LEADING THE WAY
New Raptors head coach Nick Nurse has his team off to a strong start,
Here the Toronto Raptors are, a quarter of the way through the long NBA season after Friday night’s game against the Washington Wizards. The start of the season couldn’t have gone much better for a team integrating two and sometimes three new starters, a new head coach and an entirely revamped assistant coaching staff.
A blistering 12-1 start, two very impressive and lengthy road trips and all kinds of promise for what’s to come. There is a lot of time left and much can happen over the final 62 games of the season, but there’s no arguing about the start.
Here’s a quick look at five factors that have led to the Raptors’ early success:
Defence isn’t resting: It’s fair to say the Raptors haven’t really hit their stride consistently on offence, the three-point shooting could be better, the bench could be better, the ball movement could be more crisp.
The defence? It’s been top notch.
Toronto is among the league leaders in defensive efficiency (points allowed per 100 possessions), they are among the leaders in deflections that disrupt offences and lead to transition opportunities, and they are holding their own in rebounding, despite being on the smallish side and without a truly great rebounder to build around.
They tend to take control of games when they can string together six or seven stops in a row, or eight of10, or some other momentum-turning stretch of defensive dominance.
It will be the thing that helps them most as the season drones on, and the early returns suggest they are figuring it out very well.
Bench: There is no Bench Mob like there was last year, and Toronto’s backup unit really is a work in progress.
Fred VanVleet was saying last week he hasn’t played very much alongside Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby is now a backup after starting almost all last season, and one of Jonas Valanciunas or Serge Ibaka comes off the bench each night in the Jakob Poeltl role of a season ago.
Still, once the roster is re- stored to full health, the hope is a backup group can get some cohesion and consistently take the pressure off the starters. Finding that mix has been difficult so far because of so much rotation fluctuation and needs to be a focus in the final threequarters of the regular season.
Schedule: Two four-game trips made the first quarter of the season look imposing when the schedule was announced, but the Raptors breezed through it.
Going 7-1 on those two trips was an unexpected bonus, but the overall strength of schedule showed Toronto had one of the easiest starts to the season of any team in the league.
It gets tougher quickly, though. There’s a December trip out west to face four of the conference’s best teams — the Clippers, Warriors, Trail Blazers and Nuggets — that comes after a Milwaukee game at home and before the Indiana Pacers are in Toronto right after the trip is over.
Making a big move early in the season was vitally important given what’s ahead; the best thing that can be said about the schedule was the Raptors took care of business when they had to.
All banged up: To have survived the rash of niggling injuries that hit the Raptors in the first quarter of the season is impressive.
At times, Kawhi Leonard, C.J. Miles, Anunoby, VanVleet, Delon Wright and Norm Powell have missed multiple games — that’s more than half the regular 11-man rotation — and Ibaka sat out one game with a tender knee.
The likes of Lorenzo Brown and Greg Monroe have filled in for a game at time or so and filled in admirably; Toronto’s depth remains one of its biggest attributes.
The only saving grace is that except for a shoulder injury that will keep Powell out for weeks rather than days, none of the injuries have been truly debilitating long-term problems.
But getting fully healthy will have a trickle-down effect throughout the roster, and less wear and tear on Kyle Lowry, Danny Green and Jonas Valanciunas will be a huge boost as the regular season meanders along.
Looking around: The landscape in the Eastern Conference isn’t quite what anyone expected right away. The struggles of the Boston Celtics and, to a lesser degree, the Philadelphia 76ers, have turned the standings a bit on their ear, and Toronto’s torrid first quarter has created a bit of separation between the Raptors and those two presumptive challengers.
The Milwaukee Bucks are a bit of a surprise, having taken so well to new coach Mike Budenholzer’s style and demands, but the Raptors are right where they thought they would be at this point: Among the elite of the conference.
The other teams are coming, but Toronto’s quick start made the breathing a bit easier.