A SINKING FEELING
Toronto swingman limited by opportunities, but shots starting to fall
It’s been a long, long road but the Raptors’ C.J. Miles just might be finding his long range again.
Slumps can be confusing and confounding things, and so too can be the methods used to escape them.
Therein lies the dilemma that has been facing C.J. Miles of the Toronto Raptors for pretty much this entire NBA season.
He’s had to balance his own struggles with team success. He is trying to figure out his place in a hierarchy that is much different than last season, and he has to know when to try to shoot himself out of difficult times while not to getting in the way of the team’s hot start.
It hasn’t been easy, and the fight might take weeks more to fully get under control.
“Some of it is just me getting in my own way because you try to find that line when you’re in a slump,” Miles said after the Raptors were beaten 128-122 by the Trail Blazers on Friday. “You don’t want to overdo it but at the same time you want to let it come to you some, and I got to a point where I was pressing, pressing. pressing.
“Then I tried to back off and I backed off too far and missed some opportunities. Now I just think I’m easing my way back into it. Sometimes you can’t run through the wall. You have to look for the weak spots.”
There is no doubt Miles hasn’t been effective often this season, shooting just 31.3 per cent from three-point range — he’s a career 36 per cent shooter from beyond the arc in 14 NBA seasons — but there have been extenuating circumstances. He hasn’t played fewer minutes per game (14.3) since the 200708 season; he’s only getting 3.3 three-point attempts on average per game, the fewest since the 2008-09 campaign; and he’s working his way with a new group of backups than the ones he was used to playing with last season.
Those aren’t excuses, just explanations.
“The players I play with have been different every time because I have been in and out. It’s just about finding (opportunities) and it’s on me too, to find some nights where I can consistently put some stuff together and then the more my minutes will stay the same way,” he said.
“There’s a balance with both of them. Then there might be nights where I’m playing OK, but Kawhi (Leonard) might be playing better. That is the problem when you have14 guys playing extremely well.
“There are going to be nights where you are playing well and the guys before you have been playing good too and you have to get them back in the game. But I’ve seen everything. I have been here long enough.”
There have been signs of late that Miles and his teammates are starting to figure things out, and he’s having a greater impact on the game.
In Friday’s loss in Portland, he had a season-high 10 field-goal attempts. He made as many three-pointers (three) as he has in any game this season and played 19:38, the second-lon- gest run he’s had in a game this season.
Some of it was due to the absence of Pascal Siakam for most of the second half of the game due to a tight back and Miles looked as active as he has in many games this year. It was a continuation of a three-game road stretch where Miles went 6-for-9 from beyond the arc.
“He’s really been a shell of himself and that looked like him tonight,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said Friday. “He’s kind of inched his way back. I hate to say this but he hit a three late in a blowout game, I think in L.A. and that was kind of the start. He played pretty good against Golden State as well, made a couple late in that blowout game and then he came in tonight and hit some good ones.”
All good signs and all part of a complicated process.
“Just trying to get my assertiveness back without overstepping my bounds,” Miles said.