Raptors: Mini-break in Atlanta a chance to address the creeping mistakes
The Raptors have some work to do. Even if no major corrective moves are necessary, there are tweaks to be made and some minor things to tighten up before little mistakes become calamitous and things go south in a hurry.
The Raptors are giving up too many offensive rebounds, their ball movement on offence disappears at times, and moments of defensive indifference are creeping into games. Now is the time to fix them.
“It’s always good to regroup, understand the mistake that you made . . . and understanding what we could be better at, what we can clean up,” DeMar DeRozan said Saturday after the Raptors were beaten 115-109 by the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis. “It’s always good to look at your mistakes, have a couple of days to practise, settle down, mentally just regroup.”
After a Sunday off following the team’s first home-road back-to-back games this season — a win Friday at home over San Antonio, a loss Saturday — the Raptors will have two days to practise in Atlanta before facing the Hawks on Wednesday night.
They will spend a majority of their time studying video to see just what they’re doing wrong, then get on the court to quickly go through it.
“We got to get back to the drawing board,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “There’s a lot of little things — our timing, our spacing, our ball movement, on-time, on-target passes — just the little things that have gotten sloppy on us.”
It’s not like the Raptors are in the throes of some extended losing streak where they’ve played horribly night after night. They’ve just come through a taxing seven-game stretch that included dates with Cleveland, Golden State and San Antonio. They went 3-4 but they didn’t have point guard Kyle Lowry for three of those games, and all four losses were by fewer than six points. They remain closer to first place in the Eastern Conference than they are to third.
But there are some concerns. Giving up 31 offensive rebounds in the weekend games was troubling. The Raptors clawed back from a 10-point deficit with seven minutes to go to take a lead with about three minutes remaining Saturday, then gave the lead right back. Seeing how that occurred in a video session will be as important as any on-court work.
“It’s always beneficial when you’re able to look at your mistakes and see how they’re coming about and see how they affect the game, how you can lose a game like (Saturday’s),” DeRozan said. “It’s always good to look at that and clean up things.”
Kyle Lowry had a season-high 40 points against Minnesota but there were stretches where the Raptors didn’t look themselves. They had only 23 assists on 39 made baskets and they had periods of stagnant offence where they let the Timberwolves lock in on them.
The Raptors were also called for 30 personal fouls — one off the season high that was set early last week in Philadelphia. That took any flow out of their game.
“Whether we are fouling too much or not being alert or anticipating enough, I don’t know, I have to see it, but I would say we fouled too much and then didn’t rebound,” Casey said. “That’s a bad combination for us to be successful. It’s the exact opposite of what we were (Friday in beating San Antonio with 50 rebounds and only 19 fouls).”