A feeling of calm is starting to settle in
Finally injury-free, Raps head toward break with schedule in their favour
It would be understandable for Raptors fans to be smacking their lips at the prospects of the next week.
Four games. Three at home. No back-to-backs. No games against teams that would be considered among the NBA elite.
It’s a dream schedule for a Toronto team that has just come off six of seven games against some of the toughest competition in the Eastern Conference and a grind of a schedule that ended up being 12 games in 20 days.
Pick off the next four in order — Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Boston — and the Raptors could head into the faux all-star break riding the wave of a solid winning streak, likely pushing up against the top three of the Eastern Conference.
Kyle Lowry, wise old owl that he is, is having none of that talk.
“We can’t look forward,” the 34-year-old veteran said. “You start to look forward to what is possible and what is coming up and you get distracted.”
Still, as sensible as Lowry’s point is — and it’s the mantra of all the players and coaches — it’s not hard to see the opportunity that lies ahead for the Raptors.
With Lowry back and everyone else healthy at the moment — the Raptors had a full roster for the first time in weeks in Wednesday’s loss to Miami — there is a feeling of calm settling over the Raptors. They are playing well almost every night, their defence is keeping them in games in those stretches where shots don’t fall and, most importantly, roles are being defined.
This four-game stretch heading into the break is a chance to refine those roles.
“We have been in and out of injuries and lineups and all that stuff,” Lowry said. “I’ve been out. OG (Anunoby) has been out. Freddie (VanVleet) has been playing a ton of minutes. Norm (Powell) is playing well.
“We are just trying to figure out the cohesiveness of how we can play with this small unit
with Pascal (Siakam) at the five and OG at the four or five or whatever they are playing. So it’s about getting that comfortability of getting on the floor and getting more time together.”
The familiarity among the starters — the Lowry-VanVleetPowell-Anunoby-Siakam group has been together for four seasons — makes up for any lack of size, especially defensively. They know each other’s tendencies, skills and deficiencies, and they know the system inside and out.
“I think that is the third time we have played that lineup to start?” Lowry said Wednesday. “So we just have to continue to get better at that.”
The group gives them a sense of cohesion that should be easy to re-establish, like in a key four-game stretch.
“I hope we can keep our edge up to play defence as hard we’ve been trying to play it,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “It’s not perfect and there’s some lapses here and there and there’s some mistakes, but I think the effort and the fight and the scramble is there and hopefully we can do that.”
There are inconsistencies in the production off the bench and that’s a trouble spot some nights, one that will need to be ironed out somehow. But having all five starters healthy and in tune, and with the schedule breaking down as it is, this could be one of the key weeks of the season for the Raptors.
“We have to continue to focus on it day by day and game by game and however many we have left, we have to try and win however many of those as possible,” Lowry said.