Finishing school is now in session
DeRozan delivers daggers but final five minutes remain work in progress
ATLANTA— Of the many things left on the to-do list for the Raptors in the final three months of the NBA regular season, finding a way to seamlessly and consistently finish close games would be No. 1.
It’s finding the right mix of players, reminding them constantly what works best and for how long, and letting them go about their business, that coach Dwane Casey sees as paramount.
“We changed dramatically from being one of the top offensive teams in the league to bottom five in the league in the last five minutes,” Casey said after the Raptors went through another practice at Philips Arena here Tuesday afternoon.
“A lot of that is . . . disorganization between what we’re doing as far as moving the ball, ball movement, playing to our triggers and that’s what we’ve got to get back to.”
The Raptors have one of the most lethal finishers in the game in DeMar DeRozan, and Kyle Lowry will never shy away from taking a big shot. And make no mistake about it, in the dying seconds of a tight game one of them is going to have the ball and responsibility, and Casey is fine with that. It’s the four or five minutes before that when he wants a continued reliance on smart ball movement and smart shot selection, instead of getting too stagnant too quickly.
“The question is: When is crunch time?” Casey said. “Is it two minutes (before the game’s over)? Starting going to crunch time at five minutes is too soon. We have to continue to play, get up the floor, play fast as far as we can, get the ball moving and let the offence take care of us, more so than saying, ‘OK, DeMar, it’s your time’ with five to six minutes to go in the game.”
Part of the issue with the offence is the Raptors really haven’t settled on a closing group on a consistent basis. Some nights it includes Fred VanVleet, some nights Delon Wright, some nights C.J. Miles and some nights Jakob Poeltl.
That’s justifiable because all of the possibilities are needed on specific nights, but it doesn’t make it easy on players trying to adapt to different groups one game to the next.
“Whoever is out there, we have to understand their role, understand every single option at whatever position you are in, and sometimes know not your own position but kind of know every option and position of every guy out there on the floor,” DeRozan said. “It kind of makes your job easier to execute offensively.”
And it’s all part of the subtle, important changes the Raptors have made, all with the playoffs in mind.
“Last year we always reverted to going to a lot of isolation every time down,” DeRozan said. “This time around we are still getting a feel for trying to move the ball, trying to put the isolation game in and trying to figure it out.
“There are so many elements that we are still trying to figure out, rather than going with what works or whatever has been working throughout the game and carrying it over to that moment. It’s something we have to continue to get better at.”
With 37 games left, there’s time for Casey to get it figured out and time for the players to make it work.
“Right now we have to figure out who that group is that’s going to be in there at the end because, again, we’re playing a lot of guys now,” the coach said. “It’s working for us. We’re developing young players. But again, we’ll cut that number down as we get closer to the playoffs.”