Raptors coach liking his team’s progress
When you’re 17-4 out of the gate, there’s generally little in the way of any real concerns.
The Toronto Raptors find themselves in that very situation. No one is declaring this team a finished product or even ready for the playoffs just a quarter of the way through their season. At the same time, few within the locker-room are exactly reaching for the worry beads.
The nature of professional sports is that a team, even one not prone to worrying, will always be provided with something to consider and what is being offered up for these Raptors is their inability to sustain big leads.
This team has been extremely good at building double-digit leads and then almost as good at letting that lead dwindle to low single digits.
As they have sped through these first 21 games, the penchant for doing that has definitely been established. And on almost a nightly basis it gets brought up. The coaching staff and the players acknowledge the trend, but to call it a concern or a worry would be overstating the situation. “I’m not super worried about it,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said. “Would I like get up 26 and win by 46? Yeah. But that doesn’t seem to be happening and I like the results and I like the way we’re playing and I like the way we’re progressing.” The schedule has played into this trend.
Only nine of the first 21 games were against teams playing .500 or better. Even with a heavy road schedule to start, that has to be considered a favourable schedule. That will even up considerably over the next 12 games, however, with 10 against teams playing .500 or better before Monday’s slate of games.
Nurse’s point is the Raptors aren’t maintaining those large leads, but they are maintaining a lead of some level. Either way, he’s not overly concerned.
“It seems like Groundhog Day for us,” Nurse said after watching his team go up by 26 on Monday against the Miami Heat, let the lead dwindle, and then win by 10. “We get up and then let it get back inside 10 and starting playing again. It seems like that’s who we are right now.” Tuesday’s tilt with the Memphis Grizzlies marks the first real run of games against upper echelon opponents and Nurse is looking forward to it.
“It’s good,” Nurse said. “I want to get in some tough games, I want to get in some knock ’em out, drag ’em out and I want to see what we’re made of. I’m looking forward to it.” Working in the Raptors’ favour over this stretch is the time in between games. There is just one back-to-back in the entire dozen. with the Raps taking on the Clippers in L.A. and then flying to the Bay Area to take on Golden State the following night.
Over the first 21 games, Toronto had five back-to-backs, which can take a toll on a team.
In any event, most of the worrying about this team seems to be coming from outside the room rather than from within and that’s probably a good thing.