Wizards [4-4] at Raptors [5-3]: Preview & 3 keys to victory
By Brian Boake
The Raptors haven’t played at home since October 21. They are back in town to take on the Wizards, suddenly struggling after a fast start.
The Toronto Raptors might have wished for a softer opponent to face in their first home game since a long Western swing. However, the schedule-maker had other ideas, so the Washington Wizards it is.
The face of this franchise is versatile veteran point guard John Wall. Sadly for Washington, his face, and the rest of him, might be in street clothes. He’s listed as “hopeful”, but having seen how his shoulder got hurt, I think that’s fanciful instead.
The Wizards have lots of capable starters, so even minus Wall, they can give the Raptors fits.
The shooting guard is Bradley Beal, their top scorer at 24.1 points per game [PG]. He’s second in team PER with a hefty 23.4. That’s a mere .1 behind Otto Porter, whose game took a few years to gel but is solid now. He is capable of getting hot behind the arc, and will bear careful attention.
Another veteran, Marcin (The Polish Hammer) Gortat, will contest every shot and rebound. You can expect lots of battles under the rim with his old rival Jonas Valanciunas.
Kelly Oubre Jr. is another swingman whom the Wizards have been patient with. The results are starting to show on a consistent basis.
Their rotation players have been weak to date. One hesitates to blame the Wizards’ recent woes on them, but I can’t ignore the fact that Markieff Morris has one basket so far this season. He’s better than that. Ian Mahinmi has been test-driven by several teams; I don’t think he’s got the speed to play in today’s NBA. Tomas Satoransky was brought from Europe to be a combo guard. His progress has been slow.
3 keys to Raptors victory
- Play fast. The Wiz have given up a bunch of points in losing 4 of their past 5 games, and were the victims of LeBron James’ 57-point masterpiece on Friday night. The only game in which they didn’t surrender a century was a W against the hapless Kings. Keep their top guns on the floor and running all game. It will pay off in crunch time.
- Contest the boards. No, saying this isn’t like advocating for fewer turnovers, or better 3-point shooting. Obviously you always want those two things, but there are teams whose transition game is strong enough that fire & fall back can be a winning tactic. Not this team – crash the boards, and create some second-chance opportunities. Toronto ranks 14th in rebounding differential with plus_0.6, while Washington is 20th at minus_1.1.
- Defend the long ball. Washington doesn’t have enough interior scoring to bother our team, so we can live with them attacking the paint…better than having Porter and Beal fire away untroubled.
Prediction
I wonder whether the “first game back home after a lengthy road trip is a loss” syndrome is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I suppose we’ll see; I’m going to ignore it and predict on form:
Raptors 112 – Wizards 104
I’ll update this post if and when I get news on Wall’s injury.
UPDATE: Wall is listed as “doubtful”.