Toronto Raptors: An Open Letter To Dwane Casey

Dear Mr. Casey,

Let me start off by saying, I’m not, at any capacity, a coach (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, amirite?!?), just a long-time fan with an outspoken opinion.

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Like many of the Toronto Raptors’ faithful, I was cautiously giddy when the Dinos got out to a 24-6 start; but it would be disingenuous to say I didn’t have my doubts concerning the sustainability of the early season success.

In particular, I have long questioned the team’s defensive scheme in terms of fit with the current roster.

I know your primary goal is to suffocate opposing offenses with sharp, synchronized rotations; but with a defense that ranks within the bottom third of the league, specifically at 21st, per NBA.com, when should we, as fans, start to worry whether or not your scheme is suited for the incumbent roster.

Most glaringly, your defense often invites middle penetration by guiding opposing ball handlers into the screen, relying heavily on your bigs to show hard and impede the progress of cat-quick penetrators. But time after time, such a strategy just triggers a sequence of uncompromising events. Take, for example, the following play:

Due to the Raptors’ aforementioned defensive scheme, instead of icing (in other words, forcing Jarrett Jack away from the screen) the pick-and-roll action, Kyle Lowry concedes the middle.

However, Jonas Valančiūnas, unlike Patrick Patterson, Amir Johnson, and even Tyler Hansbrough, does not have to foot speed to aggressively show; therefore he sinks back to the nail area, giving Jack free rein to probe into the teeth of the defense.

Thereafter, Lowry scrambles to recover, but not nearly quick enough. Meanwhile Amir Johnson was anticipating a second pick from his man, Kevin Garnett, and thus, was stuck in a hard show position behind KG.

On the other hand, both DeMar DeRozan and Greivis Vasquez could not fully commit to the collapse as their respective checks, in Alan Anderson and Joe Johnson, are both capable spot-up shooters.

Consequently, it left Mason Plumlee a free lane to dive towards the basket.

Plumlee would ultimately receive the lob, but was fouled in the process by the hustling Lowry.

More alarmingly, the team’s set of frontcourt players that are most suited to carry out such a style does not include JV — thereby, limiting the Raptors’ most productive big’s defensive influence on the court. And for this reason, I understand why Valančiūnas is only playing 26.4 minutes per game.

Take a look at how much more efficacious the Raptors’ D is with the combination of Patterson and Johnson:

Once again, Lowry concedes the middle and allows Jack to cleanly utilize the screen. However, Patterson, unlike Valančiūnas, has the foot speed to show high to subsequently cut-off the Brooklyn Net’s foray towards the basket.

As Patterson successfully stifles Jack towards the sideline, Terrence Ross slides into prime help position — a short step away from either stunting at the flaring Brook Lopez or recovering back to the opposite corner to contest a Joe Johnson 3-point attempt.

In addition, Patterson’s effort also gives Lowry ample time to recover back onto Jack.

As the Nets swing the ball back around, Ross successfully stunts at Lopez as Patterson hustles to conservatively close out on the Nets’ lumbering center; not exactly someone who you would call a stretch 5.

Consequently, the Nets’ pick-and-roll effort was successfully defended — thanks in large part to Patterson’s lateral quicks as a big. As such, Brooklyn is resorted to an isolation post up, with little to no weakside movement, as the shot clock dwindles down to 10 seconds.

With that being said, a simple change in the team’s defensive philosophy would easily free Valančiūnas to play 30-35 minutes a contest.

As well as Hansbrough has played as of late, in the context of his role, I’d much rather see Valančiūnas anchoring the Raptors than Hansbrough spastically run around for 13 minutes every game — particularly when the Raptors allow over 14.2 second chance points per game, tied for the fourth-most in the association.

Moreover, the Raptors have no semblance, whatsoever, of a rim protector when Valančiūnas is on the bench. Specifically, opponents have a free lane once they beat the initial line of defense. Take for instance:

On this play, Deron Williams initiates the offense from the pinch post area. Accordingly, Patterson loads up the strong side in an effort to clog the lane.

As Patterson steps out of the lane for a split second to avoid the defensive three-second violation, Williams swiftly beats Ross off the dribble. Meanwhile, Hansbrough is inexplicably out of position, hugging Plumlee in an area of the floor in which he is not a threat in.

As a result, Williams gets an easy layup, unimpeded, as both Patterson and Hansbrough — of whom are both inherently non-shot blockers — just helplessly watch.

