Stuck in the middle at halfway point
Raptors have shown they can be a threat when healthy, but bench remains weak spot
To invoke the words of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow might not be exactly right, but there certainly is some way to compare his little girl with the curl and the 2020-21 Raptors.
You know the one:
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead When she was good
She was very very good
But when she was bad she was horrid Now, horrid is a reach. The Raptors have not been horrid during the first half of this odd NBA season, but Longfellow’s point is well made. When they are good, they are quite good. It’s the other times that are troubling.
“Trying to figure it out,” swingman Norm Powell said after Toronto hit the
halfway mark of the season with a 132125 loss in Boston on Thursday night. “We had been stringing two, three wins together. We’re just waiting for that good stretch of five, six, seven wins in a row that we normally have throughout a season.”
The question is: What do they have to do to rattle off one of those long streaks that they’ve had in each of the past halfdozen seasons? The answer is elusive and more complicated than it’s ever been.
Full health will certainly help. The Raptors are a tough out when everyone plays, as they showed with wins over each of the top three teams in the conference: Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Brooklyn.
If they run out a starting group of Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, Powell, OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam they are to be feared and respected. They may not have the deepest or most consistent of benches — that’s an issue that’s plagued them from the start — but they are quite good.
“Having some COVID protocols and some injuries have kind of, unfortunately, (caused) fits and starts with that,” general manager Bobby Webster said. “I
think for the second half we’ll probably be looking forward to — you’ve heard Nick (Nurse) say it a ton — extending those good runs. We’ve seen it. The question will be: Can we sustain it?”
Yes, the Raptors have been good. And not good. They’ve lost to Detroit (last in the East), Minnesota (dead last in the league) and Sacramento. Those giveaway games can’t continue if the Raptors are to create some breathing room in the playoff race.
They hit the week-long allstar break at 17-19 and clinging to eighth in the East, two games out of fourth but also two games from 12th in the jumbled middle of the conference.
“I think we are starting to hit a little stride,” Powell said. “I think it will be a lot better when those guys come out of protocol. They should be well rested and fresh for the second half of the season.”
That’s logical, and something for fans to pin hopes on, but in this weird NBA season it might not be realistic. The spectre of COVID-19 — which has already cost the Raptors five key players, their head coach and five of his assistants for two losses — isn’t going away soon. It may not be 100 per cent controllable by the organization, but avoiding outbreaks in the jampacked second half of the season will be crucial.
The Raptors have 36 games left in a 66-day span starting Thursday.
If anyone has to miss a week or two, it might be crippling to their playoff or seeding hopes.
That’s primarily because they continue to be plagued by inconsistency off the bench, their most glaring weakness so far.
Some nights, the likes of Chris Boucher, Terence Davis, DeAndre’ Bembry, Stanley Johnson and Aron Baynes are good; some nights they’re not.
Trying to figure out who will be good and when has been frustrating for Nurse and his staff.
That’s the conundrum facing not only Nurse but Webster and president Masai Ujiri.
Can they count on good health, a coronavirus-free existence for about three months and players settling into roles they were good in, at times, in the first half of the season?
It’s impossible to know, but it’s worth the gamble. In this craziest of seasons, just managing things and getting a few breaks might tip the scales.
“Will we get a little bit more clarity? I don’t know,” Webster said.
“Every single day you go from fourth to 11th to fifth to seventh to 12th. It’s wild.
“I think the broader reaching (question is): How do you evaluate this? We have to. That’s our job. We have to evaluate it, so that’ll be the challenge. “