How Raptors might shore up their problems scoring in transition

When Nick Nurse took over as head coach of the Toronto Raptors in the summer of 2018, he fundamentally changed the stylistic tendencies of the team.

The Raptors went from a half-court oriented team to one that lived in transition, increasing the frequency of their transition offence from 15.5 per cent the year prior to 20.2 per cent in his first season at the helm. That style of play resulted in a championship, and the coolest transition dunk in franchise history.

In fact, even though Nurse came into the league heralded as an offensive mastermind, defence and transition scoring have been the two biggest indicators of success for the Raptors under Nurse.

Last season’s Raptors team had the second-best record in the NBA and the best winning-percentage in franchise history despite a middling half-court offence. Instead, the 2019-20 Raptors relied on the No. 2 defence in the league to get stops, force turnovers and a strong transition attack to score, with a league-leading 21.6 per cent of their offence coming in transition while scoring 1.15 points per possessions on those plays, third in the league.

It was beautiful basketball, with the point guards pushing the pace after makes and misses and the team sharing the ball until, more often than not, it resulted in a great look.

Many suspected that the 2020-21 Raptors would replicate last season’s success by playing a similar style. And while losing a playmaker like Marc Gasol and floor-spacing finisher like Serge Ibaka in free agency was predictably going to hurt the Raptors’ half-court offence, it was less clear how it would affect their transition game. After all, the Raptors got younger, faster, and more athletic in the off-season, so their roster seemed even better-suited to thrive in transition.

That hasn’t happened, but it’s not for a lack of trying.

The Raptors are running the second-most in the NBA behind only the Milwaukee Bucks, with 19.5 per cent of their offence coming in transition. The problem is that they haven’t been very good on the run, scoring an inefficient 1.06 points per possession in transition (while shooting 49.6 per cent), which ranks 27th in the league and, if it holds up over the course of a full season, would be the worst transition offence for a Raptors team since 2014-15. The Raptors’ two best finishers, Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell, have both seen their transition efficiency fall off a cliff this season.

Some teams can get away with an uninspired transition offence. The 2019-20 Bucks, for example, ran on 21.5 per cent of their plays while scoring 1.07 points per possession, but they made up for it with the second-best half-court offence in the league. The Raptors, on the other hand, have the NBA’s 16th-best half-court offence, per Cleaning the Glass.

Without an elite half-court offence to fall back on, the 2020-21 Raptors need to be much better in transition. Of course, their defence needs to improve, too, but with a top-10 defensive rating over their last 10 games, the Raptors are improving on that side of the ball.

Unfortunately, their transition scoring continues to be an area of concern, and while it may not be the biggest reason for the Raptors’ early-season struggles, it’s contributing to them losing games around the margins.

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Finishing and decision-making

Part of the problem is baked into the Raptors’ poor finishing around the rim as well as their lacklustre decision-making in transition.

The Raptors are shooting just 43.4 per cent on drives and 58.5 per cent at the rim this season — 28th and 25th in the league, respectively — with Siakam, Powell, and Fred VanVleet all shooting a lower percentage at the rim than they did last season. Part of that is over-aggression and bad decision-making as there are times when the Raptors are being too selfish in transition by trying to do everything by themselves instead of looking for the trailer or cutter, causing them to turn the ball over on 13.1 per cent percent of their transition possessions.

Fortunately, the finishing should see some positive regression as the season goes along, and the decision-making should improve as the Raptors figure out their rotations and get more experience playing with one another.

Gang rebounding

Unlike last season when the Raptors almost always had a traditional centre on the floor to clean up defensive rebounds, the Raptors now only employ one real centre in Aron Baynes. And while Baynes’ rebounding has improved since the start of the season, grabbing 22.3 per cent of defensive rebounds, he is only averaging 18.6 minutes per game, and the Raptors are generally playing much smaller than they have in the past.

The advantage of playing small is that the Raptors are averaging 9.3 steals per game and forcing the most turnovers in the league at 16.8 per cent, which is fueling their transition offence. In fact, the Raptors have been incredibly efficient when they run after steals, with 64.4 per cent of their transition offence coming off steals when the Raptors are scoring at a rate of 145.9 points per 100 possessions, ninth in the league.

One of the significant disadvantages to playing so small, however, is that the Raptors have been forced to “gang rebound” in order to be even average on the defensive glass this season, sending multiple bodies to the boards in order to make up for their lack of rebounding centres. This puts the Raptors in inopportune positions to run after live-ball rebounds because they very rarely have the numbers advantage required to push the pace.

