REALLY BIG DEAL
Improved Valanciunas takes on opponents off all sizes now
Jonas Valanciunas was a little more tired than usual after Tuesday’s win over the Brooklyn Nets.
But he wasn’t complaining. The big Raptors centre knows he doesn’t have anyone to blame for the added fatigue but the guy who looks at him in the mirror every morning. Valanciunas brought this on himself and he couldn’t be happier.
No one is more tickled to see the end of those days, when an opponent would start to realize they couldn’t match Toronto’s lineup on the floor and try to junk up the game by sending in a small lineup.
Invariably, Raptors coach Dwane Casey would respond in quick fashion, matching small with small and sending Valanciunas to the bench until the opponent put out a body Casey felt his own big man could guard.
The Nets, because they are young, and because their bigs aren’t exactly good or healthy right now, go small a lot. They did so in January when the Raptors last visited the Barclays Center, putting Quincy Acy at the five spot and Casey quickly hooked Valanciunas in response.
There was no hook Tuesday night. The Lithuanian came out and went back in every time Casey started subbing out his starters for rest and rest only. It’s a clear indication of how much trust he has in the 25-year-old these days.
He’ll never be fleet of foot but Valanciunas, through experience and with help from a defensive tweak that has him sitting deeper in the paint on pick and rolls, is now a competent defender in the very situations teams previously exploited him.
Yet, that’s not all that went into Valanciunas finally putting an end to those quick hooks every time a team went small.
He set himself up for better success against smalls by coming into this season about 10 pounds lighter.
He has also studied and worked with the coaching staff to find ways to compensate for the speed disadvantage he experiences when teams go small.
And, most of all, Valanciunas has put in the work. When he does have to chase around guys half his size and
keep them off the rim, he’s capable of sustaining those efforts for long periods due to better conditioning.
“I hope we are going to do more and more (of that),” Valanciunas said. “I feel much more comfortable guarding smalls. It’s not about offence. Take advantage on offence. This is what I’m going to do anyway. Big body, so I rebound. That’s my stuff.
“But the question is about the defence. I get more and more comfortable guarding
the smalls. As the season goes, (my teammates) get more comfortable just leaning in and sending them to me. I take it at the basket and I just go vertical and clean up the basket.”
Valanciunas admits it isn’t always easy keeping pace with men 30 or 40 pounds lighter than he is. But he doesn’t complain.
“Chasing the smalls up top and being physical down low, yeah, it takes some energy,” he said. “But that’s fine.”
Valanciunas is such a big part of the Raptors rebounding game. When he is out and Casey goes small to match opponents, that part of Toronto’s game falls off dramatically.
Casey correctly deduced it was in his best interest to see how far Valanciunas has come with regards to guarding smalls.
“It was a concerted effort,” Casey said of Tuesday’s game. “We wanted to make sure we gave him an opportunity to guard on the perimeter. Guard a five-out team more so than a traditional post up. He is doing a much better job of doing that. He had some breakdowns, they outran him two or three times, but still the only way to get experience is to leave him out there. These are the types of games he has to learn and I thought he did a better job in the second half.”
Execution is key, according to Valanciunas. “We pick our spots and see what is working for us and get more and more comfortable doing it,” Valanciunas said of the new approach to defending. “I think we are in pretty good shape guarding five smalls with a big on (the floor).”
And, not to be discounted in staying with that approach, on offence Valanciunas has the same kind of advantage a smaller quicker team has on him at the other end.
“Seven-foot versus 6-7, 6-8,” Casey said. “He had a little height advantage.”
Valanciunas used that advantage to score a teamhigh 26 points and pull down 14 boards, four of them off Brooklyn’s glass.
Numbers like those will be very welcome come playoff time should opponents choose to tempt fate and go small against the Raps.