Opponents focused on VanVleet, daring others to step up

What’s that old saw about cutting off the head of the snake to kill it?

As the Raptors muddle through with a depleted roster missing about half its per-game scoring output, opponents are taking that saying to heart, doing all they can to limit the offensive options available to Fred VanVleet and figuring no one else from Toronto will step up and win a game.

It’s working. The Memphis Grizzlies were by far the most aggressive team in denying VanVleet the ball or shots or the ability to run the Raptors offence Tuesday, and the success they had will surely be mimicked by other opponents in the copycat world of the NBA.

“It’s going to come with the territory,” VanVleet said Wednesday. “Obviously I’m getting better as a player but also — given the makeup of this team, with guys out — they could show (me) a little bit more attention.

“We just tried to find other ways to manufacture points. It didn’t really happen all that well for us (against Memphis), but I’ll continue to learn and grow from it because it’s going to be that way, especially in this league where whoever we play is going to watch the film and see if they can take some of that.”

It will help, of course, if the Raptors get some scoring punch back in the lineup. Gary Trent Jr. practised Wednesday, a positive sign even if OG Anunoby and Khem Birch are already ruled out for Thursday against the Milwaukee Bucks.

But it would also help immensely if someone could start making shots with any regularity. Yuta Watanabe and Scottie Barnes each hit three three-pointers in the loss to Memphis. But Pascal Siakam, Svi Mykhailiuk, Malachi Flynn, Dalano Banton and Chris Boucher were a combined 3-for-19 from three and 17-for-43 (39.5 per cent) overall and that’s just not good enough for a Raptors team with such a limited roster.

The galling — and telling — part is that the majority of those shots would be considered “good” and were simply missed.

“There’s going to be nights when they go in, there’s going to be nights where we score 140 points, it’s going to happen at some point,” VanVleet said. “There’s going to be nights when you score 80, or 39 in a half. It’s going to happen.

“So, are you generating enough good looks? I thought that we generated some pretty good looks. Now, a lot of them didn’t go in … We could attack the paint a little bit more get to the free throw line and to get some easier looks, but I thought we generated some looks. Just the rhythm and the flow wasn’t really there, which you know, you can expect.”

One place the Raptors might get a boost, especially with a reduced second unit, is from Flynn. He is getting substantially more playing time now than he did in the first 15 games of the season but he is 3for-18 from three-point range over his last seven games.

He missed six in a row Tuesday before making his last one in the final two minutes of the game.

“He’s got some quickness or some stop-starts to get free but the bottom line is he’s got to shoot a lot higher percentage than he’s shooting,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “He gives us a lift when he can come in and bang one. He usually can do that right away.

“In a game right now for us, when there’s a small margin for error, we’re just going to have to make more of those shots. He’s a good shooter. He’s a good scorer. He can do it. He’s just got to get a little more comfortable out there, get a few more reps, get a little more swag and knock them down.”