Another disadvantage of playing smaller and gang rebounding is that the Raptors are playing wings like OG Anunoby and Siakam closer to the basket than they have in the past, with both of them averaging career-highs in rebounds, which is part of the reason we have seen so few go-ahead passes this season.

Instead of being in a position to leak out after the centre or guard comes up with the defensive board and finish plays, Anunoby, and especially Siakam, are being put in a position where they have to bring the ball up the court themselves, but their transition playmaking leaves much to be desired.

Diving into the numbers, a lot of the Raptors’ transition woes can be boiled down to their inefficiency after live-ball rebounds. While 34.5 per cent of the Raptors’ transition offence comes after rebounds, they are scoring just 113 points per 100 possessions on those plays, 22nd in the league. Comparatively, last season’s Raptors ran the same amount after rebounds and scored an improved 121.1 points per 100 possessions.

While it helps to have a trail threat like Gasol or Ibaka to finish plays or set drag-screens in transition, it starts with creating a numbers advantage in order to attack a back-tracking defence, and the Raptors are struggling to create those advantages because of their need to gang rebound and play their wings closer to the basket.

The Raptors have a possible solution to their rebounding issues in Yuta Watanabe, who ranks in the 98th percentile on the defensive glass, grabbing 20.2 per cent of defensive boards. Playing Watanabe more, especially when Baynes is
sitting, would allow the Raptors to always have a trustworthy rebounder in the game and not make them as dependent on sending multiple bodies to the glass.

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Just keep running

Another issue is that the Raptors simply aren’t running the floor as much as we’re used to seeing, and that could be due to fatigue.

Kyle Lowry, VanVleet, Siakam, and Anunoby are all averaging 34.8 or more minutes per game, so they could be feeling the effects of a heavy minutes’ load. But the same was true last season when the Raptors were an elite transition team, so the minutes aren’t the only factor.

What has changed is the Raptors’ defensive scheme. On top of playing a very active defence that constantly switches up coverages, double-teams opposing players, and rotates all over the floor to close-out on shooters, as mentioned before, the Raptors are asking Anunoby and Siakam to play closer to the basket than they have in the past, especially when Baynes is not in the game. This has forced Anunoby and Siakam to act more as the back-line help defenders and rim-protectors, while also banging against bigger bodies down low, which can obviously be very tiring.

So, in addition to the Raptors’ wings being in worse positions to leak out in transition, they also might be tired by
the end of the shot-clock.

With that in mind, it’s not all that surprising that the percentage of offence coming in transition has gone down for Siakam (21.7 to 18.1), Anunoby (24.6 to 20.5), as well as Powell (29.3 to 25.2), VanVleet (25 to 19.7) and Lowry (28.6 to 24.7).

End of rotation

The last thing contributing to the Raptors’ struggles in transition is their end-of-rotation players, who are mostly defensive-minded guys still figuring out how to play together.

While last season’s Raptors ran tight a seven- or eight-man rotation on most nights — with each player having a very clearly defined role — Nurse has gone much deeper into his bench this season, giving minutes to players like Terence Davis (in an expanded role), Stanley Johnson, Watanabe, DeAndre’ Bembry, and Malachi Flynn.

Without a clearly defined rotation, the Raptors are playing mixed-and-matched groupings without clear roles, and their lack of chemistry has led to mistakes in transition.

Plus, the Raptors’ end-of-rotation players are mostly specialists at this point in their careers, still developing their offensive skill sets. For the most part, they lack the mix of ball-handling, playmaking, and finishing skills necessary to thrive in transition, but they should get better as the season goes along.

Room for improvement

It’s not that the Raptors’ struggles in transition are the No. 1 reason for their slow start to the season, but it’s still a
reason — one that would have been hard to predict coming into the season.

As Nick Nurse told Sportsnet: “What I would like is a few more guys running hard. We need a little more centre-of-the-floor speed and I’d like to see more throw-aheads. I would like to see the guys who get the rebounds or the point guards who bring it getting it up the side as quickly as possible. … There’s room for improvement for sure.”

If the Raptors want to get back to the level of success they’re used to, they need to do the two things Nurse-led teams tend to do best: Defence and transition scoring.

They’re beginning to solve the first part of that equation. Now comes the second.

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