Dec 22, 2015
Making sense of the Raptors is no easy task
Trying to make sense of this Raptors team, now 30 games into the season, can be a maddening exercise. As TSN Raptors reporter Josh Lewenberg explains, even through injuries, the team has played both up and down to their competition this year.
TORONTO - Trying to make sense of this Raptors team, now 30 games into the season, can be a maddening exercise.
Entering Tuesday's contest, an appropriately strange 103-99 victory over the 15-13 Dallas Mavericks, the Raptors owned the NBA's eighth-best record. They've defeated six of the seven teams ahead of them. The only one they haven't taken down: the 26-1 Warriors, though they're responsible for two of Golden State's five wins by five points or less.
However, they're one of just two teams in the league that actually have a better record against winning teams than they do versus sub-.500 competition. The Warriors are only in that conversation because their lone loss came at the hands of the 11-18 Milwaukee Bucks.
Not only are they playing up and down to their opposition, they've also played up and down to the moment.
Through its first 29 contests, Toronto had been out-scored by 51 in the first quarter - fourth-worst in the NBA - yet they had bested teams by 152 points over the final 36 minutes, including a plus-65 mark in the fourth quarter, second-best in the league. So naturally, they held Dallas to 16 first-quarter points - Sacramento's point total less than four-and-a-half minutes into the game two days earlier - and led by 16 going into the second. Makes sense, right?
As they disperse for a short break over the holidays, it's nearly impossible to get an accurate read on who the Raptors are, and we shouldn't necessarily be surprised or alarmed by that.
Playing without the injured Jonas Valanciunas (who missed his 16th straight game Tuesday) and DeMarre Carroll (who missed his 11th) for the better part of the last month, Toronto has had its opening night starting lineup intact for 11 of the team's 30 games. Factoring in Terrence Ross' early-season injury, they've had their nine-man rotation at full strength seven times. It's no wonder their identity remains a mystery.
"It's hard to get a read," Dwane Casey admitted before Tuesday's game. "I like our team, I like what we have. Now, when those guys do come back the challenge is going to be getting everybody back, getting the chemistry going again. It's going to be almost like training camp again, getting the rust off of guys, getting back in the flow of the game. But it's hard to get a read on it right now."
At that point, when the Raptors' head coach addressed the media nearly two hours before tip-off, as always, it just seemed like another night. Once again, they would be down two starters. Business as usual. Soon after, James Johnson - who had been filling in for Carroll with the first unit - turned his ankle in pre-game warmups, forcing him out of action. By the second half, Toronto also lost Patrick Patterson, its first big off the bench, to a bout of the flu. Meanwhile, Bruno Caboclo and Norman Powell - who likely would have played if he was with the club - were in South Dakota playing for the D-League team. Cory Joseph and Lucas Nogueira played through a chest cold and ankle injury, respectively.
They would go on to win the game with just nine available players, six of them part of their regular rotation.
"Whenever our backs are up against the wall that's when we play our best," said the red-hot DeMar DeRozan, which, as he would point out, is part of the problem. "We've got to have that mindset when we have everybody, no matter who we're playing against. Once we get that on a consistent basis we're going to be tough to beat every single night."
For all the injuries they've had to overcome, for all the ups and downs that have hit, many of them self-inflicted, here they are, sitting 18-12 and tied for the fifth-best record in the Association and second in the much improved and wide open Eastern Conference.
We can say, with some certainty, that Cleveland is the conference's top team, although they have yet to separate themselves. After that? At times, the Raptors have looked like the East's next best, but so have a lot of teams. On other nights, they're hardly even recognizable. As of Tuesday evening, just one game was separating second-place Toronto and Atlanta from eighth-seeded Orlando, with Indiana, Miami, Detroit and Chicago in between. Charlotte and Boston aren't far behind. For a team like the Raptors, who are still searching for themselves, who have reason to believe they're better than their already impressive record indicates, this is an opportunity.
Are they happy with where they're at?
"I mean, kind of," said DeRozan, who is playing some of the best basketball of his career this month. "But when you think about the games we gave away and we lost, it could've been a whole different story. But we can't dwell on the past, we've gotta understand our mistakes and not let them happen again and finish the season the right way."
"To be honest, it should be better," Kyle Lowry admitted. "We're not satisfied, I'm not satisfied with what our record is. I think we should be a lot better."
The Raptors hope to get Valanciunas and Carroll back shortly after Christmas. Will they solve all the club's problems? Probably not. They were one of the league's worst first-quarter teams even before their starting centre went down. However, their return will help and, if nothing else, it should give us a better indication of what Toronto is capable of going into the most crucial months of the season.
"I think health for us is going to be important to start that clock, to start to see where we are," Casey said. "The turn of the year, the first of the year, I would say. Once we get everybody back, get those guys back together again I think that's when we'll see [who we are]."
Until then this is what we know: the Raptors are weird. Don't try to make sense of them, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Warning: it may be bumpy.