CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM
DeRozan’s 42-point game against Houston shows he is rounding into form — and just in time
The Toronto Raptors’ locker room is not a daycare. There are not usually kids roaming around after games. However, occasionally a child will wander into the fray. It was just last year, after the heartbreaking Game 7 loss, that Karter Lowry, Kyle’s young son, was in the room to visit with his dad, in no small part to bring his father some levity after a bitter ending. (Karter ended up bumping his head into Jonas Valanciunas’s knee. He shook it off.)
On Monday, DeMar DeRozan did not need a pick-me-up. He recorded a careerhigh 42 points, and matched another best with 11 rebounds. He was the reason for the Raptors’ 99-96 win over Houston, their best victory in about six weeks, and was certainly trending toward joy, not sorrow, post-game. He got a visit from his toddler daughter, Diar.
“Say hello,” DeRozan encouraged his daughter, hoping she would introduce herself to the media contingent. She obliged.
DeRozan still had his scrum to get through, however, so he asked his daughter to “say goodbye.” On that end, DeRozan had his least success of the night. The swiveling chair in front of Lowry’s stall first distracted Diar. Then, more glee.
“Me!” exclaimed Diar, noticing the photos of herself in her father’s locker. She ran toward her own smiling face.
And so, everything would not go DeRozan’s way on this evening, even if Diar did eventually shout “goodbye” when being carried out of the locker room by a team staffer. On the balance, this was DeRozan’s best night of the season: the points, the rebounds, and even a few key defensive plays against fellow Los Angeleno James Harden, a legitimate MVP candidate.
“It ’s definitely cool because we’ve been playing against each other since we were kids ,” DeRozan said, who guessed he first played against Harden before they we r e both teenagers. DeRozan was given Harden’s jersey from the game, and, presumably, vice versa. “That’s one of my closest friends in the league to this day. I’m close with his family, he’s close with my family. So it’s always cool. Now we can cherish this 20 years, 30 years from now and just joke and have fun together.”
Nobody will confuse what DeRozan did on Harden with a lockdown performance — Harden had 31 points on 22 field-goal attempts, and a series of defenders, not just DeRozan, got a shot at Harden. He did a reasonable job of making life difficult on Harden down the stretch, which was nice.
More importantly, as far as DeRozan’s role on the Raptors is concerned, was his solid Harden impression on the other end. His biggest shot was an 18-footer that DeRozan canned in Harden’s face, the type of mid-range look that the Rockets as a whole and Harden in particular eschew. However, DeRozan also got to the free-throw line 17 times.
DeRozan has found other ways to contribute even as he has struggled with his shooting stroke — his playmaking and rebounding have picked up of late. However, the Raptors run so many plays for him that they need him to score more efficiently than he has for most of this season.
“I’ve always said that DeMar’s an all-star,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “If he had stayed healthy, he would have been an all-star, just by his performance and where we were at that time. The coaches would have voted him in, I’m sure. … Unfortunately injuries are a part of the game and that’s what happened to him. But in my mind, DeMar DeRozan is an all-star. He’s our allstar.”
Indeed, the coaches might have selected DeRozan to the All-Star Game if he had not missed 21 games with a groin injury — they tend to be reluctant to change in such situations — but he would not have merited it. His numbers are down in every scoring metric compared to last season.
However, DeRozan has been rounding into offensive form for a while now. March was his best shooting month, by far if you weight his uptick from beyond the three-point arc. He averaged 23.9 points, 6.0 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game in the month, with his free-throw rate ascending to pre-injury heights.
As the Raptors have swooned, there has been one big reason to hope things can turn around: Lowry has been banged up, and not himself. If he can get healthy, than the whole picture changes for the Raptors. If he is joining this version of DeRozan, there might even be reason for cautious optimism. Imagine that.