Rights and wrongs with Toronto Raptors after another discouraging week

The Toronto Raptors currently have a 1-4 and sit 13th in the East right now, only ahead of the Pistons and Wizards.

It is fair to say that the Toronto Raptors‘ frustrating first week was by no means a fluke, and was instead a preview of the challenges that lie ahead. The Raptors follow their winless week with a 1-2 week. Their only win coming against the Knicks; a victory that still wasn’t convincing from the Raptors.

Their two losses were against tougher opponents in the 76ers and Pelicans. Two games where the Raptors were just minutes away from winning. The Raptors had the lead late against the 76ers, leading 87-82 with 5:38 left in 4th; and against the Pelicans, where they were leading 113-111 with 1:08 left in the game.

It easily could’ve been a 3-0 week and this article would be titled “Five things right with the Toronto Raptors.” But that isn’t the case, and we are left twiddling our thumbs for what’s to come next.

The only right – Chris Boucher is shining in a dire situation

The bench has been one of the Raptors’ biggest weaknesses, but one player who hasn’t disappointed us in that department is the stellar play of Chris Boucher. Questions were raised when he signed his $13.5 million contract in November, but he has more than proven himself in the first five games of the season so far.

Of all lineups with at least 15 possessions played, the only positive lineups per 100 possessions played are the ones with Boucher. In 99 minutes of play when Boucher is on, the Raptors score 13.2 more points and allow 5.7 fewer points (per 100 possessions), per Cleaning The Glass. That adds up to a plus 18.9 difference and the second-highest only to Kyle Lowry.

There’s a lot of reasons he has been such a net positive for the team. Boucher is an elite rim protector (opposing teams shoot 15.1 percent worse around the rim when Boucher is on), an average three-point shooter, a versatile defender, not afraid to draw contact to go the free-throw line, and a great roller off the pick and roll.

Here is Chris Boucher‘s per game stats in all games except the Philly one (he only played 5 minutes in that game): 16.75 points, 7.25 rebounds, 2.75 blocks, 58.14 FG%, 38.46 3P %

He also had himself a performance against the Spurs you only see once in a blue moon. He had 22 points, 10 rebounds, 3 threes, and 7 blocks.

There’s will always be some areas where Boucher can improve — he still gets in foul trouble frequently and he can be a better finisher around the rim — but those are things that he will hopefully improve on throughout the season. If Chris Boucher continues his good play and Baynes still plays at the same level he is now, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Boucher becoming a starter.

Starting Center is a problem

What was a luxury a year ago has now turned into an ugly complication. We never expected Aron Baynes to fill the void of Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka, but what we did expect was for him to fit seamlessly in Nick Nurse’s system. Five games in and Baynes has pretty disappointing.

I believe that Baynes shouldn’t be at fault as much as he should, he is pretty much doing what he has done his whole career. He isn’t shooting the usual 30 percent from three and his defense might’ve dropped off a little but he is doing what he’s asked of. A low usage center who plays solid defense, rebounds, screens, and shoot a couple of threes a game (the threes part is more recent).

The situation isn’t any different with the Toronto Raptors. It isn’t his fault the Raptors went from having two starting-caliber centers in Gasol and Ibaka to asking a career backup center to be a starter. The disappointment in Baynes is mostly attributed to the mini resurgence he had last year with the Suns averaging a career-high 11 points  — the type of play we were expecting to continue with the Raptors.

However, that had more to do with the offensive system coach Monte Williams was running and the hot three-point shooting Baynes had at the beginning of the season. (After the first 12 games, he shot 44.2 percent. Following those 12 games, Baynes would go on to shoot 31 percent from three for the rest of the season).

This season, Baynes is a -18.3 in team point differential — worst among all starters — and he is also shooting the three at a 20 percent rate. He was never great on offense, but it is worrying that the team allows 9.2 points more per 100 possessions played when he is on; a career-worst for him so far. He is slow and other teams have cooked him in the pick and roll since Nurse opts to play drop coverage with Baynes.

Baynes can be better but that won’t be the factor that changes the Raptors’ win-loss column. Even if he plays to his usual performance (say shooting 30-33 percent from three and playing slightly better defense), that isn’t going to change much for the Raptors. The quality is lacking at the center position and it clearly has shown early on and it is something they’ve accepted to live with after letting Gasol and Ibaka leave.

Siakam comes up empty-handed after getting benched

There are two wrongs in this one: Pascal Siakam getting benched in the first place and the bounce-back game that didn’t come to fruition. But I’ll focus on the latter as the former was discussed an ample amount already (and if you weren’t aware, Siakam was benched due to disciplinary reasons according to coach Nick Nurse).

