The NBA season has multiple phases. Like a marathon it requires patience, pacing and a focus on each stride without losing sight of the big picture -- the finish line that’s distant at first but gets incrementally closer.
But at some point, it becomes a race and it’s time to run.
The Toronto Raptors are approaching that stage. With just 19 games left it would be a good time to surge, and a very bad time to start bonking – the point where distance athletes run out of energy and sometimes collapse.
If it happens it would be a shame because through injuries, through COVID, through playing home games in an empty arena they has somehow maneuvered themselves into an encouraging position: comfortably in seventh place, with a 2.5-game lead over the eighth-place Brooklyn Nets and just two games behind the slumping Cleveland Cavaliers who have lost six of their past seven games and three straight - the Cavs’ first blip in an otherwise charmed season.
For Toronto, finishing seventh doesn’t guarantee anything. Two losses in the play-in tournament and their season would be over. It’s a similar scenario if they slide back to eighth, ninth or 10th – they have a shot to keep their season going, but the lower they finish the slimmer it gets.
But if they can somehow manage to pull themselves into sixth the Raptors would at least have a seven-game first-round series to show for their efforts, and it would be an impressive return to form after their debacle in Tampa last season, and in their first year of the post-Kyle Lowry era.
But it won’t be easy. The Eastern Conference is talented and deep, top-to-bottom. As the Detroit Pistons have shown the Raptors, even the teams taking aim at the draft lottery have enough in their lineup to hurt a team like the Raptors, especially when missing all-star Fred VanVleet and OG Anunoby, two of their best shooters and best defenders.
Similarly, the Magic might be short on wins, but they’re not without talent, including Jalen Suggs, the powerful guard taken one spot after Scottie Barnes in the draft this past summer, and Franz Wagner, taken eighth, who has outperformed his draft slot in an exceptionally deep rookie class.
“Well, I watch the standings,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse when I asked him if trying make a push for sixth was on his mind. “I don’t know if I’m zeroed in on sixth place or whatever. I watch them and know that it’s really wild. The team that’s seventh place in the East is closer [to first, at seven games out] than the team in second place position in the West [the Golden State Warriors are 7.5 games behind first-place Phoenix].
“[But] I don’t think there is any point in trying to position or think about that. We just got to try and click off a win somehow. This isn’t easy as you guys know. It’s six games in eight days and third straight back-to-back with plenty of firepower out. As you guys can see teams with tons of talent, tons and tons of talent (opposing) so we just got to click them off and I imagine those other teams above us will be playing each other and there will be some losses in there and things like that. We’ll just roll with it and hope we can hang in there.”
They haven’t done themselves any favours. One night after the Pistons proved too much for the Raptors to handle the last-place Orlando Magic got the better of the Raptors, handing Toronto a 103-97 loss, dropping them to 2-4 since the All-Star break and 34-29 on the season. Orlando improved to 16-48.
The Raptors never let the Magic get out of reach but couldn’t reel them in either. They started the fourth trailing by 12 and got the Scotiabank Arena crowd rolling as they cut what was a 14-point Magic lead with under five minutes to play to only seven with 2:47 to play, a surge entirely engineered by Malachi Flynn who continues his strong play at point guard with VanVleet sidelined.
Three times he drove into the teeth of the defense and found a teammate for a dunk or a lay-up and another time he scored a lay-up of his own. But the Magic were able to find Mo Bamba for an alley-oop on a quick-strike in transition, and then found the big centre for another dunk after Yuta Watanabe made a bad pass trying to push the ball the other way - suddenly the Raptors were down 11 with two minutes to play and couldn’t find the requisite miracle.
Pascal Siakam led all scorers with 34 points and added 14 rebounds – “he played his guts out,” said Nurse – and Flynn finished with a season-high 20 points and season-high tying eight assists.
But their efforts couldn’t make up for Toronto’s 39.8 per cent shooting overall (32.4 per cent from three), even as the Magic shot just 37.9 per cent themselves. The difference was largely at the free throw line, where the Magic were 20-of-21 from the line and Toronto just 11-of-17.
In the battle of the rookies Barnes finished with 10 points on 4-of-15 shooting while the Magic’s Suggs had 15 points and seven assists while Wagner had 11 points and seven rebounds.
The Raptors certainly haven’t had it easy. In addition to the compressed schedule, they’ve been without VanVleet for four straight games now as he tried to get a bruised knee right and Anunoby for all six games since the All-Star break. He’s likely out for another 10 days as he waits for a fractured finger in his shooting hand to heal.
And now they head out on a six-game, 13-day road trip that starts in Cleveland on Sunday and ends in Los Angeles on March 16th.
“Listen, we're missing two of our best players here since the All-Star break for the most part, too, right? And we're always going to be battling a little bit if we're going to be doing that,” said Nurse.
“So, we didn't have it or, I don't know, it's kind of weird, we just didn't seem to come out that good out of the All-Star break and I don't know what to attribute that to. Maybe too much rest? What's that old saying? Body in motion tends to stay in motion and a body at rest tends to stay at rest? Well, we had our in motion pretty good and we've got to go a little bit. And it's also not the greatest schedule coming out of the All-Star break, either.”
In a perfect world, Toronto would have taken better advantage of their just completed three-game home stand, playing in front of fans at home for the first time since the calendar flipped.
But it’s hard to overcome what has been an abhorrent team-wide shooting slump. In their previous two games at home Toronto shot just 14-of-49 from three. Gary Trent Jr. – the Raptors only reliable perimeter threat with VanVleet and Anunoby out – was 6-of-24 on his own and is shooting 27 per cent overall in five starts since the All-Star break.
He finished with four points on 2-of-12 shooting and was on the bench down the stretch.
“He’s got to find that rhythm and the confidence he was feeling for such a long time,” said Nurse. “He did show a little bit of needing to find rhythm when he came out of his COVID stint. Now we’re coming off the next break, which is the All-Star break, so pretty confident he’ll find it back. He’s a confident guy.”
He didn’t find it the first half against Orlando – he was 1-of-6 over the opening two quarters - and no one else on the Raptors did either.
Toronto trailed 48-39 to start the third. There were some encouraging signs. Toronto held Orlando to 37.5 per cent from the floor and limited them to just three offensive rebounds, and they made an acceptable six turnovers.
But they couldn’t hit a shot. Toronto shot just 38 per cent in the first quarter and made only 3-of-10 threes and then – almost impossibly, things got worse as they shot 25 per cent and made only 2-of-10 triples.
Siakam was a bright spot as he scored 13 points on eight shots, but the rest of the Raptors starters were 6-of-20.
The Magic were getting enough from their young lineup – rookies Wagner and Suggs combined for 16 points and nine assists in the half – and for the first time in a long time Barnes wasn’t the best rookie on the floor.
The Raptors struggles continued in the third although they shot 38 per cent in the period and made 3-of-8 threes – they even managed a little 6-0 run at one point to cut the Magic’s lead to seven. But Orlando pushed back and took a 72-60 lead into the fourth.
The Raptors couldn’t close the gap and seem to be losing momentum just as the NBA marathon is picking up the pace.
