Valanciunas rescues short-handed Raptors
NEW ORLEANS— Strange things are going to happen to the Raptors as the muddle through difficult times: missing their oncourt leader, acclimating two new players into significant roles, learning on the fly.
Few will be stranger — or more welcome — than a dominant performance by Jonas Valanciunas that included significant fourth-quarter minutes in a close game.
Valanciunas, who had watched the fourth quarter of each of his team’s last seven games from the bench, anchored a stingy late defence and made a couple of big late-game shots here Wednesday night, leading the Raptors to a 94-87 victory over the New Orleans Pelicans.
Scoring 25 points — the most he’s had in a game since opening night last October — Valanciunas played all-star DeMarcus Cousins to a standoff as Toronto improved to 5-2 since Kyle Lowry went down with a wrist injury.
“I’m ready every night,” said Valanciunas, who also grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds for his 100th career doubledouble. “I’m waiting for that chance. Give me a chance, and I’m going to go and fight hard.”
For as much as the Raptors needed his offence on a night when DeMar DeRozan struggled to score, it was Valanciunas’s defence that gave coach Dwane Casey reason to play him down the stretch.
The 7-foot Lithuanian not only fought inside with Cousins all night, but his ability to contain New Orleans point guard Jrue Holiday was the key to the Raptors holding New Orleans to 42 per cent shooting.
“Jonas did a good job of being up on the pick-and-roll, not allowing the splits, not allowing the deep penetration,” Casey said. “He still had a couple, but he did a much better job in the second half.
“Really, his responsibility is the ball, not Cousins. His responsibility is Holiday coming off the pick-and-rolls and staying connected to him, staying up on him, and he did a much better job of that.”
The Pelicans, who lost Anthony Davis to a bruised wrist at halftime, got 25 points from Cousins but forced him to take 23 shots to get there. And without Davis to help out, New Orleans had no consistent offensive threat.
The Raptors were far from perfect offensively, but without Lowry and DeMarre Carroll (sprained ankle), and with Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker figuring things out, they managed to scrape by.
DeRozan had just 14 points on 5for-15 shooting, but Ibaka had 12 points, Cory Joseph11 and each of the 10 guys who played scored.
And DeRozan dished out a teamhigh six assists against an aggressive, blitzing New Orleans defence. His role as a facilitator will continue as long as teams aren’t worried about anyone else going off.
“Yeah I’m fine with that,” DeRozan said. “I know I’m going to draw a lot of attention. I know every night I’m not going to be (on), so it’s on me to use what I normally get every night and that’s attention, and take advantage of it and try and make my teammates better.”
And if they are better, they are likely to score just enough to stay in games. Nights of freewheeling offence that puts up 110 or 120 points are gone for the foreseeable future. It’s a matter of someone stepping up each night to make opponents pay for extra attention on DeRozan. On this night, it was Valanciunas. “He got a couple of free-throw line jump shots rolling out of it, and so those are all good reads rather than running a play for anybody,” Casey said of the centre. “(It’s) just playing basketball.”