Young team must learn to keep even keel
No time to dwell on bad, just time to review it and hopefully grow from it
One of the many challenges this season for the Raptors will be managing the hearts and minds of their young players as much as their bodies.
They will have to learn the ups and downs of a long, hard season and find out how to not let bad games linger and good games swell heads.
The process has begun. Emphatically.
There were some slumped shoulders and downcast eyes around the practice facility early Thursday morning after the Raptors had their heads handed to them by the Washington Wizards to open the season a night earlier.
It’s understandable that young players would be stung by a stinky game. But the next one comes too fast — Friday in Boston — and there is no time to dwell on the bad; there’s only time to recap it, review it and, hopefully, grow from it.
That’s where players who have been through it many, many times before can be their most valuable, making sure their teammates get on with the growing process.
“It’s part of the business,” said Goran Dragic, the team’s elder statesman. “It’s 82 games, we have to move on. Of course we already watched the film to see what we did wrong and try to correct those mistakes for the next one.
“It’s not like Europe when you have one game a week and then you have seven days of practice and you can correct those things. Here, it’s right away, you have to go to the next one … next opponent is Boston, first game away, so it’s going to be a really tough challenge for us.”
There will be many challenges for the Raptors that arise as the season rolls on and maintaining an even keel is among the most important.
The coaching staff, the front office and the older players all know there will be nights like Wednesday when the team just doesn’t play well, rookies look like rookies and the end seems nigh.
But it’s not. There’s a game Friday and one Saturday and one Monday, and maximizing the lessons to be learned is vital.
“It comes at you pretty fast in this league so you’ve got to learn what you can and quickly as you can, you’ve got to be ready to go,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “You’ve got to wash that one off you even if you don’t like it and start fresh and new and see what happens.”
There were certainly enough deficiencies in the way the Raptors played Wednesday to work on. They didn’t play with nearly the consistent pace they need to, they didn’t capitalize on transition opportunities, they turned the ball over too often and they fouled a bit too much. None are crippling singularly but combined they were disastrous.
Tactically, the answers are obvious: The Raptors can’t shoot 31 per cent from the field and win; OG Anunoby can’t miss 11 of his first 12 field goal attempts; Fred VanVleet has to be more effective; and the young players all have to bring more consistent energy.
That will come, maybe in fits and starts, but it will come.
“We have to put this into (context) that it was the first game back,” Dragic said. “The building was electrifying. Everyone wants to do well. We had a lot of young players for whom it was the first game playing in the NBA. It’s just emotions.
“Of course you get a little bit discouraged when you don’t make plays. In the pre-season, we’ve already shown we can defend and get steals and get in the open court. We didn’t have a lot of chances (Wednesday), but … it’s the first game. We definitely have to be better.”
They might be different, too. Nurse said immediately after the game that he didn’t feel comfortable with some of the combinations on the floor and that’s where some tinkering comes.
Is Dragic better coming off the bench to stabilize the second group if Gary Trent Jr. can handle the starting role? Is Precious Achiuwa better suited to a backup role with the more fundamentally solid Khem Birch starting?
“I think there’s some other rotational things to look at,” Nurse said.
“I think I felt that way during the game. Actually at halftime, I was thinking that this, this, this, this didn’t look quite right, or that didn’t feel quite right or whatever, and tried to stagger it a little differently in the second half.
“I think there’s some interchangeable guys that maybe they’ll just look different the other way. I guess we won’t know that until I try some of them.”
There’s lots of time. And lots to improve upon.
“I look at it this way,” Dragic said. “We couldn’t play worse, so it’s only going to get better.”