If the Raptors are going to go on a run, now is the time

TORONTO – If the season ended today, the Raptors would find themselves exactly where they had hoped to avoid.

They would finish 10th and occupy the final seed in the Eastern Conference’s play-in tournament. They’d have to survive two must-win games, both on the road, just for the right to face the first-place team – currently Boston – in an opening-round playoff series.

One way or another, they would probably be looking at an early start to their off-season and, likely, a first-round draft pick that falls at the backend – or just outside – of the lottery. Not where anybody wants to be, certainly not a competitive Toronto organization that’s just four years removed from winning a championship.

Fortunately for them, the season doesn’t end today.

With the trade deadline and all-star weekend in the rear-view mirror, the stretch run is just around the corner. The Raptors come out of the break with 23 games left to play, beginning Thursday night when they host the New Orleans Pelicans.

More than two-thirds of the way in, one could argue that they may have been better off cutting their losses and opting to chase lottery balls over wins down the stretch. But regardless of whether you agree with the direction, they’ve made their intentions clear. Their plan is to push forward in the hopes of salvaging a disappointing campaign as best as they can.

Gone are some of the excuses they could have used to justify their inconsistent and underwhelming play to this point. They’ve had some unfortunate injury luck over the course of the year, but for the first time in nearly a month they expect to be at full strength, with O.G. Anunoby (wrist), Gary Trent Jr. (calf) and Thaddeus Young (knee) returning to practice this week.

They’re healthier than they’ve been in a while, and with the addition of Jakob Poeltl, they’re also deeper and no longer have a glaring hole at the centre position. We’ve already seen how much the presence of a rim-protecting big man can help, albeit in a small three-game sample between the deadline and the break (Toronto held opponents to 103.6 points per 100 possessions with him on the court, compared to 130.2 points with him off it).

With Anunoby presumably re-joining the starters, that improved first unit should be even tougher to score against, while Trent’s likely return to the bench – along with Precious Achiuwa – means Nick Nurse will have more options at his disposal.

“I think that just adding [Poeltl] kind of moves things around a little bit,” Nurse said following his team’s Tuesday evening practice, its first since reconvening in Toronto after the all-star weekend. “It certainly strengthens our starting unit which therefore strengthens our guys coming off the bench as well.”

Still, they’ve got their work cut out for them. From here, the Raptors have the fifth-hardest schedule in the NBA. Of their remaining 23 games, 13 will come on the road. Eight are against the league’s top-five teams, including a three-game stretch in which they’ll play consecutive contests in Boston before hosting Milwaukee to conclude the season.

They can hope that those teams will have locked up seeding by then and can afford to rest their stars ahead of the playoffs. They can hope that some of the clubs above them in the standings do them a favour and stumble to the finish line, but none of that matters if they don’t take care of their own business. If they’re going to have any chance at bettering their position in the play-in tournament, or climbing out of it entirely, they’ll need to start stringing together wins, and fast.

“We don’t have time for a learning curve,” Fred VanVleet said. “We’re excited to have our full team back and see what we can do. It’s not gonna be perfect, we know that… but we gotta do it quickly and fast. Hopefully these couple practices here will get us up to speed a little bit more and then we’ll have to shake it out throughout the first couple games [back].”

Passing Washington (currently a half-game up) for ninth would allow them to host the first of two must-win play-in games. Climbing to seventh (they’re four games back of Miami) or eighth (one game back of Atlanta) would mean having to win one of two play-in games, instead of both, to advance. If they could catch the Knicks, who have a four-and-a-half game cushion for sixth place, they would skip the play-in and qualify for the playoffs outright. At New York’s current pace, the Raptors would have to go 17-6 the rest of the way.

Is it doable?

“Absolutely,” said VanVleet. “Four-and-a-half games with 23 left. Absolutely.”

Is it likely? They won five of six games going into the break, which would normally be a cause for optimism except four of those wins came against Houston, San Antonio, Detroit and Orlando – all bottom-five teams – and the fifth came against a Memphis club missing three starters, including Ja Morant. That they’ve yet to win more than three straight games is probably more indicative of their chances. 

“It’s not gonna be easy,” VanVleet continued. “At this point, we’ve just gotta put our heads down and go to work and focus on one day at a time.”

Maybe they’re peaking at the right time. At this point last year, VanVleet’s body was already starting to break down. He had been carrying a massive workload on the way to his first career all-star nod, and with the team in the middle of a second-half turnaround, he was playing through an injury. After a slow start to this season, he entered the break feeling good and playing his best basketball of the campaign. The same could be said for Scottie Barnes, who has bounced back from a shaky start to his sophomore season and is averaging 17.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.2 assists on 48 per cent shooting over the last 18 games.

A few weeks ago, it looked like Pascal Siakam might be hitting a wall – understandable considering he leads the league in minutes per contest – but he got his second wind heading into the break and seems highly motivated to build on his career year coming back from his second all-star experience. The hope is that the addition of Poeltl can help balance out the rotation and take some pressure off of those other guys, especially on the defensive end.

At 28-31, they believe that they’re better than their record indicates. Well, this would be the time to show it.

“Obviously we need to win and cheer for the teams around us to not win to climb up [the standings],” Nurse said. “The biggest thing is we’ve got to make sure we get in [the playoffs], in some form or fashion. And then just get better. We played pretty good basketball here of late. We’ve had a couple slip-ups here and there. I just want to keep progressing. I really feel like we can line up with anyone. We certainly haven’t made it easy on ourselves, and it hasn’t been easy. So what? That’s the hand we’re dealt at this time. We’ve got to dig in and continue to play better and see where the chips fall.”