The Raptors' problems are only beginning — and there's no soft landing in sight

Scottie Barnes took the microphone at centre court and looked out to the crowd before the Toronto Raptors' final home game until the Christmas holidays and wished everyone a happy holiday season. Then, with a big warm smile that has not been on display all that often so far this season, Barnes said “enjoy the game.”

The second-year wing did a great job. He surely meant well. The vibes were warm and fuzzy for crowd heavy on young families taking advantage of the 6 p.m. start. 

It was all downhill from there.

The Golden State Warriors are the defending NBA champions. Only a fool would count them out despite arriving in Toronto with a losing record, missing Steph Curry and Toronto’s own Andrew Wiggins (both due to injury) and sporting a ghastly 2-14 road record, the worst in the NBA, amazingly.

So it may be a measure of how much the Raptors are hurting right now that the Warriors knocked them back early and never let Toronto have a sniff in a 126-110 loss. The Raptors could neither effectively puncture the Warriors' defence nor find a way to even briefly contain the short-handed Warriors when they had the ball.

“Well, I think we are going to have to guard better, first of all,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “… We certainly had a tough time tonight. It wasn’t very good. There wasn’t a whole lot of positives to take out of the defensive side especially. We were just chasing them all night and not playing our schemes very good … “

The Raptors were coming off a pair of ‘encouraging’ losses against Sacramento and Brooklyn that went down to the wire. That wasn’t the case Sunday as Toronto – playing without Gary Trent Jr. (quad soreness) and O.G. Anunoby (hip soreness) – lost for the fifth straight game and eighth time in 10 games as their record slipped to 13-17. The Warriors improved to 15-16.

The box score was a familiar one if you’ve been following along in what is turning out to be a very strange season. They did most of the things they set out to do each game: earn extra possessions through offensive rebounds (Toronto led 18-12); force their opponent into more turnovers than they make (17-14 Raptors, in this instance) and hope that the overall shot advantage (Toronto took 14 more than the Warriors on Sunday) will translate into more points.

It’s a nice plan, but it has been failing more often than not because the Raptors are high-volume missers – they shot just 42.1 per cent from the floor Sunday – and rather generous defenders, as the Warriors shot 53.1 per cent from the floor and 46.2 per cent from three. Teams were shooting 53.3 per cent against them  in the four lossed before last night and 38.8 per cent from deep.

Golden State was sparked by a career-high 43 points from Jordan Poole, who did his damage on 14-of-23 shooting including 5-of-11 from three. But it was the Warriors' 30 assists on 42 made field goals prior to the final few minutes of garbage time that stood out. The Warriors could get what they wanted.

The Raptors? They played offence like their only tool was a shovel.

Too many possessions were drives into traffic that neither collapsed the defence nor resulted in much more than a contested two in the paint. When the Warriors went zone the Raptors had no answer through ball movement, player movement or penetration, so the Warriors wisely kept it up.

Pascal Siakam finished with 27 points, five rebounds and six assists, Fred VanVleet had 22 points, eight assists and four rebounds and Scottie Barnes had 17 points and five rebounds, but collectively they shot 42.5 per cent and it all looked very difficult. Malachi Flynn had some nice moments off the bench with 16 points, but even then he was 6-of-16.

Sigh. The problem with a team like the Warriors is that even with Curry and Wiggins out, they still have plenty of weapons.

The Raptors? They don’t. Anunoby – one of the Raptors leading scorers and their best defender – is expected to be back this week, but is that enough?

“It's not really a one-guy thing, really, at this point,” said VanVleet.  “Obviously having all of our best players helps, just having all the top guys. I don't think we're really built to have a ton of injuries. So we need our top guys to be available and to play their best. Obviously we'll be happy to have him back, but we've got work to do with or without him. He can shore up some of those areas, but we've got work to do.”

As the losses mount, they need to work on some of their softer skills too: keeping positive, not allowing slumps and bad breaks to seep into their preparation or competitiveness. In can be a vicious cycle and the Raptors are the brink.

“The reality is, we're not playing well,” said Siakam. “… like whatever the case is, like, we gotta play better, that’s the main thing. We got to get wins and we got to figure out a way to get a win and then kind of build on it, yeah, it's hard for me to try to analyze everybody but just like us, like, we have to get a win.”

Early on it was Green who set the tone. The Raptors decided that leaving him uncovered from deep was a reasonable gamble given he’s shooting 29 per cent this season. But Green settled into his wide-open looks nicely and had three triples before the game was two minutes old on his way to a 13-point first quarter.

Initially, the Raptors matched the Warriors – Siakam hit two quick threes and VanVleet had a long one too, but the Warriors kept moving the ball and the Raptors' offence stagnated more often than not.

One example being how JaMychal Green and Ty Jerome doubled VanVleet at the end of the first quarter with the shot clock winding down and strung him out to the sideline until the normally unflappable point guard stepped out of bounds.

The Warriors led 36-26 after the first quarter as Golden State shot 61.9 per cent from the floor and counted 11 assists on 13 made field goals. The Raptors shot just 40 per cent from the floor and had just three assists on their eight field goals.

In the second quarter, Poole took over. The Raptors had cut the Warriors' lead to six when Poole got on a roll anchoring the Warriors' bench unit. But he had help.

Jonathan Kuminga – who was the seventh pick in the 2021 draft – scored on a swooping left-hand layup and got a steal on a weak entry pass from Scottie Barnes that ended up as a Poole three in transition as the Warriors quickly pushed the lead out to 13. Poole went on to score 15 of his 25 first-half points in the second quarter as Golden State took a 68-54 lead into the half.

Toronto needed to push back in the third quarter. Instead, they found the hole getting deeper beneath them.

The offence stalled out entirely – they shot just 10-of-28 in the third and 4-of-14 from deep as the Warriors settled back into their zone and the Raptors gave them no reason to change it up. Meanwhile, Poole and Thompson scored 18 points combined on nine total shots.

The Warriors led 102-80 to start the fourth quarter and were never threatened.

The Raptors? Their problems are only beginning as they head on the road for a difficult three-game road trip starting against Philadelphia Monday, then face the red-hot Knicks on Wednesday and end in Cleveland on Friday. They get a break for Christmas and a three-game homestand after, but if anything the quality of the opponents is even better.  There’s not a soft landing in sight. 

“It’s hard to stay optimistic when you go out there and it feels like the same result. But we have to find a way,” said Siakam. “We have to dig deep. It’s easy to have energy when everything is going [well]. The hardest part is when it feels like everything is going not your way when you make a mistake, or it’s a 50-50 ball and they get the ball and get a three. When it feels like everything is just not working out, it’s hard to have energy. But we have to find it. We have to find it.”

Happy holidays? Not so much, maybe.