A WORKING VACATION
Serge Ibaka and the Raptors are on their way back from Hawaii, still searching for some rhythm,
HONOLULU— Off they go, from the middle of the Pacific to the Pacific Northwest, another leap in a long and tiring pre-season journey that in some ways has been fun and in others trying and counter-productive.
The Raptors are now 1-1 after losing 98-84 to the Los Angeles Clippers in Hawaii on Tuesday night, and their 12-day marathon of a pre-season trip moves on to Portland for a game against the Trail Blazers on Thursday night.
It was a fine trip to Hawaii, full of bonding experiences and a couple of games that were away from the large media glare, but work needs to be the order of business for a team trying to find itself.
There were a couple of practices but only one shootaround, and the second of the two games against the Clippers was predictably sloppy. Kyle Lowry got the night off to rest and Norm Powell took care of a slightly tweaked right ankle and coach Dwane Casey said he thought his Toronto team was “in vacation mode.”
Now comes another stop on a trip that began a week ago Monday and won’t end until the exhausted group gets back to Toronto sometime late Friday afternoon.
As you would expect, Casey put a nice sheen on it, including the stopover in Portland.
“I wish I could blink my eyes three times and be back in Toronto, that’s the catch,” he said before Tuesday’s game.
“But there’s nothing bad you can say about an experience in Hawaii. Such a beautiful state, beautiful area, beautiful weather, everything is here. It’s a great chance for our guys to get here and bond and do things together.
“(The game in Portland) kind of breaks up the trip. Six of one way, half a dozen the other. I kind of like it that we are breaking up the trip, that 10hour, 12-hour flight back wouldn’t be too much fun. It gives us a chance to stop and get some work in on the way back and, most of all, break up the trip.”
The end result of the travels through Victoria and Honolulu is that the Raptors are getting there as they try to play a mildly different style of offence but they could really use much more extended practice time.
Taking into account that they used 16 players in each game, no starter played more than 24 minutes in either of them and a quarter of the top-eight rotation sat one game out completely skews the statistics hugely, but there are issues that need to be addressed.
Starters C.J. Miles and Serge Ibaka, given almost entire freedom to shoot early and shoot often, were a combined 5-for-27 from three-point range and the team as a whole went 17-for-79 (21.5 per cent).
“The thing I’ve found over the years is it’s where you’re hunting shots but not over-hunting shots where you’re just throwing stuff up, it’s an aggressiveness,” Miles said in camp. “You have to find your rhythm and find your tempo, too. I’m learning the spots I can operate (in), learning the spots I can slide into with different guys. That’s what training camp is for.”
Casey is confident the Raptors will figure it out and, given that 30 of the three-pointers over two games were taken by players who don’t figure to be in any regular-season rotation, his point is valid.
The goal in the final three games is to get the top nine or 10 guys used to each other.
“Everybody knows with shooters, rhythm is a big part,” Miles said. “If you can find the rhythm early, now (the past) doesn’t matter as you get going because now you’ve seen it go in. And it’s just about not rushing and understanding your shots.”