Chuck Hayes remained on the floor of the Raptors’ practice court long after his teammates—and most of his coaches—had left.
With Dwane Casey and assistant Tom Sterner role-playing (“You be T-Ross,” Hayes told the head coach), the Raps’ 31-year-old elder statesman was particularly animated as he engaged them in a long discussion and re-enactment of some of the team’s strategies.
It was the morning following an ugly loss to the Brooklyn Nets, Toronto’s second straight poor outing at home. There was plenty to talk about.
While the Raptors’ shooting has been flat-out frigid all week, it’s the continued lapses on the defensive end that have raised red flags as the team prepares for a tough three-game stretch ahead of the all-star break.
The Raps, especially in contrast to last season, have struggled to defend the post all year—ranking in the bottom 10 in opponents’ points in the paint at just over 43 per game. Lately, the issue has been compounded by the fact that Toronto’s perimeter defence is being exploited more and more, as opposing guards find ways to penetrate for easy takes to the hoop or drive-and-kicks to open shooters.
In Wednesday’s loss to Brooklyn, Nets guards combined for 69 points. Leading scorer Jarrett Jack got five of his nine baskets—including both of his fourth-quarter makes—near the hoop, while all three of Deron Williams’ fourth-quarter shot attempts came at the rim as the Nets ran away with the game in the final frame. Milwaukee’s Jerryd Bayless did most of his damage after beating his man off the dribble in Monday’s loss, and during the Raps’ fourth-quarter collapse in Washington last Saturday, John Wall (who, in fairness, does this to a lot of teams) got all four of his made field goals at the rim.
So, yeah, it’s a trend heading in decidedly the wrong direction. What’s makes it worse, is that, now more than ever, NBA offences are geared toward the perimeter, and seemingly every team boasts a lead guard who can carry an attack single-handed.
“With point guards shouldering more of a scoring load it changes what you want to do defensively,” says Hayes. “But what’s important is that once you do make those changes, you stick to it. It doesn’t matter if the team scores on you or not, you have to stick to a principle and standard in the way you play and how you guard.”
For the Raptors, like most teams, a big part of those defensive principles centre on communication between the guards and bigs.
“Our guards can’t see behind them, so us bigs, our job is to communicate and be their eyes,” explains Hayes. “They have to trust and have faith in us that we’ll let them know if there’s a screen coming or if they’re on an island guarding someone one-on-one. We’ll yell: ‘Left, right, iso, by yourself, I’m over your left shoulder send ‘em my way, send ‘em my way.’ Our communication has to be there consistently.”
And while it’s important for the Raptors lead guards—primarily Kyle Lowry and Greivis Vasquez—to contain their men as the team’s first line of defence, the realities of the game dictate that the one-on-one advantage almost always skews heavily in the ball-handlers’ favour, which makes the Raps bigs a crucial component in stopping, or at least limiting, penetration.
“Every coach has their own way,” says Hayes, referencing the variety of defensive strategies utilized in the NBA. “Some coaches trap everything, others don’t. Some coaches send the ball-handler down to the baseline on a side pick-and-roll, some don’t. With Dwane, the onus is on the man at the net to help take away their penetration.“
Yet given the versatile makeup of the Raptors’ roster, the schemes change in response to who’s on the floor.
“We keep Jonas [Valanciunas] at the basket because we need our big man to protect the rim,” Hayes explains. “But on a pick-and-roll our mobile and faster bigs, like Pat [Patterson] and Amir [Johnson], they show and then get back to their man. So the onus is on those bigs to take away [opposing guards’] penetration at the free-throw line.”
Containing guards is far easier said than done in today’s NBA, but the Raptors clearly need to make significant strides in that department to get back to the team that tore up the league earlier this season. And heading into the weekend, with a trio of point guards—Chris Paul, Tony Parker and Wall—coming to town who are all especially adept at dicing up defenders on their way to the rim, tightening up that aspect of the defence could make all the difference.
Sure, it won’t be easy, but most worthwhile things aren’t.
