Sometimes the math works out
Usually, the full-court press doesn’t hold up after calculating risks vs. rewards
The Raptors came out for the second half of Sunday’s game against the Portland Trail Blazers looking like a completely different team. They were energetic, forced turnovers and on a night when shots weren’t falling their suffocating defence led to some easy buckets.
Down 30 at the break, the next 24 minutes would be spent whittling away at the deficit. With under 90 seconds to play, the Raptors pulled within four and while the comeback fell short in a 114-105 loss, the fact they even had a shot in the waning moments spoke to the team’s grit and some outside-thebox thinking from the head coach.
The turning point came at the half when a desperate Nick Nurse started using a full-court press. It’s a strategy that’s often limited to the amateur ranks — rarely seen at the pro level in anything but short bursts — but once the Raptors put it on, they didn’t take it off, and bit by bit the increased pressure eroded the Blazers’ lead.
In the first half, the Blazers shot 56.8 per cent from the field and committed 10 turnovers. They almost matched that total in a frenetic third quarter alone with seven turnovers, while shooting just 42 per cent. By the end of the quarter, the deficit was trimmed by 11 as the Raptors gave themselves an outside shot at a historic comeback.
The press worked so well over the final 24 minutes that some casual observers might be wondering why they don’t see more of it from Nurse and the Raptors. If a defensive scheme can be that effective, why not turn to it earlier? Why wouldn’t it become a key element of how this team plays? Well, it’s not that simple.
“We’ve toyed around with some of that stuff before,” said Nurse, whose team took the day off Monday following the tough loss.
“I think that it’s a possible change of rhythm. It’s a second-unit thing. Maybe it’s a ‘start to quarter’ thing you could do in the course of the game. I mean, usually teams will attack and go down and beat a lot of that stuff. But they were trying to protect a big lead and playing pretty tentatively against it and all those things.”
In the amateur ranks, the press is effective at creating disarray and making teams uncomfortable. Opposing guards can be rushed into making ill-advised passes out of double teams that lead to turnovers and easy buckets. NCAA coach Bob Huggins built an entire career off it, first at Cincinnati, then at Kansas State and now at West Virginia. It’s a staple at every March Madness.
The press is a chaotic, beautiful thing when it works, and it can be an absolute disaster when it doesn’t. Once teams start doubleteaming players 91 feet away from the basket, all it takes is a coolheaded point guard and proper spacing to get a wide-open look almost every time down the floor.
NBA players are too good for that. The press might work if you catch a team off-guard every now and then, but use it enough and effective guards will slice through with surgical precision. The Blazers managed to do that, too, even without the services of injured guard Damian Lillard. They just weren’t effective at finishing off the plays once they did.
The lopsided score likely played a role. The Blazers committed several turnovers off the press, but they also had a ton of open looks. In the flow of a normal game, that would have been deadly. In a blowout, the shots might still go up, but not without some internal second guessing about whether more time should have been taken off the clock first.
“Those shots are tough when you’re way up and you’re getting pressed and all of a sudden you find yourself alone in the corner and you’re wondering, ‘Should I shoot this or shouldn’t I?’ ” Nurse said. “If you do that, you’ll miss a lot of those. About the only time they missed tonight is when we left them completely wide open.”
The Raptors, with their length and athleticism, have the right players to form an effective press. The wingspans of Pascal Siakam and Scottie Barnes cut off passing lanes. The strength of OG Anunoby helps pin guys in the corner, while the speed of Fred VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr. puts pressure on opposing guards.
The pieces are there, but even if another NBA team had difficulty handling it, the full-court press isn’t sustainable. Not for a team that lacks depth and has spent the better part of a month playing seven or eight guys every night. Unlike college, there isn’t enough recovery time between games to pull off this strategy every night. Doing it for one matchup is difficult enough.
“It’s tough to press like that,” Siakam admitted after the loss. “In the NBA the guys are good … but I think sometimes we can get into that because we have the athletes to do that. Maybe we can, but we are always a team that likes to press and make guys uncomfortable.”
There won’t be too many repeats of Sunday night’s strategy, but that doesn’t mean the press will disappear entirely from Nurse’s playbook. It’s another item he can pull out of his toolbox when the Raptors are looking to change the tempo or secure a quick turnover.
It’s just not going to become a regular thing.
The press works in college, but at the NBA level the risk often isn’t worth the reward, Sunday night ex- cluded.