Casey still preaching defence in season’s second half

Toronto tied for 19th in defensive efficiency

BROOKLYN, N.Y. • The Toronto Raptors reached the halfway point of the season Tuesday night against the Brooklyn Nets looking even stronger than they did a year ago.

There has been plenty to be happy about over the first 40 games, 27 of those wins. But ask DeMar DeRozan or coach Dwane Casey about where they are and both prefer to talk about what they can improve upon.

DeRozan is first and foremost proud of his team for posting the second-best record in the Eastern Conference despite injury problems that began before they played a regular season game.

The team is still waiting for power forward Jared Sullinger to play his first meaningful game.

“The best part is that we sustained this record with so many injuries, not having Sullinger for the whole season. I would say that is the best part,” DeRozan said. “And we made it through this tough schedule to be where we are.”

The tough schedule — through 40 games, the Raptors have played the toughest schedule in the NBA — has been overcome through sheer will, much of it on the part of DeRozan and point guard Kyle Lowry, who time and again take turns turning games around in the fourth quarter to move potential losses into the win column.

Ironically, it is those late turnarounds that DeRozan points to as the one area where the team needs to improve.

“Play the games like we play in the fourth quarter from the jump ball,” DeRozan said of what he would like to see over the final 41. “That is how we can separate ourselves and really get prepared for the playoffs starting.

“In the playoffs, you can’t wait until the fourth quarter. It’s got to be from the start and we can’t wait until the end to find that mentality.”

Casey, for his part, said the best part of the first half has to be the team’s offensive efficiency.

The Raptors have been one or two in offensive efficiency all season. Heading into Tuesday’s game, they are just behind the Golden State Warriors and slightly ahead of the Houston Rockets in that measurement, according to teamrankings.com.

Casey, a well-documented defensive coach, can’t help but recognize his team’s accomplishment.

But it’s not like he has forgotten about the defence, the area he considers the negative of the first half.

The Raptors went into the 41st game of the season tied for 19th in defensive efficiency, according to teamrankings.com, down from 11th at the end of last season and Casey well aware of that slide.

“Our negative is we got ourselves in a bit of a hole defensively,” Casey said.

“We are kind of climbing out of that now, but we still got to improve there.”

And a huge part of that defensive slide has been the Raptors’ inability to finish defensive possessions after the first miss. Teams have been taking advantage of those second and third chances with regularity.

“Part of our (problems on defence) has been our rebounding,” Casey said. “Our rebounding has been suspect in the first half of the year. Some of it is we are playing some small lineups out of necessity and other times we have to do a better job of finding bodies, boxing out and just good old let’s go get the basketball.”

Lately, though, that problem has been mitigated by a rejuvenated Jonas Valanciunas and some much-needed help from the guards coming back to handle some of those long rebounds that are becoming so plentiful in the game these days.

“We say they have to moon rebound, lane rebound because so many teams are shooting threes now there are a lot of long rebounds,” Casey said of his guards. “It’s paramount the guards come back in and get those long rebounds because the bigs are in there wrasslin’. The ball is automatically going over their heads because there are so many threepoint shots going up. It’s very important for our guards to come back in and be a part of that.”

The imminent return of Sullinger to the lineup should also address this deficiency.

In short, the Raptors are satisfied with where they are at the halfway point, but they see plenty of areas in which they want to be better.