How the Raptors are staying resilient and avoiding extinction despite Lowry's injury
Toronto's new acquisitions have transformed the team already
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7 min read
NEW YORK — DeMar DeRozan took the hand-off from Cory Joseph and looked at the clock. Nine seconds left. “DE-FENSE!” the Madison Square Garden crowd chanted. The Toronto Raptors guard sized up his defender, Derrick Rose, outside the 3-point line, calmly dribbling the ball back and forth through his legs. Five seconds left. DeRozan dribbled left to his sweet spot: the elbow.
In these moments, DeRozan said he feels like he’s back in the gym by himself working on his game. He was not worried about the crowd, even though he promised “buckets” to a courtside fan just before the play. He was not worried about the score, even though the New York Knicks led by one point.
“Everything seems like it just slows down,” DeRozan said. “The repetitions that you do all summer, during the season, over and over and over, you honestly just get stuck in that zone for that couple of seconds.”
DeRozan rose for the jump shot as if there was nobody near him. Rose’s left arm stretched as far as it could, but the release was clean. On the sideline, Raptors forward Patrick Patterson placed his arm on teammate Norman Powell’s shoulder. He had no doubts about the result.
“We wanted Derrick Rose, we wanted a smaller guy on Deebo,” Patterson said. “And once we got that, I’m like, turnaround jumper, if he elevates, it’s in. As soon as it left his hands, I’m like yep, that’s in.”
Buckets, indeed. When it splashed through the net, Patterson and the rest of the Raptors screamed and stomped their way to DeRozan, congratulating the man who was smirking at the disappointed Knicks fans in attendance.
He deserved every bit of the adulation. DeRozan scored Toronto’s last 12 points of the game, outscoring the the Knicks by himself in the final three minutes.
Toronto’s 92-91 victory was its third in a row without DeRozan’s fellow All-Star guard, Kyle Lowry, who will have surgery Tuesday to remove loose bodies from his wrist. (The reported timetable is four to six weeks; the hope is that he’ll be able to get a few regular-season games in before the playoffs start.) DeRozan dropped a career-high 43 points against the Celtics, then scored 33 on 16 shots against the Blazers a night before getting 37 and the game-winner at MSG.
The Raptors’ confidence they can hold the fort without Lowry, however, is not because they expect the midrange maestro to sustain a 64.9 percent true shooting percentage. It is because “the whole dynamic of our team,” in DeRozan’s words, has changed.
DeRozan would never have had an opportunity to play hero if not for a few crucial fourth-quarter plays by the new guys. With 4:30 left, forward P.J. Tucker snuck inside and wrestled an offensive rebound away from Carmelo Anthony. The ball made its way back to DeRozan, who played the two-man game with big man Serge Ibaka to create an open 3-pointer. Ibaka swished it to tie the game.
On Toronto’s next offensive possession, DeRozan missed a corner 3-pointer but Tucker stuck his nose in a crowd of Knicks, came away with the board and scored off the glass to give his team the lead. A couple of minutes later, Tucker switched onto Rose on the perimeter, stuck with the guard on a crossover and took a charge. On the ground, Ibaka playfully punched Tucker’s chest to celebrate.
Before president Masai Ujiri made his moves, the Raptors were in a downward spiral. Two weeks ago they had lost 10 of 14, with Lowry telling reporters that something had to change and DeRozan admitting it would be nice if the front office brought in some help. The Ibaka deal, a gift on Valentine’s Day, solved the power forward problem that became a catastrophe when Patterson was out with a knee injury. The Tucker deal was done moments before last Thursday’s trade deadline and gave them equally needed doses of toughness and versatility.
Ibaka and Tucker make this roster, with a healthy Lowry, Toronto’s best in franchise history. They also make the team believe it can survive without him.
It is not complicated to construct the case that the Raptors will sink without Lowry. He is their best player by just about any measure, save for points per game and All-Star votes. He is the director of their offense, which was the best in the NBA -- even more efficient than the superteam in the Bay Area -- for the first half of the season. When Lowry has been on the court, Toronto has outscored opponents by 8.1 points per 100 possessions. When he’s been off it, it has been outscored by 3.1 points per 100 possessions. He is the Raptors’ best shooter, their best passer and the engine of the team.
The case for them getting through this is equally simple: They can win games differently now. Ibaka remembers what it was like when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook went down with injuries in Oklahoma City. With Lowry out, he said, Toronto’s main focus must be defense. Coach Dwane Casey has been obsessed with hard-nosed, defense-first basketball for decades, but none of his Raptors teams has been blessed with this much depth and flexibility.
Patterson, who said last month that Ujiri “always makes the right decision,” is quickly developing chemistry with Ibaka. The two of them space the floor on offense, and more important, cover a ton of ground on the other end.
“Serge, we all know his shot-blocking ability,” Patterson said. “If anybody gets by us and gets to the rim, we have confidence in Serge knowing that he’s going to be there to contest the shot. But also he’s able to stay in front of his man on the perimeter, guard smaller guys and guard bigger guys down low. He’s very versatile, can move his feet, he’s very quick. He’s a joy to play alongside out there.”
Tucker said he loves playing with Ibaka and forward DeMarre Carroll, and the feeling is mutual. Carroll sees himself in Tucker and always admired his game. He couldn’t have been happier when he heard he was going to play with another pest on the perimeter.
“Finally,” Carroll said. “I feel like this is more my style now. Not the prima donna, everybody, let’s score [style]. After you get through a game and you have four points and six rebounds and three steals, but you know you played a great defensive game, you don’t feel down on yourself. Before, I felt like you had to go out there and try to score the ball to have a good game.”
The Raptors are already talking on defense more. Tucker said that, after a bit of time to jell, they “can be one of the best defensive teams in the league.” When a reporter asked him if he was surprised at that immediate impact he has made, he brushed aside the question.
“That’s what I do,” Tucker said. “For me, defense is natural. Some people score natural. Some people rebound natural. For me, it’s all about defense.”
With a bunch of similarly sized, quick-thinking players, Toronto can now do what most elite defensive teams do these days: switch all over the place. Tucker is 6-foot-6 and regularly checks point guards, but he’s just as comfortable in the paint. Ibaka showed in last year’s playoffs that his quickness is about as valuable as his rim protection. Starting center Jonas Valanciunas, who lacks that quickness, has not played a fourth-quarter minute since the trades.
“Switching 2 through 5, sometimes 1 through 5, and being able to have the confidence, knowing that your teammate can stay in front of a guy and make him take a contested shot, it makes things a million times easier,” Patterson said.
If the defense becomes outstanding, then the offense just needs to stay afloat. For all of DeRozan’s scoring exploits, he has learned he can’t force too much. Casey casually referenced that the Raptors scored 1.44 points per possession when the Blazers blitzed them, praising DeRozan for letting the game come to him. DeRozan said welcomes it when teams try to get the ball out of his hands.
“I want to be the guy that makes my teammates better,” DeRozan said. “I want to make teams make a decision — you gotta think about if you’re going to blitz me or you’re going to take away the other four guys on the court.”
In the big picture, Toronto would obviously rather not be in this predicament. If it slips from third to fourth or fifth in the East, it will all but certainly have to face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round. The Raptors, though, believe in Cory Joseph, Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet giving them good minutes at point guard. They trust DeRozan to close out games. They see their three straight come-from-behind victories as a sign of resilience. And when they look at Ibaka and Tucker, they see experience, leadership and the defensive intensity the team has needed all along.
“We’re going to get stops,” Carroll said, “because it’s in our pride, it’s in our blood.”
