•The Raptors have been wildly inconsistent of late
•Toronto continued to struggle with ball movement in Lowry’s absence
•Frustration on display as four Raptors get hit with techs
MIAMI – Over a span of just under three weeks the Toronto Raptors have made a pair of transformative deals just ahead of the NBA trade deadline, lost franchise pillar Kyle Lowry to a wrist injury for an extended period and struggled to effectively piece together their scrambled puzzle.
Even as they’ve just barely won more than they’ve lost, there’s been an unexpected volatility in the consistency of their performances, one that allows them to get stomped at home by the Washington Wizards before rallying to beat them on the road the next. The acquisitions of Serge Ibaka and P.J. Tucker were supposed to help smooth that over, even after Lowry went down, and while the all-star point guard’s absence is a key factor, things should still be steadier than this.
“It hasn’t been easy,” head coach Dwayne Casey before his team’s latest setback, a grinding, at-times-ornery 104-89 thumping from the surging Miami Heat on Saturday night. “There’s communication factors, there’s rhythm factors, there’s different nuances that happen. It takes a little time but they’re smart players, and the players who were here before are helping them, they’re communicating, talking to them. Kyle is talking to them on the sidelines. It’s good but we expected some rough patches and hopefully when Kyle comes back, it’ll be less problems or bumps in the road.”
Many of the ills Casey mentioned were on full display in the finale of a 2-3 road trip, the second game of a back-to-back that followed a frustrating 105-99 loss at Atlanta on Friday, and served as a reminder that there’s pressure in the standings from below the No. 4 spot as the Raptors (38-28) continue looking up.
They’re now three games behind Boston and Washington for second and third, with Atlanta 1.5 games back in fifth.
“Look at the calendar. There are 16 games left. That should be all the motivation that we need right there,” said DeMar DeRozan, who led the Raptors with 17 points on 5-of-16 shooting. “We don’t have much time and every single game we have to play is valuable and that is how we have to look at it.”
Minus Lowry, they have struggled to move the ball to create quality looks, demonstrated by their four assists through three quarters in comparison to the Heat’s 18. As Casey rotated through Joseph, Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet at point guard to no avail, DeRozan, Ibaka and Norm Powell (starting after DeMarre Carroll was a late scratch with a sore left ankle) were left to try and create their own shots.
Further complicating things is that without a consistent threat from three-point range – they made two all game in comparison to Miami’s 11 – the Raptors aren’t able to spread the floor the way the Heat did.
Once they fell behind, unable to get consistent stops or make threes to help close the gap, the Heat kept expanding, pushing a six-point lead at the end of the first quarter to 18 at the half and 22 through three quarters.
The Raptors closed to within 11 midway through the fourth, but that was a garbage-time mirage, little more.
“We just have to find our spots, find guys where they want it and execute,” said DeRozan. “We can’t keep relying on iso basketball or somebody making big shots or hoping somebody gets hot. We’ve got to play together.”
To be fair the Heat have been, well, hot since a 116-108 loss at Milwaukee on Jan. 13, running off 13 straight wins as part of a stretch now up to 21 victories in 25 outings. A young team that lost superstar Dwyane Wade last summer and left for dead at 11-30, they’re now 32-34, half a game back of a playoff spot.
“We don’t focus on the standings, or focus on what guys are playing well or what locker-room or what team is discombobulated. We’re not worried about any of that,” Heat forward James Johnson said of trying to capitalize on his former team’s struggles. “We’ve been playing great basketball … we’ve got to worry about the Miami Heat.”
Frustrations ran high for the Raptors, with DeRozan, Powell and Tucker each collecting technical fouls in the first three quarters before a double technical for Patrick Patterson early in the fourth sent him packing.
Officials reviewed two other plays for flagrants right at the start of the third quarter – Jonas Valanciunas dropping a charging Dion Waiters on the first possession of the half and a Joseph elbow shortly after that put Goran Dragic on the ground and caused his left eye to swell – but were ruled common fouls.
“A little bit of everything at the end of the day,” DeRozan said of the flagrants. “We’re all human. Some things don’t go your way, we all react off emotion. You know, it happens.”
DeRozan didn’t get much offensive support as Powell added 14, and Wright 13, and the bench contributed only seven points in the first half before the game unravelled. The second unit’s erratic production is yet another area where the absence of Lowry is being felt.
“Dramatically,” Johnson said when asked how much the all-star’s absence changes the Raptors. “Not only can he put the ball in the hoop, on the court he’s a floor general. I know he’s still a captain and a floor general in a suit, but it’s different when you’re out there and you’re battling those guys. I know the young guys do a great job listening to him and luckily the young guys listening to him are guards, they’re in his spot. It’s going to be a great opportunity to lead that way.”
Casey feels many of the Raptors’ current issues are in the finer points of play, how players like to receive passes, being ready to shoot, taking the three at times rather than dribbling into traffic, the way they did often times against the Heat.
“It was one of those games like I told the team: We have to recognize who we are,” said Casey. “Our identity is a hard-playing, defensive-minded team and let our defence get us some points on the offensive end. We did neither tonight.
“We have to get back to the drawing board, get everybody back on the same page healthy, and get energy to go back home, take care of home. Home is not going to take care of us, we have to come in with the energy we normally play with and a lot of things will take care of themselves.”
The Dallas Mavericks are at Air Canada Centre on Monday night, with the Raptors quickly running out of time to spare.
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