Raptors look to find a 'happy medium' on defence under Rajakovic

It’s not surprising that most of the conversation about what impact Darko Rajakovic will have on the Toronto Raptors as head coach has centred around what his team will look like offensively.

That’s where the Raptors struggled the most last season, at least in the halfcourt. It makes sense that ‘fixing’ that weakness would be a priority.

So, there's been plenty of talk so far about increased ball movement, sharper cutting, and more offence being run through the elbows and the top of the key, and Scottie Barnes as a point guard.

If you squinted hard enough and wanted it to be true enough, you could see some progress on that front in the handful of meaningful minutes the starters played against the Sacramento Kings in the Raptors' exhibition win on Sunday in Vancouver.

But whether the changes are meaningful and hold up under pressure likely won’t be known until the regular season starts and teams begin scouting the Raptors' potential weaknesses – if they shoot threes well enough to space the floor, being the most glaring.

But perhaps the most encouraging – and instantly transferable – development came on the other side of the ball where the Raptors looked very much like best version of themselves a year ago: a roving band of long-limbed defenders determined to make completing passes a challenge for their opponent.

On Sunday, they overwhelmed the Kings in the second quarter with a defensive effort that resulted in 13 team deflections (compared to two in the first quarter), helping Toronto generate 15 fast-break points.

Any coach of any team would take those kinds of numbers, but the hope is the Raptors can be disruptive without some of the cost: last season the Raptors led the NBA in forcing turnovers, which in turn fed into their transition game on offence, all part of a plan to off-set their shortcomings in shooting and shot creation in the halfcourt.

The cost was a steady stream of breakdowns when the initial wave of ball pressure got solved. Too often it resulted in the Raptors giving up an easy lay-up against a defence that had sold out to stop the initial action, one of the reasons Toronto was 29^th in opponents’ effective field goal percentage.

Under Rajakovic, the Raptors seem to be trying to strike a goldilocks approach – not too aggressive, but not too passive, either. Something just right.

“I'd say it's somewhere like a happy medium,” was how Raptors centre Jakob Poeltl described Rajakovic’s requirements after taking part in a lengthy practice at the OVO Athletic Centre on Wednesday, the team’s first in Toronto since training camp in Burnaby, B.C. wrapped up Sunday.

“I think still, for us, just the type of players we have, we're not going to get away from that aggressive identity. And I think it's good for us. It's good for our defence. But it's a little bit more controlled I would say, a little bit more reserved at times maybe. Yeah, a little bit less of a gambling effect than we might have had last year.”

Nailed it, says Rajakovic, who has been throwing a lot of information, schemes and concepts at a team trying to learn on the fly under an entirely new coaching staff.

“That's something definitely that we're going to focus on,” said Rajakovic, referring to the need to have active hands defensively, as a team. Their goal, he said, is 32 deflections per game, which is well above the league average, but they want to get there without compromising their other defensive principles: solid man-to-man defence with an aim of staying square to ball and minimizing the need to switch or help as a first resort. 

“For me, deflections are not necessarily part of gambling,” said Rajakovic. “It's how we pressure the ball. It's how we're guarding DHOs [dribble hand-offs]. “It's our active hands in pick and rolls. It's not necessarily going all out and just to try to go for steals. We're not going for steals. We're going for deflections and those are coming inside our team schemes.”

And why not? The Raptors may have turned over their entire coaching staff and much of their support staff too, but they are still among the league leaders in long, athletic defenders capable of getting in passing lanes by lifting up their arms.

Sure enough, after signing Dennis Schroder to replace Fred VanVleet at point guard, their next target was Jalen McDaniels, the lanky six-foot-nine forward who they liked in Charlotte and Philadelphia for his ability to be a menace both on the ball and passing lanes.

It’s not rocket science, says McDaniels who has averaged 1.5 steals per 36 minutes last season, one of the reasons the Raptors felt being able to sign him for $4.6 million this year and next was good value. McDaniels played well offensively against the Kings with 11 points on five shots in 15 minutes coming off the bench, but it’s defensive chops that will keep him in the lineup.

“Honestly, I feel like it’s the same defensive concepts everywhere,” said McDaniels. “Since I was in high school, we still do the same shuttle drill, same rotations. It’s all the same to me honestly. Nothing too much different, a few things here and there, maybe some different terminology but that’s about it. Generally it’s all the same.”

Hopefully it’s the outcome that’s different. If the offence is a little crisper and more dangerous in the halfcourt, there is less pressure on the defense to come up with steals to fuel transition to make up for it. Similarly, less gambling should mean the Raptors have fewer breakdowns that yield easy scores when they are defending.

If Rajakovic can get his club to be similarly disruptive but without leaving themselves at risk of too many breakdowns, it would be a big step towards having a successful season.

“I think, the main differences is it seems, or it feels, a little bit more structured, so far,” Poeltl said of the Raptors' defensive approach. “But at the end of the day, defence is about hustle and just giving a second, third, fourth effort, and I think we showed pretty big potential … in that game against the Kings.”