Holiday season comes early for Raps’ offence
Toronto sharing the ball and it’s paying dividends
It’s the gift that keeps on giving, only the Toronto Raptors aren’t waiting for Christmas to open it.
In fact this gift came early in September and even a little earlier for the young players working out this summer en masse as team president Masai Ujiri demanded a change in the way the team went about its business.
The basketball would be shared, Ujiri declared, no exceptions.
That gift of a declaration has spawned games l i ke Tuesday’s victory over Phoenix when the Raptors made 44 field goals, 30 of those assisted on.
It marked the 10th time through 22 games that the Raptors have surpassed the 25- assist mark in a game, something they did just nine times in 82 games a year ago.
Not only is it a prettier form of the game — numerous passes leading to open looks and easy dunks/lay-ins is just satisfying to watch — it has a slew of other benefits.
More passing means more people involved. That tends to make for a much more satisfied locker-room.
Previously, the Raptors were winning games primarily and sometimes almost solely on the superior individual abilities of DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. While it’s still very much the room of DeRozan and Lowry, you can go to any stall that houses a rotation player and find a guy who has made substantial contributions to a win.
We won’t use the word “content” here because what is also clear is this was not done to get off to a nice start 22 games into the season.
This fundamental change in the offensive approach is paying dividends, but the hope is the biggest payoff will come in the playoffs.
Assuming the buy in, which appears to be at 100 per cent right now, continues throughout the year, the Raptors are going to be a much tougher team to contend with in the playoffs when defences lock in and take a club’s top weapons away from them.
Toronto has had success over the past few years in the playoffs to an extent, but when teams were able to take Lowry and DeRozan off their games, it became a real struggle for the Raptors.
It’ s easier to defend against a team that relies on two guys than it is to defend against a team on which anyone on any night can be the difference and that is what we are finding out about with this team.
DeRozan and Lowry are still one and two in team scoring, but behind them there are players now that are touching the ball on a regular basis, scoring on a regular basis and becoming viable options should a team choose to take one or both of Lowry or DeRozan out of the game.
“I think it makes it a lot easier, which makes it a lot more fun,” DeRozan said of the emphasis on ball movement. “Everybody gets a chance to touch the ball, you don’t necessarily have to work so hard and it’s fun. Everybody gets a feel for the ball, everybody gets to make decisions.”
The approach also should keep both Lowry and DeRozan fresher. It’s not a secret that one of coach Dwane Casey’s stated goals this year is to get the minutes his two leaders are playing down by a significant margin. Lowry is down almost five minutes a game from a year ago, while DeRozan, who was already playing two minutes less than Lowry a year ago, is down a minute a night on last season’s totals.
And finally there’s the ever- present look to the future. How is what the Raptors are doing now setting themselves up to be a better team down the road?
On that front, the share-the- ball edict has taken the development cycle and pushed it up to hyper speed. The young players on this team aren’ t j ust playing more minutes — a product of the off-season veteran purge for salary cap purposes — they are playing meaningful and involved minutes.
Rookie OG Anunoby isn’t just in the starting five, he’s out there spreading the floor — on Tuesday raining threes with a career- high four in five attempts.
Jakob Poeltl isn’t just running the floor and setting screens, he’s finishing pick-and- rolls and contributing double- digit scoring totals like he has in three of the last four games.
“It’s not like KLow ( Lowry) and Deebo (DeRozan) are the only guys scoring on our team,” Poeltl said. “Everybody is scoring. We are moving the ball and it’s fun to play that way. Especially with us in that second unit. We keep talking about it. We keep moving the ball. We try and play together. It’s not the same person scoring 10, 15 or 20 points every night. It’s always somebody else and I think that shows that we really do play that ( sharing the ball) way.”
Casey likes what he has seen to date.
“Guys will work harder when they understand the ball is going to swing to them,” he said. “Shot expectations, pass expectations. No disrespect to the way we played last year, but this year there’s freedom of movement, the ball’s moving from side to side, guys are moving to get open, doing their work early on the weak side to create a good shot opportunity. That’s something guys have done a good job of.”
And the best part is this gift has only just started giving back.