season-high 22 points from Terence Davis, 25 points from Powell and 13 points in the fourth quarter from Johnson.
“I thought we definitely let one slip the night before against Detroit. We didn’t play as well. We weren’t locked in. I think we flipped the switch from start to finish of this game, battling through every run and battling through whatever it was,” said Powell, who came into the game averaging 22 points a night as a starter this season. “Staying together, talking to one another, holding each other accountable. We gave ourselves a chance to win down the stretch. A couple of tough calls, a couple of bad bounces didn’t go our way, a couple of good shots that didn’t go in. But I thought the guys competed. We got to continue to play like that no matter who is in or out of the lineup. I thought we did a great job today.”
But overcoming being down three starters proved to be too much. The loss was the Raptors' second straight and dropped them to 17-19 for the season and 1-6 on the second night of back-to-backs – of which they have eight in the second half of the season to come. The Raptors wasted a night in which they shot 50 per cent from the floor and 21-of-50 from deep.
But all of it was in sharp contrast to a moribund effort in a loss to the Detroit Pistons the other night that Toronto just wanted to forget.
“I can only say that I am really, really proud of the effort our players threw on the floor tonight. We were really a different team from yesterday,” said Raptors assistant Sergio Scariolo who filled in for Nurse for the second game. “We really fought on most of the possessions, we shared the ball, 36 assists vs. 17 yesterday which I think is a number that reflects in the difference in the two games.
"Defensively we tried hard. We did some mistakes; they are some great players who can create a shot of their own even when they are really well guarded.
“I think we really played bad only the first five minutes of the third quarter. That is probably our only regret, we didn’t come out of the locker room 100 per cent.”
In their lost to Detroit, the Raptors got minimal positive contributions from anyone beyond Powell and Lowry. Against the Celtics, everyone who stepped on the floor seemed ready to engage and put the previous game behind them.
Davis, as an example, was awful as a starter against Detroit but when Scariolo brought him off the bench against Boston, he was a different player – flashing the athleticism that makes him such an intriguing prospect, making catches that other players can’t, and changing speeds and getting into the paint at will. But it was his decision making that stood out as he moved the ball easily and intelligently, drawing traffic and finding teammates for easy scores.
By the end of the first half, Davis was perfect: 4-of-4 from the floor, 2-of-2 from three and 3-of-3 from the line. He wasn’t the only one to bring a spark off the bench. Boucher had 16 points at the end of the first half on 6-of-7 shooting, while little-used Paul Watson hit a three and was active defensively as the Raptors limited Tatum and Jaylen Brown – the Celtics' potent wing duo heading to the All-Star Game – to just 10 points combined.
All of that was just the support another big effort from Powell needed as he followed up his season-high 36-point outing against the Pistons with 21 points in the first half, allowing Toronto to have a 70-66 lead at halftime.
With the trip to Boston complete, the first half of a season that was full of ups and downs has been brought to a close. The Raptors have been left in a decidedly ‘meh’ position though, with no clearer picture about where the team fits in a flat Eastern Conference than before the season started.
Things looked dire early when the Raptors were 2-8 and they were struggling to score and defend; Aron Baynes and Alex Len were proving an insufficient replacement for Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka; and it seemed like Siakam's struggles from the last part of the 2019-20 season were still present.
But the ship slowly righted itself with a 10-5 stretch that got Toronto within a game of .500, the break-even point they’ve been flirting with ever since. They’ve been as high as fourth in East, but even then they were just three games out of 13th.
The biggest questions are yet to come: How badly will this COVID scare disrupt the second half of the season? If the likes of Siakam, Anunoby and VanVleet are asymptomatic, they should be back when play resumes on March 11th none the worse for wear. If the virus is more persistent and recoveries linger, it will be a setback as Toronto tries to fit in 36 games in 66 days.
With the trade deadline looming on March 25th, Raptors president Masai Ujiri and general manager Bobby Webster must decide on what path they should take. Do they try and add pieces to fill some holes and make a run in what seems like a fairly wide open conference? Or will they acknowledge that this group is not likely title-bound and investigate if it is worthwhile accumulating future assets for pending free agents Lowry and Powell?
That’s all ahead, but for now, they can pause.
