Big ideas after being thrown around

More Leonard, a bit of McCaw could counter Philly’s edge in size Raptors coach Nick Nurse has changes in store for Sunday’s Game 4 in Philadelphia.

The danger is to write it off as an aberration, to think that a horrible Game 3 of the Raptors-Sixers series — coming on the heels of six good Toronto outings as it did — was just one of those things and that if the Raptors give their collective heads a shake and come to their senses, the world may once again feel right.

It would be easy to think that, and in some ways understandable. This is a veteran Toronto team that has shown an impressive level of consistency all season, never too high and never too low. But it would also be oh-so-ridiculous to think this is just more of the same, and not dealing with it could very well cost them their season.

“We’ve got to change it, man,” coach Nick Nurse said here Friday. “You can sit around and say ‘It’ll be OK,’ but I tend to take the version of ‘We’ve got to make it OK.’ ”

But if admitting you’ve got a problem is the first step to solving it, actually doing it is far more difficult. The Sixers — at least in Game 3 — dominated the Raptors with superior size, bludgeoned them with more power and rode the sublime play of Joel Embiid to a relatively easy win for a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

It may not have set off panic among the Raptors, the coaching staff or the players, but it did establish a more overwhelming sense of concern than the loss in Game 2 did.

Toronto knows it cannot afford to lose Sunday’s Game 4 and approach the precipice of a disastrous end to a delightful season, and that the status quo cannot remain.

That’s got Nurse and his braintrust trying to figure out how to reconfigure what they’ve got into something better and more consistent than it’s been. Toronto was very good in Game 1, great defensively and brutal offensively in Game 2, horrid all over the court in Game 3. They need to try to find something at least a bit different in Game 4.

There isn’t a lot that can dramatically change — it’s not like Jeremy Lin or Eric Moreland or Jodie Meeks or Malcolm Miller is all of sudden going to play 20 minutes and steal a game — but Nurse did suggest the days of a smallish lineup including Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet and Norm Powell may disappear because the Sixers are punishing Toronto’s lack of size.

“Obviously you look at — jeez, they just look bigger, and the size problem, and with KyleFred-Norm out there we get a little small, right?” Nurse said. “But there’s some things we can do with the rotations. We’ll take a look at that, but we can get bigger out there.”

That might be as dramatic as using six-foot-seven Patrick McCaw to provide some length, or as simple as playing Kawhi Leonard more. All that load management through the season was done for a reason and if Leonard has to play 42 minutes in Sunday’s series-saving game, so be it.

“There’s no ceiling,” Nurse said of Leonard’s playing time.

The Raptors unquestionably need more out of Lowry, regardless of who he’s on the court with or against. His passive 2-for-10 shooting in Game 3 was the most startling part of Toronto’s out-of-character play.

“It’s still completely on our mind, what he really can do when he gets going,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said on a conference call Friday. “The notion of his skill package and this stage and Philly and all of that is never comfortable for me as a head coach.

“Our players respect him tremendously. We do have a defensive game plan in place, something we’re trying to lock down. But for him to come out and have a massive breakout game, that is always on my mind.”

Lowry playing better, Marc Gasol playing better, even nominal production from whichever backups Nurse decides to use are obvious factors. So, too, is just playing harder and better than they did in Game 3.

“I think we had six straight games of tremendous effort and tremendous defence, right?” Nurse said. “(Thursday) night we didn’t have that, so again I think that the six in a row is what you’re trying to get back to, with that kind of effort and whatever.”