Raps’ roster built to beat Cavaliers
Toronto’s defensive matchups are stronger with Ibaka, Tucker in the lineup
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri made two significant moves in February because he had looked at the roster, identified a couple of holes and plugged them in order to give his team its best chance to win.
But aside from looking at the makeup of his team and addressing concerns about the present, he might have been casting a furtive eye at Ohio and thinking “if we’ve got to beat Cleveland, we’ve got to do this” before making the transactions.
For all that Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker have given the Raptors coming aboard in February, a lot of their worth will be determined by the impact they have the next two weeks.
Long before the trades were made, the consensus was that the road to the Eastern Conference championship would wend its way through Cleveland.
And having seen what the Cavaliers did to the Raptors last spring — and mindful of everyday needs that dovetailed with those Cleveland memories — Ujiri gave coach Dwane Casey a lot of what he needs for a better chance at beating the reigning NBA champion.
Ibaka is better prepared to cover Kevin Love, and that has to be of some consolation to fans who saw Love light up the Raptors late in the series last spring.
And while no one stops LeBron James, having Tucker around is far better defensively than having Terrence Ross guard James for even one possession. Tucker and DeMarre Carroll are likely to be the primary defenders on James and that’s one more tough veteran for Toronto to use. But that’s all for another day. In the aftermath of Thursday’s series-clinching win, an emotionally-draining 92-89 Game 6 win in Milwaukee, the Raptors were more concerned with enjoying what they had done rather than worrying about what they had to do.
They had scouts out at the Cavaliers-Pacers series that ended last Sunday and assistants would have been setting up the outlines of a game plan this past week, but the laser focus on Cleveland began on the flight home from Milwaukee.
“We know what we’re facing,” Casey said. “I don’t know exactly what they’re doing, what we’ll do against them . . . but we’ve got a couple of days now to review what they’re doing. We have a good idea of what they’re about and how they are but to say exactly what they are, I couldn’t say right now.”
The Raptors did themselves a big favour with Thursday’s win. It gave them three days without the grind of a game and time to “disengage” from the Bucks series, as DeMar DeRozan said, allowing them to forget the bad parts of Game 6.
“Hopefully we focus more on how we got the lead,” Patrick Patterson said of the 25-point advantage the Raptors coughed up in Milwaukee.
“We moved the ball, we passed, we shared. They trapped Kyle and DeMar and Kyle and DeMar made the extra pass. We made the extra pass to find the open man.
“Defensively we talked, we were physical without fouling and got stops and rebounds and that led to transition.
“Hopefully we focus more on that than what happened during that letdown. Build on that and just carry that into Cleveland.”