Raptors get over Wall with depth
So far, it hasn’t mattered that point guard Kyle Lowry hasn’t been great in two games of the series. As a whole, the Raptors have overwhelmed the Wizards.
Maybe it’s a measure of the respect they harbour for their opponent from the U.S. capital. Maybe it’s Dwane Casey’s deeply ingrained, coach’s-officestandard paranoia. But if you listened to the Raptors in the lead-up to Tuesday’s Game 2 win over the Wizards, you could have easily been convinced that Toronto’s NBAers were the ones trailing in the series, and not simply because veteran Raptors have vast experience looking up from post-season holes.
All-star guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan had announced in the lead-up to the series that they’d be treating Game 1 “like a Game 7,” never mind that Game 1s lack even the distant spectre of elimination. Come Tuesday’s followup win — a 130-119 result that produced Toronto’s first 2-0 playoff-series advantage in franchise history — Lowry and DeRozan had convinced other members of the squad that the approach was a worthy one.
Said Pascal Siakam, the sec- ond-year forward: “Game 2 is Game 7, too.”
Never mind the math. If this was a basketball mind trick designed to create urgency where it didn’t necessarily exist, it worked. DeRozan insisted Tuesday it was important he and his teammates arrive “desperate.” They showed up desperate and bloodthirsty. The game wasn’t 10 minutes old and they were leading by 22 points. Washington made its run, as is the NBA custom. But it wasn’t enough.
It was another Toronto victory that left the Wizards searching for answers that aren’t readily apparent. After Washington watched the Raptors make 16 three-pointers in Game 1 — firing at a 53% success rate Toronto had never before reached in 82 regular-season games — all-star guard Bradley Beal all but scoffed at the idea that his opponent would be able to duplicate that kind of shooting night. So far, he’s right. Toronto went 13-for-35 from behind the arc Tuesday, good for 37%, including a trio of bombs from DeMar DeRozan, whose 37 points led the way.
Still, if this wasn’t quite Game 1’s shooting clinic, Toronto’s 13 threes were more than the 10 Washington could manage. And as Washington all-star John Wall observed coming into Tuesday’s game, so far the NBA playoffs have come down to a three-point shooting contest.
“If you look at any (game), not even just our playoff game … whatever team makes the most threes has won basically those games,” Wall said.
He wasn’t speaking in hyperbole. Heading into Tuesday only one NBA post-season game had seen the team with fewer threeballs come out in the winning end. At its best so far, Toronto’s three-point-based offensive scheme, which relies on multiple shooters posing floorspreading threats, is making winning look easy. Toronto’s 44 first-quarter points, replete with seven treys, sure did.
But Tuesday’s win wasn’t as clinical as it could have been, after all, what with the Wizards staying within theoretical striking distance for too long.
And the Wizards still have the proverbial best player in the series. They’ve still got Wall, the one athlete competing here who possesses the drive-and-kick explosiveness to win a game nearly single-handedly. Some- times, that can be enough. On Tuesday, when Wall made a game of it by scoring 22 of his 29 points in a second-half flurry, it was enough to at least make it interesting.
“He was just going where he wanted to go with the ball,” Casey said of Wall.
Wall is a veteran load-carrier who led his team to Game 7 of a second-round playoff series a season ago. And though he’s coming off a knee injury that kept him out of 41 games this year, he’s still a savvy gamesman. Before Tuesday’s tip both Wall and fellow all-star teammate Bradley Beal, who has so far struggled in this series, spent time sketching out public audits of the Game 1 fouls they allege were committed against them and ignored by the officiating crew.
“They hold and grab a lot,” Beal complained.
Wall said referees approached him at halftime of the opening game to apologize for missing calls on some of his missed shots. But no sooner had the Washingtonians laid out their lobbyist’s case, Wall was on the bench missing most of the final eight minutes of the first quarter with two fouls. Beal would soon follow.
But their early absence was only part of the reason why the Raptors prevailed. After scoring 17 points on 17 shots in Game 1, DeRozan insisted he didn’t require big scoring numbers for his team to win.
“Whenever it’s called for or needed, it’ll come,” DeRozan said. There it was Tuesday.
DeRozan, though, is hardly Toronto’s only weapon. And that’s another problem for the Wizards: They may have the best player, but Toronto has the best players.
“We’re strong together,” said Jonas Valanciunas, Toronto’s starting centre. “This is a team sport.”
So far it hasn’t mattered that Kyle Lowry hasn’t been great in two games. So far it hasn’t mattered that Fred VanVleet, with a shoulder injury, has played just three tentative minutes. Washington has the best player. On Tuesday, Toronto used 13 players. Eight of them made at least one threepointer. And nobody in a Raptors uniform has yet to even hint at looking ahead to the second round. After all, there’s another “Game 7” to play come Friday’s Game 3.