Raptors: The 2 best lineups Nick Nurse needs to use more often

After a chaotic start to a season that saw the Toronto Raptors kicked out of their home country after losing a few of their key secondary players to free agency, head Nick Nurse has done a fantastic job righting the ship. He helped turn around Pascal Siakam after a slow start, promoted Yuta Watanabe into the rotation, and has OG Anunoby and Fred VanVleet playing like All-Stars.

If there has been one point of annoyance with Nurse this season, it’s his inconsistent rotations, as figuring out which bench players end up getting more time seems to be completely arbitrary. That shuffling has come at the cost of putting his best five on the floor, as Toronto’s two most productive lineups have played a combined 42 possessions between them this season.

According to points scored and allowed per shot attempt, Toronto’s best offensive lineup features VanVleet running point, OG Anunoby as a small-ball power forward, and Siakam at center. On defense, Watanabe remains an anchor of their toughest lineup, with Kyle Lowry at point guard and shot-blocker extraordinaire Chris Boucher taking over for Siakam at center.

Toronto Raptors coach Nick Nurse needs to switch up his rotations

While Siakam has been struggling to shoot the ball this season, putting him at center lets him use his speed and agility in the post to get easy looks. Anunoby’s ball-handling makes him a mismatch for most power forwards, while the backcourt tandem of VanVleet and Norman Powell is working perfectly together. Per 100 possessions, this lineup is scoring just under 167 points.

With Anunoby having improved his three-point shot this season, this lineup allows Johnson to set up inside the arc and Siakam to get position on the low block. This provides ideal spacing for shooters like Powell and VanVleet, who can rain down 3-pointers if the defense starts to suck into the interior.

Toronto’s defense-heavy lineup is still averaging 135 points per 100 possessions on offense, but they are allowing just 90 points per 100. With two high-energy defenders in Watanabe and Stanley Johnson on the floor, it’s easy to see why. In the paint, Boucher can swat away anything that gets near him while making something happen in a Nick Nurse-led offense.

Even with Toronto’s best individual defender in Anunoby on the bench in this lineup, the length and energy brought by Johnson and Watanabe make up for that. If this group needs to get a bucket, they are more than capable of doing so, as Boucher can score inside or outside and both Lowry and Powell can be trusted to nail open jumpers.

The way to win in the modern NBA, as Nurse has proven thanks to his own title run, is to empathize pace and spacing on the offensive end and effort on the perimeter on defense. These two lineups go a long way towards making Toronto a faster, more aggressive team on both ends of the floor.

Losing two experienced, quality big men on both sides of the ball in Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka threw Nurse for a loop early in the season, but he seems to have found a few combinations that work on both ends of the floor. The issue, however, is that these configurations aren’t deployed as frequently as they should be.

Consistency is what will determine how far this Raptors team goes this season. If Nurse keeps flipping a coin to decide who gets more minutes, they might miss out on the postseason. If he realizes the gold mine he’s sitting on in these two lineups and starts to give them more playing time, the Raptors could suddenly end up making some noise in the playoffs.

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