National Post (National Edition)
Raptors coach likes what he sees
Nurse happy with how team progressing
When you’re 17-4 out of the gate, there’s generally little in the way of any real concerns.
The Toronto Raptors find themselves in that very situation. No one is declaring this team a finished product or even ready for the playoffs just a quarter of the way through their season. But at the same time, few within the locker-room are exactly reaching for the worry beads.
The nature of professional sports is that a team, even one not prone to worrying, will always be provided with something to consider and right now what is being offered up for these Raptors is their inability to sustain big leads.
This team has been extremely good at building double-digit leads and then almost as good at letting that lead dwindle to low single digits.
As they have sped through these first 21 games, the penchant for doing that has definitely been established. And on almost a nightly basis it gets brought up. The coaching staff and the players acknowledge the trend, but to call it a concern or a worry would be overstating the situation.
“I’m not super worried about it,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said. “Would I like get up 26 and win by 46? Yeah. But that doesn’t seem to be happening and I like the results and I like the way we’re playing and I like the way we’re progressing.”
The schedule has played into this trend.
Only nine of the first 21 games were against teams that were playing .500 or better. Even with a heavy road schedule to start, that has to be considered a favourable schedule.
That will even up considerably over the next 12, however, with 10 of those games against teams that are playing .500 or better through Monday’s play.
Nurse’s point is the Raptors aren’t maintaining those large leads, but they are maintaining a lead of some level. Either way, he’s not overly concerned.
“It seems like Groundhog Day for us,” Nurse said after watching his team go up by 26 on Monday against the Miami Heat, let the lead dwindle and then win by 10. “We get up and then let it get back inside 10 and starting playing again. It seems like that’s who we are right now.”
Tonight’s tilt with the Memphis Grizzlies marks the first real run of games against upper echelon opponents and Nurse is looking forward to it.
“It’s good,” Nurse said. “I want to get in some tough games, I want to get in some knock ’em out, drag ’em out and I want to see what we’re made of. I’m looking forward to it.”
Working in the Raptors’ favour over this stretch is the time in between games. There is just one back-toback in the entire dozen. with the Raps taking on the Clippers in L.A. and then flying to the Bay Area to take on Golden State the following night.
Over the first 21 games Toronto had five back-to-backs, which can take a toll on a team.
“I felt like the last two weeks have been a tough stretch,” Vanvleet said, pretty much ignoring the quality of the opponent. “Games every other day and back-to-backs, and we had a back-to-back with two days in between and then another back-to-back.” In any event most of the worrying about this team seems to be coming from outside the room rather than from within and that’s probably a good thing.