TORONTO — Things were going too well.
The Toronto Raptors were on their way to a seventh straight victory, turning an impressive road trip into a strong stretch of home play against weak opposition, when RJ Barrett limped in after a dunk. It seemed like a play without anything — Barrett just didn’t absorb the return to court as he usually does.
The Raptors are calling it a sprained knee, with further testing Monday. Barrett has played effectively, but if there’s one position the Raptors can fill with their depth, it’s wing. Ja’Kobe Walter and Gradey Dick both played solidly off the bench.
The injury didn’t stop the Raptors from beat the Brooklyn Nets on Sundayas they pulled away in the final minutes in the 119-109 victory. There is no automatic victory in the NBA, and 12-5 is a good start as they head into a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who should be healthier than they have been all season. The Raptors beat them twice in Cleveland.
The Raptors are in a good place. There will be some skepticism, however, until we delve deeper into the season. Not sure what to think about the Raptors leaving? We’ve covered the optimists and the pessimists.
Glass half full
The starters gather
Early in the year, the Raptors games had a pattern. The starters would start slowly. Jamal Shead and Sandro Mamukelashvili would come off the bench, then the Raptors would cut the deficit. Things would evolve from there, with the Raptors usually finding a way to come out on top thanks to the strength of their hybrid lineups.
Finally, the starters put it all together. Jakob Poeltl did not play against the Nets as the Raptors are keeping him out of back-to-back games for now while they deal with his back injury. They entered Sunday’s game as the most used lineup in the league, playing 166 minutes in total. And even if the defense is still fragile, they dominate their opponents by five points per 100 possessions. They have an offensive rating of 121.5 and an assist percentage of 67.9, which would rank them third and seventh in the league, respectively.
The last issue is particularly interesting. It would be easy to assume that lineups with Brandon Ingram would depend much more on his one-on-one scoring than other looks on the team. While this is somewhat true, the starting group blends their skills and Rajaković’s philosophy of passing and movement very well. Ingram also makes the correct reads in important situations.
Problems persist with the group’s defensive perimeter, but the starting five is playing well. Hopefully Barrett’s absence will be short-lived.
An affirmed identity
No one is saying the execution was perfect, but the Raptors know how they want to play and rarely deviate from it. Even though they have reduced their defensive pressure, they continue to be one of the most aggressive teams in the league. Emmanuel Quickley and Gradey Dick both stole the ball when it looked like the Nets might take their first lead of the game in the fourth quarter on Sunday.
Although they look to run in transition, the Raptors are top 10 at limiting their own turnovers. They have the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in the league. They also force turnovers at a top-10 rate. They had 10 fewer turnovers than the Nets on Sunday.
No team scores as frequently as they do on the counterattack. They are seventh in potential assists per game and sixth in actual assists.
To paraphrase GI Joe, knowing who you are is half the battle. The Raptors have this.
Altruism and malleability
It’s the kind of thing you know when you see. There is no pressure among the Raptors as to who is going to take the most shots. Everyone rows in sync. When Quickley was going through his shooting struggles to start the year, no one criticized his shot selection.
These things aren’t always quantifiable, but it’s clear the Raptors aren’t worried about their individual numbers. Perhaps that comes from the fact that none of their starters are heading to free agency. Maybe it’s just the right combination of players at the right times in their careers. The team’s leaders, both within the technical staff and on the field, preached the right things.
There was concern about how Ingram, Barrett and Scottie Barnes would share the ball early in the season. Well, they all came into the Nets game with usage percentages between 23 and 26. Barrett usually gets the ball on his own or the ball’s motion. Ingram is the anchor in the half court while Barnes makes things happen on the run.
Additionally, the Raptors are happy to play small by putting Quickley and Shead together in the backcourt and Barnes or Collin-Murray Boyles at center. We haven’t seen Poeltl share the floor with Mamukelashvili yet, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Raptors try a bigger look from time to time.
Glass half empty
Opponent’s shot
It’s been a disagreement among basketball thinkers since analytics entered the broader debate around the sport: How much can a team impact its opponents’ 3-point accuracy?
“If you remember the Houston Rockets a few years ago, when they were all the way to the rim or 3s, you would go into the game and tell your guys, ‘You’ve got to take those 3s out.’ And yet they take 50 3s in a game,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said. “But the quality of the shot, whether those shots are going to be contested or not, how you’re going to contest those shots, whether you’re going to contest them on their side, their shooting hand, all of those things have a shooting factor or percentage.”
In general, athletes and coaches like to think they have an impact on results. The Raptors’ opponents are shooting 32.3 percent from 3, third-worst in the league. Either the Raptors have been very good at defending the 3, or they are very, very lucky. (Or both.)
The Raptors entered the game ranked third in 3-point percentage, connecting on 38.5 percent of their attempts. They’re near the bottom in terms of attempts, so they don’t have a huge advantage in success per game over their opponents. Yet if everything balances out, one might expect them to be late.
Bounce
The Raptors are a below-average team in terms of offensive rebounding, defensive rebounding, and, therefore, total rebounding. This hasn’t been a major problem on its own, but you can see how this element and the element above could combine to turn the Raptors’ defense into a problem.
If their opponents start trending upward with 3-point makes and the Raptors continue to give up more than their share of rebounds, the overall state of the defense will suddenly become an issue. Notably, the Raptors entered the Nets game grabbing 47.3 percent of available rebounds when Poeltl was off the floor and just 46 percent when Barnes was sitting. Turns out these guys are important.
What awaits us
We all know the Western Conference is not what we thought it would be heading into the season. However, it’s possible that some of the West’s disasters will fall into place by the time the Raptors play them. Toronto has not played a game in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, and won’t until Jan. 18 against the Lakers. As it turns out, this game will officially kick off the second half of the Raptors’ season.
The Raptors’ schedule hasn’t been easy so far. Ten teams have won less than 40 percent of their games this season, and the Raptors are now 5-1 against them. That’s what good teams are supposed to do against the worst teams in the league, and the Raptors shouldn’t be penalized. If the Raptors continue this momentum and share the rest of the games, they will flirt with 50 victories.
However, they only played two games against the teams with the six best records (Detroit, Oklahoma City, Denver, the Lakers, San Antonio and Houston) and lost them both decisively. They’ll face these teams at least 11 more times, and maybe more if they play the Pistons in the NBA Cup. They beat the Cavaliers, who travel to Toronto on Monday, twice, but Cleveland was without Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Darius Garland in one of those games.
In other words, the Raptors’ toughest games are yet to come.
