Toronto Raptors: Magic Number Is 48
By Joshua Howe
The Toronto Raptors are not the Cleveland Cavaliers. They do not have a Big Three. They do not have a single player who can impact a game to such an extent that even when his teammates are faltering, he can drag them to a win.
The closest thing they have to that is DeMar DeRozan, who can get his own shot and score big night after night. But he’s had a very inconsistent season and, other than score, he doesn’t do anything exceptionally well.
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Kyle Lowry, as has been reiterated to death, cannot carry a basketball team for an entire game and certainly won’t be able to in the playoffs. He makes huge plays at select times during the course of the game and is a master of swinging momentum to drive his team forward.
The Raptors can’t win this way. Not by expecting one or two of their players to go off every night. That’s just not the way this team works. It’s not the way they’re constructed. It’s why the city of Toronto loves them so much: they’re a blue collar, grind-it-out, pick-each-other-up team that works in unison to defeat their foes.
If the Atlanta Hawks are Spurs East, then the Raptors are the Baby-Spurs (or Baby-Hawks). Their game works much the same way: they play team basketball, get everyone involved with lightning quick passing around the perimeter, shoot a ton of threes and rely heavily on chemistry to baffle opponents who boast superior talent.
Dwane Casey, however, doesn’t have as complex and smooth a system as Gregg Popovich. He allows his players a lot of freedom on the offensive end, choosing only basic plays when any are run at all. That’s where the chemistry kicks in, and for most of the season the Raps have displayed that their connectedness with one another is good enough to match teams running better plays.
During this losing period, the Raptors have gone away from that Spurs-esque offense. They’ve ceased to be the Baby-Spurs and turned into the Adolescent-Knicks (I say adolescent because they are still in a period where they refuse to go full Knicks): isolating key players like New York isolated Carmelo Anthony and hoping that they can make something out of nothing.
This apparent lack of trust in one another coupled with some poor shooting has been enough to frustrate the squad for the last few weeks. They’re no longer playing like the team we’ve watched for the vast majority of the season. Now they’re struggling to find themselves as the playoffs creep closer and they continue to drop in the Eastern Conference standings (now fourth).
Last game, against the Thunder, the Raps came back to us. Well, for three quarters they did.
They turned in an excellent offensive performance in the first half, drilling OKC from every angle, making their shots and passing like we’re used to seeing. They looked like they were back. Even Terrence Ross, who’s been struggling, emerged from nowhere and scored 20 points for the game (also making 6-9 treys).
It’s amazing how much better the Raptors play when the ball is humming and the motions of the game are fluid.
And then, like a single strike of black and red lightning, they were gone. The Raptors we loved deteriorated in the third quarter, returning to their isolation-prone ways. DeRozan suddenly had a tough time scoring, the beautiful passing vanished and the Thunder struck at once with a 9-0 run to pull them right back into things.
The third finished with the Thunder outscoring the Raps 28-18.
Toronto “won” the fourth quarter, 25-22, in a mad attempt to catch OKC. They had a chance in the waning minutes, but Russell Westbrook was too much and closed the deal with a huge trifecta late in the game; on his way to his fifth triple-double in six games.
All we were left with was this consolation prize dunk by DeRozan:
So the Raptors appeared to be back, then left as quickly as they’d come. But were they really? Or was it merely a mask? A momentary disguise in the form of a sudden barrage of shots going in from beyond the arc?
Even when the offense stalled, Toronto should have been able to hang their hat on what is supposed to be Casey’s signature trait: defense.
That never happened. While the Raptors were bombing away in the first half, the Thunder still ended the second quarter shooting a blistering 56.1 percent from the field. They were having no trouble getting exactly what they wanted. Guys like Enes Kanter were lighting up guys like Jonas Valanciunas to a staggering degree.
By the time the final horn blared, the Thunder finished the game shooting 51.2 percent. At no point during the contest did Toronto manage to show off the defensive prowess that Dwane Casey teams are supposed to exude.
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So you tell me. Was that really Toronto in the first half? Or perhaps, was it simply their offense and not their defense? Or maybe it really was them, and this is just the team they are: a great offensive force when the switch is turned on with a less-than-mediocre defense behind it.
No matter the truth, the fact of the matter is that, in some way, Toronto has to sustain a specific brilliance for the magic number of 48 minutes. That brilliance might just be their overwhelming offense, or it might be kicking their defense up a notch to a point where it once again becomes reliable.
Right now, neither of these things are so. And the Raptors are losing. Confidence is dwindling. Sometimes, all it takes is a single victory to get a club back on its feet. Maybe that’s the case for Toronto.
Forty-eight minutes. Offense and defense. One or both.
It’s time for the Raptors to come back. For good.
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