Seriously, can the Toronto Raptors do this?
It’s go time. The Raptors hosted the Eastern Conference-leading Brooklyn Nets at Amalie Arena on Tuesday night with 11 games to play and one game to make up in the turtle race for the final spot in the play-in tournament, and with it the slim chance that would offer for a post-season run of some sort.
The Nets weren’t quite the Nets – still missing from their lineup was James Harden (hamstring), arguably the best offensive player in the sport at the moment – but they are still potent.
They had Kevin Durant making his first start since April 18 due to a thigh injury, and making just his seventh appearance in the Nets' past 36 starts due to other ailments. They have integrated buyout addition Blake Griffin successfully, can look to Joe Harris leading the NBA in three-point shooting percentage and have four more regulars averaging at least two made threes a game.
Even without Harden, they aren’t a just problem — they’re lots of them.
But the Nets were just the start of a gauntlet that would present a roadblock for the best of teams, and in the Raptors' case, could end up being the final nail in their season by the time it all shakes out.
After hosting Brooklyn, the Raptors travel to Denver to play the Nuggets on Thursday, on to Utah to play the Jazz on Saturday, then to Los Angeles to meet the Lakers on a second night of a back-to-back Sunday before finishing up the four-game trip against the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday.
Including the Nets game, it means that in a five-game span over eight nights in three time zones, the Raptors will be trying to make up ground against the first-place team in the East and the teams ranked first, third, fourth and fifth in the highly competitive West.
If the Raptors harbour any hopes of salvaging a competitive result from their topsy-turvey season, they are going to have to beat some really good teams.
That hasn’t changed after Tuesday night, but they have one less game to do it.
The Raptors were in the mix for 38 of the game’s 48 minutes, even while playing on the second night of back-to-back against a rested Nets club. They showed enough that you could believe that maybe this version of the Raptors — healthier, deeper and bigger than they have been at any point this season — could do something special.
And then the Nets abruptly shut the door on what ended up a 116-103 win.
The Raptors were up six early in the fourth quarter after emerging rookie guard Malachi Flynn converted a spectacular three-point play with 9:36 left to play. Toronto had momentum and reason to believe.
But a pair of Harris triples sandwiched around a three by Griffin sparked a 22-6 run that put the Nets up by 10 with 3:37 to play. Toronto couldn’t get back under seven and the Nets pulled away.
The loss dropped Toronto to 26-36 and keeps them in 12th place with 10 to play, while the Nets improved to 42-20 and kept their spot atop the East.
There was plenty to like: The Raptors got another nice game from Flynn, who finished with 13 points on eight shots and added three assists without making a turnover in his 21 minutes. Khem Birch continued to show well in his seventh start since joining Toronto from Orlando as a free agent, finishing with 13 points and 14 rebounds — including nine on the offensive glass — in 32 minutes, while Kyle Lowry had his best game since being rested for much of April as he put up 24 points while shooting 6-of-9 from three.
OG Anunoby continued his outstanding run of two-way play, with 21 points on 15 shots and six assists while hounding Durant for much of the night as part of a scheme to eliminate him and Irving and let the rest of the Nets beat them.
That all worked out well as the Raptors limited Durant to just 17 points on seven shots in 33 minutes — tying a career low for attempts in games he’s played at least 30 minutes — and held Irving to nine points on 3-of-13 shooting. As well, they out-rebounded the Nets 47-41 and — thanks to Birch — grabbed 15 offensive rebounds to seven for Brooklyn.
But the Raptors still had some holes in their bucket. Pascal Siakam had a miserable game after what has been a fantastic month of April, as he shot 2-of-16 from the floor while Fred VanVleet was 4-of-17.
“I think our offence was pretty good tonight. Our shot-making maybe wasn’t great, but I think it was pretty good — it wasn’t great, but it was pretty good,” said Raptors head coach Nick Nurse. “I don’t think 116’s an outlandish number for that team and you’ve just gotta score a little bit more and I think the opportunities were there to do that.”
Meanwhile even as Durant and Irving were stifled, the Nets' other three starters – Jeff Green, Harris and Landry Shamet — scored 22, 16 and 14 points respectively. Nets head coach Steve Nash only went three-deep on his bench but didn’t need to go further as he got 38 points combined from Griffin, Tyler Johnson and Mike James.
The Raptors had some cause to be confident before the tip. They came into the game 2-0 against the Nets but had previously only played a handful of minutes against Durant, who was taken off the floor in the second quarter due to health-and-safety protocols when the two teams first met on Feb. 5. Durant was hurt when they met last week.
Durant came off the bench in his first game back against the Phoenix Suns on Saturday and still scored 33 points. Now, he was the Raptors' problem.
The Raptors had that part covered early. They committed multiple defenders to Durant from the outset and changed up their coverages on Irving as well. Meanwhile, Toronto came out energized on offence as they started the same five — Lowry and VanVleet in the backcourt, Siakam and Anunoby up front, with newcomer Birch in the middle — for a season-high fourth straight game.
Lowry led the way with a pair of early triples and continued his fine chemistry with Birch, finding the Montreal big man for some easy hoops at the basket. Toronto led by as much as eight in the opening minutes and by 28-26 after the first quarter.
And defensively, Toronto’s game plan was well-executed. Durant has only taken less then 10 shots in his career twice in games in which he’s played at least 32 minutes, but he only shot twice in 17 first-half minutes against Toronto, making both. Meanwhile, Irving – averaging 27.3 points a game on the season – never looked comfortable and shot just 1-of-6 from the floor in his 17 first-half minutes.
But the Nets are a sneaky deep team and they had three players other than their two superstars in double figures at the half, led by Green with 12 as the Nets took a 58-52 lead into the third quarter.
It was a promising start, but the stakes were hard to overlook. Somehow, some way the Raptors are going to have to beat some excellent teams if they are going to earn a chance to beat some more in the playoffs.
Upsetting Brooklyn would have been a great place to start.
Instead, the Raptors kept firing blanks. Shooting 7-of-20 and 2-of-10 from deep in the fourth quarter isn’t going to win many games against quality opponents. The Raptors defended reasonably well against a Nets team that can dismantle even the most disciplined game plans, but it’s hard to overcome shooting just 39 per cent from the field and 35 per cent from three.
“They switched at times [defensively] so it kinda took us out of our general flow and kind of a lot of actions we like to run,” said VanVleet, who has been struggling with a hip problem. “But I thought we generated a lot of good shots, a lot of open shots, I know I certainly had my share, so, we just gotta make sure we make shots and play at a higher level, clip offensively but the flow and the rhythm was just kinda never there.”
The Raptors will have more chances to knock off some of the big boys in the coming week. Their season depends on it.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9uYmEvYXJ0aWNsZS9uZXRzLWxvc3MtbWVhbnMtcmFwdG9ycy1tdXN0LXJ1bi1nYXVudGxldC1rZWVwLXBsYXlvZmYtaG9wZXMtYWxpdmUv0gEA?oc=5
2021-04-28 02:49:00Z
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