Hobbling Raptors trying to hold down the fort
The Christmas present for the Toronto Raptors was getting a reprieve from a gruelling schedule. Wednesday’s 118102 loss against Boston was the team’s third game in four nights, including an overtime battle in Indiana and a recordsetting comeback against Dallas.
It would have been a tough stretch to navigate at the best of times, but without Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol and Norman Powell, it has taken a nightly Herculean effort to stick around against some solid teams. That’s what point guard Fred VanVleet was trying to focus on.
“Yeah, not the best of circumstances,” VanVleet told Postmedia after the
Celtics game.
“Obviously we try to hold down the fort until those guys get back. Can’t really fall into that way of thinking (woe is me), because it’s not going to change. Nobody’s feeling sorry for us, so we can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” he said.
“We gotta find a way to get wins. I think we could help our offence a little bit. We’re playing hard enough on defence, but we can find a couple more buckets and take care of the ball a little bit better. I think we’ll be in better shape. But we’ll see. We got to keep fighting, and try to hold it down until the cavalry comes.” Falling way down hasn’t helped the depleted Raptors either. It’s forced head coach Nick Nurse to call for different presses, including the full-court variety which is extremely taxing on players, including VanVleet, who is the initial presser quite often.
“Yeah, it is what it is,” VanVleet said. “At that point you know when you get down, you got to speed the game up. I thought we did a good job getting back in the game and same thing as the other night. We get right there, on the verge of breaking them and being back and then we get an unfortunate zebra there,” he said.
“Just the way the game goes. We’ve just got to keep pushing, but I’m proud of the way our team has been fighting,” VanVleet said.
The Raptors got a well-deserved break on Thursday and Friday before this time getting to face a tired opponent on Saturday. Boston will be completing a back-to-back.
“Maybe we just need a little rest,” Nurse had said when asked why his Raptors hadn’t looked all that good against Boston. Earlier he had mentioned Toronto wasn’t physical enough defensively and didn’t offer enough resistance. That could have been fatigue-related.
“The schedule slows down a little bit now, so maybe we can find a little more rhythm a little more consistently,” he said.
Rebounding has been an issue lately, which makes sense given the current lack of depth, height and bulk up front. Chris Boucher had a career game, but gives up a lot physically because of his slight build.
The Raptors plan to work on shoring up the boardwork as best they can though.
“They got a lot of offensive rebounds and I think that kind of got us into a hole,” Boucher said.
“Coach actually made a point about that. We’ve got to box out and sandwich guys. So if I were to think about that we need to get better at that’s what it would be.”
Nurse agrees: “I think even though you’re out-weighted or out-sized, you’ve got to fight for your position a little earlier. I didn’t think we got a body on (Enes Kanter, who had 11 rebounds) soon enough.”
Toronto’s short-handed form is leading to problems in different areas. The defence, the rebounding and even on offence, despite near 50% shooting from the floor. While Gasol doesn’t shoot enough, he’s still a fulcrum of the attack thanks to his passing skills and insideoutside scoring abilities. The challenge of replacing Siakam’s 26 a night are obvious and Powell had been thriving from behind the arc and in getting to the rim before his injury.
Without Siakam, OG Anunoby has looked far less effective offensively, and Patrick McCaw is a shoot-as-a-lastresort type of player. That had Nurse considering tinkering a bit either with his starters, or, more likely, in trying to get McCaw to handle the ball more often. The thinking there is it will free up Kyle Lowry and VanVleet up more to attack as defenders won’t be able to ignore McCaw as much if he’s taking it at them.
“I could probably look at something else, I’m just not sure what that is at this particular moment what that would be,” Nurse said of changing the starting group.