Nick Nurse’s phone is going to be quiet again. It’s a trend he’s noticed during the Toronto Raptors’ extended slump that could define their season, and it’s in contrast to what life has been like since he started coaching the team in the summer of 2018, started winning and didn’t stop – until now.
As the Raptors have struggled, and especially now that their losing streak continues to grow, Nurse’s phone has had less and less activity.
“You understand the difference between winning and losing [because] post-game there’s a lot of different reactions,” Nurse said. “You win a big, exciting game on ESPN and my phone’s flooded. When you lose one, there’s not a whole lot of action.”
In fairness, what is there to say?
The Raptors arrived in Houston having lost eight straight games — and 10 of their last 11 — and yet they were 9.5-point favourites over the Rockets, which might be expected given Houston had lost 20 straight games.
This would be the one where Toronto would get it turned around, right? Would Nurse’s phone fill up again?
Turns out no. The Raptors have their excuses. Flying from Cleveland to Houston to play on the second night of a back-to-back and third game in four nights isn’t nothing, and not having OG Anunoby available — the Raptors’ top individual defender was held out for rest as a precautionary measure — didn’t help.
But the Rockets are a train wreck coming off a loss so frustrating their rookie head coach Stephen Silas was nearly moved to tears, and the Raptors were never really a threat to extend Houston’s losing streak to 21.
So if Houston is spiralling, where does that leave Toronto?
A team in a hole that’s getting deeper, losers of nine straight and 11 of 12, while getting mired even more deeply into 11th place in the Eastern Conference. Two seasons ago the Raptors won the NBA title and last season they had the second-best record in the league. So far in this pandemic-altered season, Toronto is struggling to even keep touch with 10th place – the minimum requirement to qualify for the play-in tournament.
They’re 2.5 games behind Indiana, which is hardly insurmountable, but with just 29 games left they’re running out of time to completely reverse course. The trade deadline looming on Thursday could be another wrench in a season where the gears never stop grinding.
The 117-99 loss on Monday dropped Toronto to 17-26 and the schedule only gets more difficult from here, with dates with Denver, Phoenix and Portland – Western Conference playoff fixtures – all up next.
“We’ve just gotta play better,” said Kyle Lowry, who had 17 points and eight assists and, along with Norm Powell, has figured prominently in trade speculation for weeks. “It ain’t no secret, we’ve gotta play defence and we’ve gotta play better. It’s literally no secret to it, like I swear. I wish I could give you guys some other magical answer, but it’s literally no groundhog day. Every game’s different and we’re just not playing hard enough and we’re not playing well enough.”
The Raptors do need to figure out their defence. After giving up 116 points to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday – the 30th-ranked offence this season — Toronto was trailing 88-86 to Houston to start the fourth quarter, who have the NBA’s 29th-ranked offence and had been ranked 30th during their 20-game losing streak.
The Raptors trailed by five with 8:56 to play but allowed Houston to go on a 16-5 run that put the game out of reach. The Rockets controlled the pace and attacked the paint at will, led by John Wall who finished with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists.
The Raptors didn’t help themselves as they seemed to run out of gas, legs, and offence down the stretch – it’s hard to win games coming from behind when you score just 13 points in the fourth quarter.
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The Raptors got 27 points from VanVleet and 21 from Pascal Siakam, but shot just 10-of-40 from three and coughed up 15 turnovers.
The drawing board is full of scribbles right now.
After having five players and six coaches out due to health-and-safety protocols, Nurse said in many ways it seems like training camp as he tries to get his team up to pace with the rest of the league operating at full speed. It certainly looks that way.
“I think that we’re still working our way back, I just think we don’t have the energy maybe or the juices to do it as much as we need to,” said Nurse. “I think we’re still kind of, some guys are working their way back into condition and like I said it’s a real five-man thing right? I just think that we’re gonna have to continue to play these games and hopefully that gets us in a little better shape, and we can handle some sustained play, some consistent play over longer periods of time.”
Even after a four-hour flight following their loss to Cleveland on Sunday night, the Raptors got off to a positive start. With Anunoby out to rest – a preventative measure given it would be just his third game after missing nearly three weeks due to health-and-safety protocols and he was previously just finding his legs after missing 10 games with a calf strain – Stanley Johnson started instead.
The Raptors got the early defensive focus Nurse was hoping for as they jumped out to a quick 15-9 lead on a steady diet of layups and dunks with some early transition opportunities that usually bode well for Toronto. Things picked up again when Nurse went to his bench with rookie Malachi Flynn and second-year man Paul Watson. Getting the call again along with Chris Boucher on a unit joined by Kyle Lowry, Watson showed some spark right away with consecutive corner threes that put Toronto up 28-21. The Rockets finished the quarter on a 6-0 run, but Toronto leading 28-27 at the end of the first was the kind of baby steps the fragile team needed.
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But they didn’t get very far. The leaky defence that has plagued them throughout this streak – Toronto has given up 118.3 points per 100 possessions, 29th in the NBA over that period – showed up again in the second quarter. The Rockets started running hot and Toronto couldn’t turn off the water as Houston scored 38 points on 58-per cent shooting, including a heave by Danuel House seconds before halftime that put Houston up 65-60.
That was as close to a high point as the Raptors had, but par for the course this season.
The Raptors get a rare day off on Tuesday and a chance to get away from the grind of a losing streak and the questions about the trade deadline.
Lowry says he’ll spend it with his kids and maybe – no, not maybe, definitely — on the golf course back in Tampa.
And then get back to work.
“I’m going to basically understand how to kind of get away from it, right, for a little bit, but then at night, I’m going to do my job,” said Lowry. “I’m going to get my workout in, guys are going to get their work in because it’s our job, we’re still going to go out there and do our job, prepare every single day and every single night, like we always do. I have some personal time to get away from it but then I’m going to get back to work and be ready to go for the next game.”
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