Raptors take inventory after gritty road trip
Role players continue to contribute; DeRozan’s scoring only tells partial story
Winning is a whole lot of fun. No question there, but a team learns the most about itself in times of adversity and in a short three-games in five days trip that began in New York and ended with a 112-78 win at Atlanta, the Toronto Raptors experienced plenty of that.
That the trip ended on a winning note evening the weary Raptors road record at 6-6 through the first 19 games of the season was nice. But the wins and losses total don’t also tell the tale of the trip.
Here’s a look at some of the things we learned about this team on this trip. 1.
The young bench mob is far deeper and more impressive than what was first thought and they still haven’t reached their peak. Toronto’s second unit was youth personified in the final leg of the trip with nary a player on the court with more than three years of experience and that’s three years of mostly watching if the truth be known.
On this night there was no C.J. Miles, no Kyle Lowry or DeMar DeRozan to turn to when things got dicey. The kids did it themselves and they did it to the tune of a 39-14 second quarter that determined the outcome of the evening. Fred VanVleet, Lorenzo Brown, Norm Powell, Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl all played significant roles.
Earlier in the trip when they were keeping the Raptors afloat both in Indy and New York in games they would eventually lose, the bench was doing it with one of the vets. VanVleet was asked after the game if that was as smooth as he can remember the second unit operating and he correctly pointed out it has been pretty smooth this entire trip. The only difference was against Atlanta, both units were locked in. That they excelled in the final two games with Miles back in Toronto helping tend to his newborn daughter suggests this group has even more in the tank than we suspected. 2.
DeMar DeRozan, even when he’s not scoring, is still a force. The Raptors leading scorer left his shooting touch back in Toronto on this trip. DeRozan managed a total of 33 points in this three-game trip, often a onegame output for the high scoring guard. But even in a slump he has managed to find ways to contribute. In Saturday’s trip-saving win in Atlanta, DeRozan only had two points but had eight assists. For the trip he had 14 assists in total. As for the scoring slump, DeRozan is not the least bit worried.
“It happens man,” he said after the loss in Indy. “We play so many games. Nobody is going to be perfect every game and that’s fine.” 3.
The only thing certain about the way coach Dwane Casey is going to employ his stable of centres and centres posing as power forwards is the uncertainty of it all. Casey has Jonas Valanciunas, Jakob Poeltl, Lucas Nogueira and Serge Ibaka and even Pascal Siakam if he wants to extend it even further to play the position. The metrics all confirm Valanciunas at centre with Ibaka at power forward is sub-optimal.
Ibaka, the numbers back up, is far more effective as the centre which leaves Casey to either leave Valanciunas on the bench for lengthy periods which he did on Friday in Indianapolis or play a less efficient lineup. 4.
Kyle Lowry has designs on becoming the smallest big man to lead his team in rebounds in a season. OK, Lowry never said this but all indications are the 6-foot point guard has it in him. Lowry has been in double digits in the rebound department six times including all three games in the just-completed trip.
Lowry is averaging 6.3 rebounds a night so far this season. That’s sixth in the NBA among guards behind Ben Simmons, Russell Westbrook, LeBron James (who isn’t really a guard but qualifies as one), and Lonzo Ball and Jaylen Brown. Of that group on Westbrook is even close in height to Lowry and he still has three inches on him. 5.
Fred VanVleet isn’t going to just let them take his minutes. With everyone healthy, Casey has been going with as many as a 12-man rotation with the knowledge that eventually he will cut that down. VanVleet is a player who often gets mentioned as one player who could lose his minutes when this eventuality comes around.
With Delon Wright out for the time being, VanVleet isn’t going anywhere at the moment and even when Wright returns VanVleet, through his heady play and defensive doggedness, is making a strong push for this never to happen.
VanVleet hasn’t had the big minutes some other players have enjoyed but through Saturday’s games he is both No. 2 in the league in individual defensive rating and No. 2 in the league in net rating.