It is fair to say that when Nick Nurse benches or calls out a player, that player usually bounces back with a great performance — I fully support Nurse for doing what he did, too often coaches are afraid of holding players accountable.

Unfortunately, Siakam carried his trend of playing poorly in his bounce-back game.

• “Bounce Back” game against Pelicans: 10 PTS/4 REB/1/AST/4-10 FG/0-4 3FG/ team-low minus 16/fouled out

He did have a couple of moves that showed shades of the player he was last year.

Apart from that very good drive and a few mid-range shots, there was not much else that was inspiring in his performance.

However, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Siakam’s abilities. Siakam is clearly struggling but it is good to see a few glimpses of him looking like his old self again. It would also be good for the Raptors to use him as a creator/playmaker again as they did in the first two games. Those were by far his best games of the season and it was very effective in getting a lot of open looks for the team.

No Lowry, Big problem

I was initially going to do 2 rights and 4 wrongs, but this was a rare opportunity to match the right and wrongs with the Raptors’ win-loss column (1-4). So instead of talking about just how good Kyle Lowry has been, I’ll talk about how lost the team has looked when he is off the court.

The point differential in points per 100 possessions when Lowry is off the court is mind-boggling. The offense scores at a horrid rate of 81.4 points per 100 possessions when Lowry is off. When Lowry is on, that number goes all the way up to 108.5 — that’s a +27.1 on/off rating when Lowry is on, ranking him in the 97th percentile of all players.

The team crumbles in the minutes Lowry sits and there are few reasons for that.

The Fred VanVleet minutes as the primary point guard when Lowry is off haven’t been good so far. Though VanVleet is a decent passer, he is nowhere near the passer Kyle Lowry is. VanVleet struggles to make textbook passes off the pick and roll (pocket pass or lobs). He has been a good passer in terms of finding open three-point shooters, but that’s about it.

The reason Fred VanVleet with no Lowry worked last season was because of Marc Gasol. Gasol’s playmaking was so important for what the Toronto Raptors did on offense and that’s why his minutes were mostly paired up with VanVleet. VanVleet’s limited playmaking ability didn’t look so bad when Gasol was doing a lot of the playmaking for the team. That is why there was so much emphasis on making Siakam a playmaker in an attempt to help mask VanVleet’s deficiencies as a main creator.

No matter what, one of Kyle Lowry or Fred VanVleet will be on the court at all times. And the Raptors have to find a way to make the non-Kyle minutes work if they want any chance of competing for the playoffs. Whether that’s making Siakam more of a playmaker, VanVleet improving as a passer, or just sharing the ball more (I won’t even mention Flynn’s name, not sure what it’ll take him to get a chance).

It doesn’t matter what it is, they have to find a way to score when Kyle Lowry is resting.

Everything falls apart in the third quarter

There are three games I want to look at here. The Toronto Raptors led in half-time against the 76ers once and the Pelicans twice. All three of those games they would proceed to have miserable third quarters. Here are all the Raptors’ third quarters in these games.

• Game 1 against Pelicans: 38-22 for Pels
• Game 3 against 76ers: 28-20 for 76ers
• Game 5 against Pelicans: 32-22 for Pels

Three leads they had at half-time, all squandered in the third quarter. They shot 34.33 percent from the field in these three quarters and allowed 98 points — which is unusual considering they allow 106 per game for the season. The lack of offense isn’t too hard to understand since they are one of the worst offensive teams in the league, but the bad defense is odd for a team that is the 6th best in the league in that department. But it is a trend that has occurred across the other games as well.

Here are the net ratings across the four quarters for all five games played so far.

• 1st Quarter: +13
• 2nd Quarter: -0.8
• 3rd Quarter: -20.2
• 4th Quarter: -2.5

Except for the Knicks game, the net ratings per quarter pretty much align with all the Raptors’ performance. The Raptors start the first quarter with a decent lead; slowly the lead dissipates in the second quarter; then by the third, the lead is gone or the score is even; and in the fourth, they fight for their lives to hold off their lead or go for a last-minute comeback.

The Raptors failed to ever build off their lead and instead continually fall like dominos the further the game progresses. Whatever is going on in the locker room at half-time isn’t working. Nurse has to find a way to motivate his troops to play the entirety of the game and not just the first two quarters.

Let’s hope that the Raptors solve some of these problems this upcoming week. They’ll be facing the Celtics, Suns, and Kings