Inconsistent Raptors’ latest setback defies logic

So is it two steps forward, one step back? Or one step forward, two steps back?

The Toronto Raptors’ season has been anything but a straight line. They were head and shoulders above the league to open the campaign, and have spent the past two months working their way back to the pack.

For every stinker like Thursday night’s capitulation to the Milwaukee Bucks, you need only revert to the last time the same two teams met three weeks earlier for an example of how good the Raptors can be, and conversely, how bad they can make even the team with the best record in the NBA look. And that was on Milwaukee’s court.

But after a 20-4 start to the season, the Raptors won just 17 of the next 29.

For whatever reason, this highly respected Raptors squad just seems to turn it off sometimes; Thursday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks is the latest example.

The Raptors hadn’t played in four days, had not been on a plane for three. Yet instead of looking rested and regrouped, they looked lifeless and disorganized.

Kawhi Leonard, who was as guilty as anyone of an uneven and out-of-character night, seemed to suggest the three days off between games was a reason for the malaise.

Frankly, that doesn’t pass the logic test.

Pascal Siakam said there was just a lack of energy. As the man who provides that boost and that energy on a nightly basis, Siakam tried to take the blame.

But on a night when he put up 28 points, two shy of his career high, and almost single-handedly brought the team back from a 24-point deficit against a topnotch club, that sentiment rang hollow.

Kyle Lowry, like Leonard, had one of those nights he would sooner put in his rear-view mirror.

“We’re in February,” Lowry said. “We’re starting to get to that point where we need to be. We know exactly what we’re doing. We’re adding things now. We’ve got to get better, quicker. We don’t have the whole year. We’ve got a couple months. We’ve got to make sure that we kind of know exactly what we want to do and continue to work on that.”

How can a team know exactly what it’s doing and come out in a game that means something and perform with such lacklustre apathy?

By losing that game, the Raptors conceded the tiebreaker for home court in the playoffs to Milwaukee, should the teams wind up tied.

Yes, it was just one loss, but it was a loss that came with a heavier cost.

Having pointed all that out, no one believes all is lost for head coach Nick Nurse’s Raptors.

The Raptors are an elite team loaded with elite talent. The East seems to chasing the Milwaukee Bucks for the time being, but the Bucks aren’t the Cleveland Cavaliers of years past. Giannis Antetokounmpo, as good as he is, doesn’t cast that same kind of shadow LeBron James does.

With Siakam playing like he did on Thursday, Leonard at his best, and OG Anunoby at a considerably higher level than he was in the loss to the Bucks, not to mention a healthy Danny Green, the Raptors have a number of defensive options and answers to throw the Greek Freak’s way come playoff time.

But it would be nice to see the Raptors assert themselves on a more consistent basis.