Raps a bust without Gay
NEW YORK— Prior to tipoff, someone asked Raptors coach Dwane Casey to break down one of the strikeout pitches of Carmelo Anthony’s offensive arsenal — the flex-cut.
Like so much about basketball, it’s easy to diagram and hard to put into words. It ends with Anthony moving unhindered along the baseline to the basket.
Casey started talking, hands doing little circles in the air.
“It’s a very intricate game,” someone said, hoping he’d stop making the rest of us feel stupid.
“It’s a simple game,” Casey corrected smoothly. “We make it complicated.”
It’s getting simpler for the coach nightly. The long-term fraying of this roster has become wholesale unravelling with news that Rudy Gay’s campaign may be over.
If so, the long, gradual slide into nothingness becomes a tire tipped off the edge of a cliff.
After being pulled from Friday’s game because of back spasms, Gay remained in Toronto to receive treatment.
“It depends on how he responds,” Casey said to the question of shutting Gay down. “(T)hat’s something that will be talked about sooner rather than later.”
Given that there are only 12 games left, little to play for and nothing for Gay to prove, the only people likely to fall on the “pay-through-pain” end of things are ticket holders.
Playing what amounts in large part to their second unit, the Raptors were bulldozed by the New York Knicks 110-84 on Saturday night.
At this point, there’s little to be gained from a group assessment, given the patchwork nature of the group. This is now about individuals showing what they can do. The game was a failure on that basis as well.
They came perilously close to putting the car right in the ditch when Kyle Lowry went knee-to-knee with Jason Kidd. Though he was played sparingly afterward, Lowry said later, “It’s nothing major. I’m fine.”
Since Sebastian Telfair has his own back problems, that would have left the Raptors with only one third-string point guard for the final 12 games. Hilarity, no doubt, to ensue.
Beyond Lowry, DeMar DeRozan’s quiet, frustrating end to the year continued. He’s only crossed the 20-point plateau once in March, after managing it seven times in February.
Jonas Valanciunas, now doing the heavy lifting in the middle as Amir Johnson’s rubber ankles get a deserved rest, was run over. Again.
New York spent another evening falling in love with aging emergency centre Kenyon Martin. They should have saved some applause for the Lithuanian. He played Punch to Martin’s Judy, taking a ritualized beating.
Landry Fields started again in the hope that he might limit former teammate Anthony. He managed to earn himself a fairly angry shove from the Knicks star (plus). Anthony still finished with a game-high 28 points in limited minutes (minus).
New starter Ross continued to tantalize and torment in equal measure. He looked dangerous shooting off the dribble. Then, in one stretch, he managed two turnovers — a bad pass and a loose handle — in less than 10 seconds.
You wanted rookies? This is what rookies look like.
Now on a 3-11 slide, that reliable fallback — “pride” — just hit the eject button.
Ragged lineups mean the evaluative work being done is of dubious value. No cohesion building either, since everything going forward will revolve around the absent Gay. This team is playing out the string, hoping to be mildly entertaining in their own building, and unwatchable in everyone else’s.
“We’re such a young team. Guys are going through this for the first time,” Casey said. “We’ve gotta enjoy the ride. Not fight it, not combat it, but enjoy . . . playing, get excited about playing every time we go out on the floor.” “I’m enjoying the basketball. That’s not a problem for me,” Valanciunas said. “But it’s hard to play when you’re down 10, 15 points.” When Casey talks about grabbing hold of all the moments — both good and bad — that’s his own experience talking. That experience was hard-won. None of his players seems able to manage it. In the interests of selfpreservation, they may want to try.