‘We’ve got to get this group better’
Short-handed squad is scrambling to avoid having another season derailed by COVID-19
The Raptors have to play games and they have to figure out how to win games because perhaps better than any other team in the NBA, they know how quickly a COVID outbreak can send a season swirling down the drain.
It was less than 10 months ago when a roster ravaged by positive tests and missing key players saw the 2020-21 season shot behind the ear and avoiding that same predicament is first and foremost in their minds.
It will not be easy — there are several key players still to clear NBA protocols and a handful of emergency fill-ins will have play substantial roles — but the stakes are substantial and coach Nick Nurse knows it.
“We’ve got to figure out what the group is for the next game,” Nurse said after the Raptors were throttled 144-99 by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night in one of the most absurd games the team has ever been forced to play.
“Whatever that group is, if there’s no additions, we’ve got to get this group better.”
The urgency comes from history of a season going awry in almost no time at all. When the Raptors were hit by a COVID outbreak in February, first with coaches and the odd player, then morphing into a fullblown calamity that sidelined nearly half the team, they simply could not handle it.
Over the period just before and after the league’s all-star break, the Raptors lost 13-of-14 games and the season was effectively over. The front office made a strategic decision to let the season run its course with players resting and slightly injured regulars given more than ample time to recuperate because the dreadful March put a bullet into any chances.
That can’t happen again. And in the tightly packed Eastern Conference, with each team having about 50 games left in the regular season, finding some way to survive the next couple of weeks, at least, will still give the Raptors a chance to make some noise.
Having lived through the wretchedness of the final few weeks of the 2020-21 season, they know how important it is to at least tread water.
“Certainly, defensively, we’ve got to figure something out where we can put up more of a stand there,” Nurse said. “And if guys trickle back in, we’ll trickle them in as we go. But nothing really changes. Whatever we got, we try to get better and we got to fight.”
The trouble is, figuring out who might be in and when is almost a daily guessing game for Nurse and his staff.
Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr. and Malachi Flynn are eligible to come off the protocol list this week and could play Friday against the Los Angeles Clippers if they return negative COVID tests. Pascal Siakam would be eligible to play Tuesday against Philadelphia if he meets the same negative test levels but none of that is for certain.
The Raptors announced late Monday that Siakam, Trent Jr. and Birch were cleared of the protocols and are listed as “questionable” for the game. Their availability will depend on “return to competition reconditioning” with OG Anunoby, VanVleet, Flynn, Scottie Barnes, Precious Achuiwa, Justin Champagnie and Isaac Bonga still out for the game.
The Raptors aren’t practising out of the now-familiar “abundance of caution” as they all take COVID tests every day and that hampers Nurse’s ability to integrate 10-day signees D.J. Wilson, Tremont Waters, Juwan Morgan and Daniel Oturu into any kind of cohesive group.
The other part, of course, is avoiding any more roster calamities. Daily testing could very well uncover more positive cases and place more players in protocol and no matter what the Raptors do, that risk won’t ever go completely away.
“At this point … almost there’s nothing I can do,” Yuta Watanabe said. “I felt like my teammates are also doing a great job … staying at home, eat well, sleep well, all kinds of stuff.
“I mean, at this point, I’m just kind of like a lucky guy not getting COVID right now. So I just keep continuing trying to be isolated as soon as possible.”
It also goes for someone like Wilson, whose employment and chance to impress any NBA executive watching the Raptors is based solely on him staying available for the next week.
“It seems like everybody’s been quarantining properly and doing what they need to be and some tests are just popping up positive one way or another,” he said. “I think with me, just staying isolated as much as possible, if I’m not on the court, going back to my room and just trying to stay away from people for however long this continues to go on. It is kind of nerve-racking, but I just have faith.”