Five takeaways from Toronto Raptors crushing loss to Warriors

Four of five starters play poorly

When four of your five starters play poorly, you lose nine out of ten times, and although they had a chance right to the last second, the Toronto Raptors didn’t deserve to win this game.

Danny Green was 3-7 with a couple of turnovers. He attempted to go right at Curry a couple of times in the post to no avail. Green’s at his best when he lets the game come to him. He didn’t do that in this one.

After becoming the story of Game 1, Pascal Siakam posted a 5-18 clunker. The Warriors defense was more prepared for Pascal’s rim-attacks, loading the strong side up like they were facing Kawhi Leonard. Siakam did finish with five assists and zero turnovers, so he wasn’t a complete negative.

Gasol, to his credit, continued to be aggressive looking for his shot. He let it fly from deep, attacked the hoop on several occasions, and even had a few post-ups. However aggression only works when you’re making your shots, and when Gasol went 2-7 from the field, it had a negative effect on Toronto’s offense.

Those three starters played poorly, but with that being said, no one played worse than Kyle Lowry. Lowry shot 4-11 from the field, had just two assists, and two turnovers. He wasn’t aggressive attacking the hoop and wasn’t generating looks for others.

Perhaps most importantly, he was only able to play 27 total minutes due to foul trouble. You can blame the refs all you want, but with 3:52 Kyle Lowry received foul number six with an absolutely idiotic reach-in. He cost himself the final four minutes of a close game due to a frustration foul. That can’t happen.

Everyone in the starting unit was disappointing, with the exception of Kawhi Leonard, and despite his numbers, even Kawhi struggled with the Warriors trapping scheme at times.

Toronto can’t expect to be effective offensively with four of their five starters playing poorly. At least a few of them will need to turn it around.