With or without Leonard, Raptors have versatility
The angst level from the Raptors’ fan base when Kawhi Leonard takes a night off has risen each and every time another load management game is announced.
And the paying customer, the individual actually footing the cost for a ticket to that night’s game has every right to express their displeasure with that development. Leonard, after all, is an attraction in his own right and missing out on the opportunity to see him live is a realistic grievance.
Of course the reasons for sitting him out and avoiding potentially more stressful situations like back-to-back games are also realistic.
Leonard played just nine games a season ago with an injury that proved stubborn and resistant to whatever rehab efforts Leonard and the Spurs were making.
Only the two parties involved know the entire story regarding their differences over the treatment of that injury, but suffice to say they were serious enough that it eventually led to the end of their working relationship.
Now in Toronto, Leonard has been handled with the proverbial kid gloves playing 51 of the 71 games to date. Whether that pays off for the Raptors down the road, either with a nice long playoff run or, hold your breath here, Leonard re-upping with the team this summer, only time will tell.
But even in Leonard’s absence on those nights he does not play, the Raptors have found opportunities, opportunities that could come in very handy come playoff time.
One of those opportunities was the chance to get a good look at Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet on the floor together for extended times.
When Leonard sits, invariably head coach Nick Nurse jumps at the opportunity to start the two alongside one another.
Nurse doesn’t need any analytics deep dive to tell him what his eyes can already see.
In short, Lowry and VanVleet together produce winning basketball.
In Leonard the Raptors have one of those individual game changers. A guy who, when you put the ball in his hands, can get the job done almost by himself. His combination of size, strength, skill and determination makes him a one-man wrecking crew. He’s that elite talent the Raptors have never really had that can win a game by himself.
VanVleet and Lowry rely more on ball movement for their success when they take over a game. It was in plain view Monday against an overmatched Knicks team that spent the better part of the evening chasing the basketball only to find it on the way to the bottom of the net after it had moved enough to provide a wide-open shot.
“Obviously it was awesome pace, passing, paint touches, ball pressure, all the things we really wanted to do,” Nurse said.
“It was great the way the ball was moving and the way we were flying around on defence obviously, the entire game, really.”
That was against the Knicks, a team far more interested in development at this point than actually winning basketball games, but the Lowry/VanVleet combo has done it against top-tier level competition as well.
That pair with Marc Gasol, Danny Green and Pascal Siakam put on a clinic in ball movement Monday night.
Nurse has seen it before and it’s why he is intent on finding minutes for that combo even with Leonard in the lineup.
The most likely scenario is a continuation of Nurse pulling his starting point guard Lowry off the floor with about five minutes left in the first quarter and then sending him back out there with VanVleet and the second unit when they take over either at the end of the first or to start the second quarter.
“We’re so dangerous like that with two points and two guys who can get in and out and attack the paint and find guys so I think that is something we can build on going forward,” VanVleet said after the game.
Over he course of a long playoff run, one approach is not going to carry the day. For a team to slog through that grind they need multiple approaches.
Leonard bullying defenders is one. Lowry and VanVleet putting those same defenders in a spin cycle with their ball movement and sneaky-quick attacks is another.