5 reasons the Toronto Raptors can win the Eastern Conference

2. Revamped offense with 3-point shooting

The big storyline heading into the 2017-18 season was the Toronto Raptors’ willingness to embrace the pace-and-space era by revamping an outdated, iso-heavy offense that had proven to be ineffective every time the postseason rolled around.

Brad Stevens, Gregg Popovich and Mike D’Antoni are getting all the buzz in Coach of the Year chatter, and deservedly so, but overlooking what Dwane Casey has done this season would be a mistake.

The obvious boon to the offense is a willingness to jack more 3-pointers. The Raptors are actually shooting a worse percentage from deep this year (35.7 percent, ranked 20th) compared to last year (36.3 percent, ranked 13th), but like the Houston Rockets in the West, they’re making up for it in sheer volume.

They’re no Mike D’Antoni squad, but the Raptors are still launching 32.5 times from deep per game — an increase of 8.2 attempts compared to last season. The Raptors rank fifth in 3-point attempts per game and seventh in 3-point makes, canning 11.6 per game. Just take a look at how many capable perimeter shooters they have on deck now:

• Fred VanVleet: 41.6 percent on 3.0 attempts per game
• Kyle Lowry: 39.6 percent on 7.7 attempts per game
• C.J.Miles: 38.3 percent on 6.3 attempts per game
• Delon Wright: 36.9 percent on 2.1 attempts per game
• Serge Ibaka: 35.7 percent on 3.9 attempts per game
• OG Anunoby: 35.3 percent on 2.8 attempts per game

An increased emphasis on 3-point shooting isn’t the only reason We The North ranks fourth in the league in offensive rating (111.0). Casey has also made sure the ball doesn’t stick in Lowry or DeRozan’s hands as much, getting everyone involved on that end of the floor.

The Raptors are averaging 24 more passes per game than they did last year, upping their potential assists from 39.2 per game (dead last in the NBA in 2016-17) to 45.8 per game (10th in 2017-18). Lowry and DeRozan are at the forefront of this distribution, but nearly everyone on the roster is capable of moving the ball and finding the open man.

Because of this, the Raptors have gone from a league-worst 18.5 assists per game last year to 23.7 per game this year, which ranks seventh overall. They’ve seen similarly drastic turnarounds in their assist ratio and assist-to-turnover ratio too, getting Jonas Valanciunas as involved as he’s ever been in spite of his decrease in playing time.

Finally, increasing the pace seems to be doing wonders, which makes sense for an offense that’s now moving the ball a lot more and concentrating its firepower from behind the 3-point arc. Toronto played at a glacial 97.11 pace last year, which ranked 22nd in the league. This year, the Raptors are running and gunning at a pace of 100.48, which ranks ninth.

Clutch offense has been an issue, but kudos to everyone involved — not only the players for being open to such drastic changes to an offense that hummed until playoff time, but to Casey for instituting the correct, necessary tweaks without throwing his star players completely off their games.