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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – Short of walking into Masai Ujiri’s and Bobby Webster’s offices and slapping a wish list on their desks, Nick Nurse’s message couldn’t get much louder or clearer.
 
For the first time in nearly a month, the Raptors’ head coach had a full roster at his disposal on Friday, with OG Anunoby returning from a lengthy absence in the league’s health and safety protocols to join Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, who came back a couple nights earlier.
 
After dropping six straight games – five of them without the three starters and the latest, Wednesday’s loss to the last-place Pistons, without Anunoby – getting back to full strength seemed like a small victory in and of itself. But is full strength enough?
 
“I feel like we’re back almost at square one, in a lot of senses here,” Nurse said roughly 90 minutes before hosting the NBA-best Utah Jazz. “We’ve had a number of issues all year long, and I think we’re back kinda at square one. Listen, I’ve got my main five guys that have been here for a while… and after that, I couldn’t tell you who’s impacting the game positively and who isn’t. So the search starts again tonight, is what I’m saying, about who else is gonna play.”
 
The rest of the night felt very apropos. The Raptors played well. They played well enough to win had things broken the right way, but things didn’t break the right way. They rarely have this season.
 
“I just think those things even out at some point, usually in a season they even out,” Nurse said after falling to the Jazz, 115-112 – another hard-luck loss and their seventh straight defeat. “So we got a lot of evening out to do, which is good to look forward to.”
 
Toronto led for most of the first 36 minutes, fell behind in the fourth quarter, clawed back at the end, and then let the game slip away in the dying seconds. Massive free throw and rebounding disparities, missed opportunities, some bad luck in the form of a last-second shot from Siakam that rolled around the rim and then popped out – you’ve seen it all before.
 
It was another reminder of how close they are to turning the corner, and simultaneously how far away salvation feels.
 
Despite their long layoffs and what they’re working their way back from, the three returning players – Siakam, VanVleet and Anunoby – looked great. Nurse went back to the small starting lineup – with those three, Kyle Lowry and Norman Powell – that had been playing well before COVID-19 brought the team to its knees last month, and they outscored Utah by 12 points when they were on the floor together. All five starters scored in double figures, as did Chris Boucher – their flawed but increasingly invaluable sixth man.
 
The other three subs that Nurse settled on – Paul Watson, Malachi Flynn and Aron Baynes – combined for six points. The Raptors were outscored by 15 points with at least one reserve on the court.
 
In that sense, it does feel like the Raptors are starting from scratch – five players that Nurse trusts, with a sixth in Boucher that has stepped up but remains shaky on defence, and a lot of question marks after that.
 
Over the course of the season, and particularly during these past few weeks, Nurse has cycled through just about everybody on his roster in the hopes that one or two guys would emerge as regular rotation pieces. Terence Davis, Stanley Johnson, DeAndre’ Bembry, Matt Thomas, Yuta Watanabe – they’ve all shown flashes, but none of them have taken advantage of their opportunities.
 
So, when Nurse spun the wheel on Friday it landed on Watson and Flynn – if for no other reason than they haven’t had as much of a chance to show what they can do, or what they can’t. His hope is to give those two some runway as the seventh and eighth men to see if they can run away with those roles.
 
That was the plan in training camp, as well – to find a couple guys, maybe Thomas or Davis, and stick with them long enough for them to grow into their gigs. It makes sense in theory, but it’s easier said than done when those guys aren’t producing. By nature, Nurse is a coach that likes to tinker. With the pressure to win growing by the day, how long of a leash do Watson and Flynn get?
 
The problem, of course, is that the Raptors don’t have the luxury of starting from scratch or going back to square one. Most teams don’t know what the backend of their rotations are going to look like in training camp. By Game No. 41, different story. They’re more than halfway through the season and still only have five or six players that they can bank on each night. At 17-24 and with a mountain to climb in the East, they don’t have the time to wait for others to step up.
 
“It's not our biggest problem, though,” Nurse said pre-game. “We've gotta get our main guys back in shape, too. I mean, there's more. We're getting our ass kicked at the rim on both ends, not rebounding, there are all kinds [of things]. I mean, the ship has got holes all over the place we're trying to patch up.”
 
With less than a week before next Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, it’s unlikely that the timing of Nurse’s plea is coincidental. He’s showing a sense of urgency and trying to light a fire under his team, sure, but one would imagine he’s also hoping to appeal to the front office.
 
The message: If the Raptors are going to have a real chance at salvaging this season and getting back into the race in the Eastern Conference, they need some help.​