RAPTORS’ RELENTLESS DEFENCE MASKS SERIES OF INJURY WOES
Opposing teams never know how they will be guarded by unpredictable Toronto squad
It’s not easy winning in the NBA even when you are fully healthy. It’s obviously tougher winning when you’re not.
Somehow the Raptors have kept their heads above water not just in this short-handed situation with injuries to starters, but also earlier this season when their best player Kyle Lowry, and another key piece in Serge Ibaka, were out a month.
The players who stepped up and have filled in so admirably in those absences deserve a lot of credit.
Rondae Hollis-jefferson, Pat Mccaw, Chris Boucher and Terence Davis II would all be considered first among that group.
But getting less of the credit, and egregiously so, has been the job the coaching staff and head coach Nick Nurse in particular have been doing in helping mask some of the offensive and defensive losses.
Lowry and Ibaka’s absence was just the start. It’s been nine games since Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol and Norm Powell were all lost to injury in a win over Detroit in mid-december. The team is still a ways away from seeing either Siakam or Gasol back in action.
The Raptors are 5-4 in those games and a big reason has been their defence, which continues to stifle opponents. Even in the loss last week in Miami, the defence was stunningly effective.
Had they found one player in their lineup who could hit a shot that night in Miami, they would have won easily because they held Miami to just 84 points.
The seeds of this defensive dominance were planted a year ago and the effectiveness is in its unpredictably.
Teams never know how they are going to be guarded by Toronto. It changes game to game and even quarter to quarter. It’s not always effective. Sometimes it backfires either because the Raptors aren’t locked in that game and there are breakdowns which can cripple a system which demands every single man on the floor complete his part of the assignment. Or maybe the opposition sniffs it out early and adapts before Nurse and his staff make the readjustment.
But it’s complicated and it asks a lot of all five players on the court.
Fred Vanvleet describes it this way: “It’s fun now, but it was frustrating last year,” he said, thinking back to the early days of Nurse’s ever-changing defence. “We didn’t know the end goal. We didn’t know if it would work or not, so you kind of question it a little bit. I think now, knowing where it will leave you at the end of the season, it can be fun.”
Vanvleet almost sounds like a guy who could be convinced it’s the wrong approach but he’s seen the results and he won’t argue those.
“It can be frustrating at times because it doesn’t always work,” he says. “We get praise when it works and when we get our butts spanked because of it we don’t really blame it on that, but I think we all acknowledge it internally. But yeah, I think it gives you an advantage and I think it’s fun.
“I’m a guy who likes to think the game through, a really high level thinker basketball-wise, we got a few of those guys, so as one of those guys it’s fun to be on that page where things are changing so rapidly and it challenges the other guys to raise the level, their IQ, and I think it benefits us later down the road, too.”
Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson points out the Raptors aren’t the only team employing demanding, ever-changing defensive tactics.
“It’s great and a lot more teams are doing it,” Atkinson said before taking on the Raptors. “The NBA changes and it changes quickly. I think (Toronto) faced what, 40 minutes of zone against Miami the other night? That used to never happen.”
Atkinson concedes not every team is comfortable playing this advanced defence, but he sees it as the direction the league is headed.
“I think there are certain teams in the league that are willing to do that,” he said. “I think there are other teams that are kind of staying with their base defence. It really depends on your philosophy. Every coach is different in the league. Some guys don’t like to do that. Some guys have no problems switching up defences. To my opinion, it makes it more interesting.”