The fight for third only gets tougher for Raptors
MIKE GANTER
POSTMEDIA NETWORK
MIAMI — We’re sure the sunscreen and the board shorts were packed, but the dress of the day for the Raptors as they spend the next few days here in Miami was far more yellow hard hat than anything tropical.
That may not have been the case when the team made its plans to spend these three days between road games in this southern climate but circumstances have changed of late hence the change in tone from management right on down to the players themselves.
“Um, we need it. It’s critical,” DeMar DeRozan said Sunday in a subdued locker room in Milwaukee following the second bad loss for the Raptors in the past four days. “These days — it comes at a critical point that we need it and we can take advantage of it offensively and defensively.”
Through some fault of their own and some not, the Raptors find themselves in a rather unsettled state as they arrive in Miami where they have scheduled practices Monday and Tuesday before continuing on to New Orleans where this five-game road trip resumes.
The circumstances that have put them in this state are not even stable. With each passing day something else seems to occur to undermine that goal.
Saturday in Milwaukee it was a third quarter incident in which DeMarre Carroll went up for a rebound and either got shoved or just came down on an opponent’s foot twisting his ankle. He had to be helped to the locker room and did not return.
He joins an injured list that already includes starting point guard Kyle Lowry who had wrist surgery last Tuesday and is out for at least the next month.
Throw in the team trying to acclimate two key and brand new contributors in Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker on the fly more or less since the trade deadline and you see the heightened importance of this actually being a working break rather than a rest and relaxation side trip.
“We have to use these next few days to make sure we get our work in to get our timing down, to get mainly our offensive timing and understanding what we’re trying to do under control, especially with our new guys,” head coach Dwane Casey said. “Serge is doing a heckuva job, he’s still trying to feel his way, P.J. is still trying to feel his way a little bit on a lot of the execution plays, the multiple pass plays that we have.”
And make no mistake there is some concern over the optics such a decision will have back home given the team is just 15-16 in its past 31 games since the calendar turned to 2017.
The Raptors have 19 games remaining before they embark on another playoff run. Where they start that run in terms of seeding is vitally important if the goal of a trip back to the Eastern Conference final is realistic.
Start anywhere lower than the third seed and the team almost assuredly sees the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round rather than the third, and that’s assuming they survive the first.
By the time the playoffs begin, the Raptors expect to have Lowry back in the fold and assuming that is the case, the Raptors chances of advancing go up exponentially.
But, there are at likely four more weeks and the 16 games in that month span before anyone can realistically expect Lowry back.
Fending off the likes of the Washington Wizards and the Atlanta Hawks for that all-important third seed or even challenging for second, now occupied by the Boston Celtics, comes down to finding a semblance of stability over this next month and not just treading water in Lowry’s absence but finding ways to win games again at something better than just a .500 clip.
The schedule certainly seems to favour the Raptors in that regard. They play just six games in the final 19 against teams playing better than .500 basketball and three of those five are against Indiana which began the day just a game better than .500.
But, in reality, it’s not going to matter who the Raptors are playing if they can’t get things sorted.