RAPTORS GETTING IT DONE EVERY WHICH WAY
NURSE MANIPULATES ROSTER TO SUCCESSFUL 3-0 START
Three games into Nick Nurse’s grand Raptors experiment, all is well. The players are happy, despite most of them seeing far fewer minutes than they are used to, and team chemistry is high.
Of course winning all three contests has a lot to do with all of that, as victories cure most ills in professional sports.
But it’s definitely an adjustment for veterans such as Jonas Valanciunas, Serge Ibaka, Greg Monroe (a longtime starter who has not seen a single minute of action yet), as well as up-andcoming youngsters such as Pascal Siakam.
“We are sharing the minutes. We don’t know what matchups are going to come to us,” Valanciunas told Postmedia after picking up 16 points and seven rebounds in 19 minutes in Saturday’s 117-113 win over the Washington Wizards.
“We have versatility. Just have different things for different matchups. We have different lineups, different people going at some different players.”
And you can’t argue with the results, right
“Yeah, we won three and (are) 3-0, so, I think that works,” the big man said with a smile.
Norman Powell was asked to fill in with Kawhi Leonard and Delon Wright not on the trip and the swingman came through with a clutch performance.
“You’ve heard it a million times from all of us that we’re a really deep team,” Powell said in his scrum.
“A lot of guys can step in and step up. When you have a coach that trusts the players, I think everybody has confidence to go out there and play their brand of basketball and play their hearts out for the team and do whatever it takes to get the win.
“It’s really good to pull out (a win) when you have a superstar out on rest and it just shows how deep we are as a team. We have so many guys who can come in and make an impact, guys who can step up. Guys who can fill whatever void (there is) on that night.”
When the Raptors return to full strength and start dropping a few games, it will be fascinating to see how Nurse and his staff hold everything together and how they can maintain the buy-in from everyone and keep camaraderie high.
“There’s a long way to go and there’s a lot of stresses during the season,” Nurse had said beforehand when asked how he’s settling in to his new role as the man in charge.
Siakam seems to be the Raptors prospect who has most captivated the attention of NBA Twitter. He started in Friday’s home victory over Boston and came off the bench in a stellar 10 point, 10 rebound effort against the Wizards in a season-best 27 minutes.
Siakam even spent some time at centre for the first time all season before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Starter, reserve, it doesn’t matter much to the thirdyear energizer.
“I know we have a deep team, new coach, trying to figure things out,” Siakam told Postmedia.
“I just want to play, man. I just want to hoop.”
With a whopping eight games on the way over the next 15 days Siakam will surely get a chance to do just that, along with most of his teammates. Three veterans (Leonard, Kyle Lowry and Danny Green) have averaged north of 32 minutes a game so far, six others at least 15.
The rotation will tighten up as the playoffs get closer, but for now, it’s all hands on deck.