The tenants of Scotiabank Arena have had remarkably different seasons. There are distinct reasons why the Toronto Raptors have succeeded when the Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t.
The Toronto Raptors on-court play has been a pleasant surprise as they defend their title. Though many fans counted the team out when Kawhi Leonard packed his bags for Los Angeles, the Raps proved that they still have a lot to offer. The same can’t be said for their MLSE sister team, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Maple Leafs entered their season with extraordinarily high expectations. On paper, their roster seemed to be composed of players talented enough to win the Stanley Cup. Instead of looking like a club who’s ready to hoist the trophy, they look like a team in danger of missing the playoffs. The disparity between the hockey and basketball teams is clear.
Coaching
The head coaches of the Raptors and Maple Leafs couldn’t be more different. Nick Nurse was promoted last season, ascending from Dwane Casey’s staff as an assistant to take over the lead role. He won the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy in his rookie year and has been lauded for his play-calling and defensive game planning.
Mike Babcock started the season as the Leafs head coach. He was relieved of his duties on November 20 making way for a new voice in the locker room, Sheldon Keefe. Prior to his firing, Babcock was the bench boss for nearly 17 seasons in the NHL for a total of 1301 games. He even won a Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 2009.
Babcock lost his job due to poor decision-making. He was heavily criticized for the way he deployed his players, especially the backup goaltender. Babcock would often play him against the most challenging team in back-to-back situations and save his starter for the less talented opposition. His judgment was also frequently questioned for keeping his stars on the bench at crucial moments in games and not giving them enough playing time.
One of Nurse’s best coaching qualities is that he isn’t shy to be creative with Xs and Os. He has used creativity as an asset, while Babcock kept things very stagnant. The results of creative play-calling had the Raptors keeping opponents guessing, while the Leafs systems became more and more predictable. During Leaf’s powerplays, teams often knew exactly to defend. What should have been elite special teams was less than ordinary.
Nurse said we could see the box-and-1 or the triangle-and-2 vs Harden and Westbrook tonight. He also teased a mystery scheme they haven't used yet. "We've got an idea of something we're gonna try and we'll see if we have enough guts to go with it."
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) December 5, 2019
The Raptors are fortunate to have Nurse calling the plays. He has actively focused attention on shutting down opposing superstars. He has even used little known defensive alignments like box-and-one and the triangle-and-two to perfection to limit those stars’ damage.
Defense
The Raptors have the fifth-best defensive rating in the NBA at 103.7. Recently, in a back and forth game in Chicago, Marc Gasol had a huge block on Lauri Markkanen in the paint to help win the game.
Plays like these, along with consistent team defense, allow the Raptors to be competitive even in the games that they’ve lost this season. They have been especially good in the paint, limiting teams to an average of 41.5 points per game inside the colored lines. That’s currently the second-best average in the association.
The Raptors have forced their opponents to change their gameplans and have taken stars out of the equation. Even when Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka missed an extended period of time, the team managed to stick to the strategy and make life on the opponent incredibly difficult.
The Maple Leafs can’t boast about their defensive abilities. Unlike the Raptors, they are statistically among the worst in their league. In fact, the Leafs own the ninth-worst goals-against to games played average in the NHL. They have also given up the sixth-most goals this season, allowing the puck to hit the back of their net 106 times.
This has not been a new struggle for the Leafs. They had the same deficits last season, but unfortunately, have not yet done enough to address them. They continued to be very poor at clearing the zone and protecting the net. That can be pinned to the makeup of their roster and blueline personnel.
Roster Composition
The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best rosters on paper. They are incredibly talented and have some of the best players on the planet in blue and white. The team has stars like Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly, Frederik Andersen, and Mitch Marner. There may not be another team in the NHL with as many big names.
The Raptors may be the defending champions, but they lack superstars. Pascal Siakam has developed to that level, but beyond him, the team consists of a number of very good players, not elite-level talent. The Raptors have found success in spite of this.
The Dinos’ players have managed to use their own individual strengths to deliver through teamwork. Nurse has tried multiple variations on his rotation with the most recent iteration featuring Norman Powell in the starting lineup. The players pick each other up on the court creating a full team effort.
The Leafs have a dressing room full of extraordinarily talented players, but unlike the Raptors, many of the Leafs players have similar styles of play. This means that important elements of team play, grit, and toughness, are clear omissions from their style. Thanks to the physical nature of the game, pugnacity is a valued trait, which also happens to be one that’s difficult to locate on the current Leafs.
Ujiri and Webster added players like Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Terence Davis, and Matt Thomas. They were never expected to be replacements for Kawhi Leonard or even asked to make big waves, but they are nice complementary pieces to the players already at Nurse’s disposal. Luckily for the Raptors, their executives know how to build a team the right way.
The good news for the Maple Leafs is that with their new coach, they have a chance to explore new lineups and may even be able to mix and match talent in a similar way that works for the Raptors. Hopefully, they can start winning more games and learn from the Raptors winning ways.