Is Poeltl's arrival enough to reboot Raptors' season? Early returns are good

The trade deadline is in the rear-view mirror and so, too, are a pair of ‘introductory’ games with Jakob Poeltl, whom the Toronto Raptors acquired on Thursday to help shore up their defence and (hopefully) solidify the centre spot for years to come.

Of course, that's presuming Poeltl re-signs with Toronto next summer, which would be consistent with all indications.

Now it’s on to the business of making the final two months of the season count in some meaningful way.

In that light it’s fitting that the Raptors are hosting the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. If you had to pick the moment when it became clear the high hopes so many had for Toronto’s season were misplaced, you could start with the Raptors two-game set against the Magic in Florida on Dec. 9^th and 11^th.

The Raptors lost both, seemingly overwhelmed by the Magic’s size and athleticism, and unable to get consistent stops defensively, a portent of things to come.

The losses put the Raptors under .500 for the first time since the opening week of the season, and while there had been plenty of alarm bells prior (getting blown-out in consecutive no-shows on the road against New Orleans and Brooklyn were red flags) losing twice to the then last-place Magic was proof that the Raptors weren’t simply having a rough start, but might actually not be very good.

The Raptors went on to lose a season-high six straight games and have been trying to recover ever since.

A lot has happened since. For example, an understanding that the Magic were much better than their record indicated at the time. Orlando was coming out of a nine-game losing streak, precipitated by injuries to their point guards (Markelle Fultz and Cole Anthony) and had bottomed out at 5-20 just before Toronto arrived.

Their wins over the Raptors were the second and third of what ended up being a six-game winning streak that included victories over the Los Angeles Clippers and two in Boston against the Boston Celtics, who were 22-7 at the time.

Since early December, the Magic have been driven by No.1 pick and likely rookie-of-the-year Paulo Banchero, second-year star Franz Wagner, and the resurgence of Fultz — a former No.1 pick by Philadelphia who hadn’t panned out — and are 18-14, compared to Toronto’s 14-17 mark.

So the 10^th-place Raptors may have a 3.5 game advantage over the 13^th-place Magic before they meet for the fourth and last time this season, but there are few indicators that they’re the better team.

The hope is that adding Poeltl will help tip the balance. Toronto is 1-1 in his first two appearances, but the underlying numbers are encouraging.

The Raptors' defensive rating with Poeltl on the floor is 98.9, compared with their 113.8 rating for the season (18^th) or 115.4 for the last two games when Poeltl sits, the latter the equivalent of the 25^th-worst mark in the league this season. For perspective, Cleveland leads the NBA with a rating of 108.9.

It's not hard to see Poeltl’s role and minutes expanding in rapid fashion.

“It's certainly a luxury to have someone with this size, and he's just such a smart, intelligent player,” Raptors assistant coach Adrian Griffin, who has been filling in while head coach Nick Nurse attends to a personal matter, said on Monday. “Sometimes we may get beat off the dribble because we're out there pressuring the ball so much. But to have someone like (Poeltl) give us that rim protection, block shots and limit them to one shot — you limit teams to one shot and you can get out of the run, you’re gonna have success. … He's only been with us for a couple of days, and he’s already picked up a lot of our concepts. So he's only going to get better.”

Poeltl is certainly feeling more comfortable, even if his ramp-up period has been so short. It helps that he can rely on the likes of Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet — his teammates for two seasons in Toronto when they all joined the club as rookies in 2016-17, before Poeltl was traded to the Spurs in the summer of 2018 in the deal that brought back Kawhi Leonard — to help acclimatize.

But he’s also a seven-year veteran who understands his job and his role and is comfortable learning on the fly. He was effective on Friday in his debut against Utah, where the Raptors blew a 13-point lead in the final minutes, mostly with Poeltl off the floor — but even more so on Sunday against the Pistons.

“It was like night and day,” said Poeltl. “First day was kind of like you get thrown into the deep end. You are just trying to make it work out. Obviously I knew about the schemes, I knew about the plays, but I didn’t really have it down yet. Like I said it’s about getting into a habit of doing things so that was tough the first game. I think it was a lot better already in the second game.”

Coincidence or not, each of the Raptors' offensive primary cogs had strong games on Sunday, with VanVleet putting up 35 points and Siakam 28, with eight and six assists, respectively.

“It's like he never left, you know, just kind of the chemistry there,” VanVleet said of Poeltl on Sunday. “I forgot how much we talk during the whole game trying to find ways to be successful.

“… I thought he got better as the game went on and just having another playmaker out there. He knows he’s got a very high IQ and he's such a smart player, so definitely lucky to have that at the centre position.”

The challenge now is translating the additional defensive support and offensive playmaking into wins.

The Magic will arrive to play for the third time in four nights and the on the second night of a back-to-back, travelling from Chicago.

It’s the kind of game the Raptors absolutely need to win as they head into the all-star break with just 22 games on the other side to make up ground in the East.

When the Raptors made the move to shore up their lineup by adding Poeltl, it was an acknowledgement that they had holes to fill and also that the goals they had before things started to go south with their visit to Orlando are still in play. The past two months haven’t gone according to plan, but the season isn’t over yet:

“You go through adversity, and you go through tough times, and you have to break through it,” said Siakam, who will be heading to Salt Lake City to represent the Raptors in his second All-Star Game this weekend. “I think that’s the only way, putting the work in every single day, understanding that it’s gonna be hard, really hard in our position, but if someone can do it it’s gonna be us. I bet on us on that.”