‘Really good’ Bench Mob throws shade on Wizards
At a crucial juncture of an NBA post-season series, it was obviously a pressing question. So somebody asked John Wall, the Wizards all-star: How many pairs of sunglasses do you own?
“Way more than double figures,” said Wall, looking out at a gaggle of reporters from behind a glossy black pair of shades in the hours before Friday’s Game 6. Like, seriously? “Yeah, facts. Maybe triple (figures), to be honest. Yeah, for real.”
He’ll need them on the beach. Wall’s long summer vacation began late Friday night at Capital One Arena. And for the Raptors to make Wall and the Wizards go away — to win the best-of-seven playoff series in six games thanks to a 102-92 win — they needed to confront a dark part of their franchise history.
This is the fifth straight year in the playoffs for the Raptors as led by DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. Heading into Friday, they’d won a combined five road playoff games. Five years in the playoffs, Five wins (and 16 losses) on the road, and this amid the most successful era in the history of the franchise by a mile.
So playoff road win No. 6 of the DeRozan-Lowry era — let’s call it a sunny-day milestone to be remembered. It set up a well-earned mini-holiday, what with the Raptors awaiting the result of Sunday’s CavsPacers Game 7 to learn their next opponent. And it arrived in large part because Toronto’s role players defied the public callouts from Wall and other Wizards.
“Role players play better at home,” Wall had said earlier in the series, effectively dismissing the contributions of DeRozan and Lowry’s supporting cast after Toronto won all three games at the Air Canada Centre. On Friday, as Lowry led the team with 24 points and DeRozan struggled through a sub-par shooting night that saw him require 17 shots to get his 16 points, a collective of peripheral Raptors played awfully well in the unfriendly confines of the Wizards’ home court.
Pascal Siakam, the uberathletic reserve forward, made his first five shots, racking up 11 points and eight rebounds. Jakob Poeltl, along with playing his usual gamely defence, chipped in seven points and seven rebounds. Delon Wright, who’d been chastised by Washington’s Kelly Oubre Jr. for playing well exclusively in Toronto, wasn’t a massive factor. But Wright was a plus-12.
Those players and others were instrumental in helping reel off a 23-10 run to open the fourth quarter and open up a lead that proved decisive. And when Raptors coach Dwane Casey was asked to explain the success of his bench, the coach pointed to Fred VanVleet, the backup point guard who saw his first extended minutes of the series after injuring his right shoulder in the final game of the regular season. If VanV- leet’s numbers weren’t overly impressive — he scored five points and missed five of seven shots — his presence couldn’t be underestimated.
“Fred was the key. Glad to have him back,” said Casey. “He’s the engine, the toughness, that little birdie on the shoulder … I thought it really propelled Pascal and those other guys to give them a sense of confidence.”
Confidence, and numerical dominance. Toronto’s bench was a combined plus-52. Washington’s was a combined minus-27. That’s how you win a road game.
“Their bench is really good,” said Scott Brooks, the Washington coach.
“VanVleet plays winning basketball.”
Earlier in the series Casey labelled the Washington crowd “vicious” and “rabid.” And if you watched the opening throes of the fourth quarter, when that bench-based unit ran a couple of ugly possessions, you could have been convinced the heat of the cauldron was getting to Toronto’s support players yet again.
“It was ugly,” Casey said. “If you watched us most of the year, those guys have some ugly possessions. But sooner or later, they usually figure it out.”
He stuck with them, and they did what he thought they would: They figured it out, outscoring the Wizards’ second unit 34-18.
“I’m still looking for that manual that everybody says, ‘You can’t play the second unit. They’re too young. They’re too this. They’re too that,’ ” Casey said. “Again, as long as they’re productive, they’re going to play.”
It didn’t hurt that the Wizards were without Otto Porter Jr., the starting small forward sidelined after undergoing a procedure to improve blood flow around a bruised calf muscle. And it didn’t hurt that, for a lot of the game, Wall didn’t look to have the usual jump. Wall, who missed 41 regular-season games recovering from knee surgery, acknowledged in the lead-up to Friday’s game that he’s been feeling the strain of averaging a series-high 39 minutes a game over the opening five contests. In Game 5, a Toronto win that saw Wall confronted by a variety of defenders, Wall said he felt like he “ran out of gas a little bit the last five minutes.” On Friday, when he needed 22 shots to get his 23 points, his tank looked empty.
Toronto’s bench had a lot to do with that. Siakam and Wright played important defensive minutes on Wall. Ditto VanVleet on Bradley Beal. While Beal played 43 minutes and Wall played 40, DeRozan and Lowry barely needed to break a sweat down the stretch. Not a bad thing if you’re pacing yourself through what you hope is a long playoff run.
“Our bench did a great job. I played 31 minutes. Demar played 33,” Lowry said. “In a playoff game, a closeout game, you would never think your stars could do that. But that’s how our team is built.”
Built to win by committee. And on Friday, at least, built to win on the road. The future’s so bright, maybe Wall could spare Toronto’s NBAers some shades.