NO SUCH THING AS COMFORTABLE: CASEY
Even with lofty record, Raptors’ coach stresses need for team to remain focused
Dwane Casey had his wellearned moment in the sun in Los Angeles, glad-handing with the who’s who of the NBA and Hollywood as one of the coaches in the NBA All-Star Classic.
But now that he’s back in Toronto, it’s all business again for the Raptors’ court leader.
When the word “comfortable” was used in one of a dozen or so questions he fielded on his first day back, Casey reacted like he had just been personally insulted.
“Nobody’s comfortable,” he said.
“There should be nobody in this building that’s comfortable. Success in the NBA is very fleeting and if anybody thinks otherwise, they’re in the wrong business. You can look around the league. Teams that you thought were king of the world suddenly hit a hard time and boom, you’re no longer comfortable.”
Casey and his Raptors have a tenuous hold on first place in the East of two games over the Boston Celtics and are just 61/2 games ahead of the suddenly re-energized Cleveland Cavaliers with 25 games remaining.
Casey is well aware of how hard his team has worked to get to where they are and he’s determined to make sure there’s no letup.
“My job with our guys is to make the comfortable uncomfortable and the uncomfortable comfortable, and you’ve got to do that,” he said.
“That’s the tone we’ve got to set. There’s nobody here that should feel satisfied or feel like ‘oh, we’ve got a cushion.’ No way, no how.”
The Raptors get back into the fray with a tough matchup Friday against a Milwaukee Bucks team that won nine of its last 12 games heading into the all-star break.
The Raptors were also riding high heading into the break with 12 wins in 15 games including a current seven-game winning streak.
“It starts with Kyle (Lowry) and DeMar (ReRozan),” Casey said in reference to Toronto’s pair of four-time all-stars. “They’ve seen success and they’ve seen failure and that should be a great reminder for everybody, the fans, the media, whatever.
“It’s our job to get them to understand that’s the way this world works.
“We can all feel good and happy and all that but sooner or later, somebody’s trying to come and take your position, take your spot at the top, if you let them. The only way that happens is if you get comfortable.
That’s the challenge for young players as much as the older players.
The older players understand, they’ve seen it and should know there’s no place in the NBA for comfortable.”
C.J. Miles, a man who certainly had a roller-coaster first half with the combination of injuries and life changes (first-time dad), believes the Raptors have set the tone with their 41-16 start and now need to focus on completing the journey.
“Just keep getting better, keep cleaning up things that we’ve been talking about all year, keep trying to get better at things we’ve been able to improve on all year,’’ said Miles.
“You’ll definitely see teams starting to find that gear, when they start looking for that extra motivation that kicks in, especially on veteran teams.’’
“Robert Horry used to always talk about those playoff legs, how you see those guys start to figure it out and say, all right, it’s time for me to get locked in to reach that ultimate goal,” Miles said.
“A lot of guys are brought into situations because they know it’s such a long haul and they’re prepared for that. This is when you start seeing things happen.’’
There’s no question the foundation for a long-playoff run has been laid but there are no guarantees.
The improvement has to continue and that is why you won’t hear Casey even entertaining the mere mention of the word “comfortable” when it comes to the Raptors.