In addition, the Raptors’ core of perimeter players are incapable of playing such a demanding brand of defense — at least not this season and not for this team.

More explicitly, the Raptors’ guards are either physically incapable of fighting through screens in a timely manner (ahem, Louis Williams, Terrance Ross, and Greivis Vasquez) or not disciplined enough (ahem, Kyle Lowry) to avoid the temptation of steals.

Moreover, the rotations are often a step slow and the defense is easily cracked, especially when facing teams adept at moving the ball from side to side. Here’s an example of Toronto’s lackadaisical brand of help defense:

As you can see, Johnson is operating out of the wing as Lopez approaches to initiate a side pick-and-roll — which would be the perfect time to ice the play and have Amir sink back and zone up on JJ.

However, the Raptors stubbornly hard show, which allow Johnson to curl back into the middle, where options are aplenty.

With that being said, both Lowry and Ross are a step away from where they should be. Specifically, Lowry should be aggressively stunting towards Johnson to discourage the pull-up 3, while Ross should be at the nail to help cover the Nets’ duo of spot up shooters.

Sure enough, the play ends in a clean pull-up 3 for Johnson, which he makes to extend the Nets lead to eight.

All things considered, it not hard to see your current scheme is simply too demanding for the current roster — especially for your key players.

While size and rim protection are not concrete prerequisites to effectively contend in the modern NBA; this is not the 2012 Miami Heat with a peak LeBron James roaming the perimeter and a multi-functional Chris Bosh anchoring the middle.

It is worth noting that the above breakdowns were taken from the same game.

In my opinion, a more apropos defensive philosophy for the 2014-15 rendition of the Raptors would be a scheme similar to what the Golden State Warriors employ — force everything to one side of the court and funnel opposing ballhandlers to your rim protecting big.

Just imagine JV in the place of Bogut in the following instance:

As Dallas Mavericks’ guard, Monta Ellis, and center, Tyson Chandler, engage in a high pick-and-roll, the Warriors’ Klay Thompson effectively ices the set play towards his anchor, Bogut.

The presence of Bogut forces Ellis out of the paint, and he instead, opts to probe the defense. However, both Stephen Curry and Draymond Green are in prime help position, both within a stride of either bumping a diving Chandler, or recovering back to their assigned shooters, in J.J. Barea and Chandler Parsons, respectively.

The Warriors successfully crowds the paint — in particular, the boxes and elbows — thereby, building a wall (or as Stan Van Gundy would say: NSFW).

As such, Ellis judiciously kicks it back out to the opposite wing to Parsons.

Thereafter, the Mavericks run another pick-and-roll, this time on the wing. Accordingly, Green, once again, ices the proposition and forces the action to one side of the floor; thus, funneling the play towards Bogut.

As Parsons turns the corner, both Thompson, at the nail, and Curry, on the weakside, is in place to impede a potential Chandler hard dive; while Harrison Barnes stays within an arm’s length of Dirk Nowitzki.

Consequently, Parsons is force to take a tough floater, that resulted in a miss, over the top of Bogut,

It is easy to envision the Raptors enforcing a similar type of defensive scheme with DeRozan playing the role of Thompson, Lowry playing the role of Curry, Patterson playing the role of Barnes, James Johnson playing the role Green, with Valančiūnas anchoring the paint.

Not only will such a strategy improve Toronto’s ability to protect the paint — as the Raptors relent the seventh-most points per game from five feet and in, per NBA.com — but it will also alleviate the team’s propensity to give up second chance points.

Chiefly, the strategy will allow Valančiūnas to stay on the floor to do big man things — specifically, to protect the rim and defensive rebound.

In fact, not only do opponents convert on only 47.7 percent of their shots at the rim — an above average rate — with Big Science patrolling the paint, JV is also 14th in the league in defensive rebound percentage, per Basketball-Reference.

For all intents and purposes, the team’s offense will come and go due to the heavy emphasis of isolation play. But with Lowry and Williams — two elite ball-in-hand shot creators — and the injection of DeRozan’s recent playmaking, the offense will continue to produce at a top-10 rate.

However, to shore up the defense and curate some resemblance of consistency, Toronto has to change its defensive strategy and free their highly productive 22-year-old big man.

Other than that, I hope all is well.

From Vancouver with love,

Aaron

P.S. All stats are current as of Feb. 6, 2015

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