Nick Nurse and the Toronto Raptors have been taking it on the chin repeatedly over the course of this unusual 2020-21 season, and their loss against Tom Thibodeau and the New York Knicks on Saturday was no different. After an uncommon string of injuries, Toronto finally got healthy, but Julius Randle dominated the game.
The Raptors, who own the highest winning percentage in the Eastern Conference since the start of the 2013 season, are currently 10 games under .500, largely due to some bad luck at the end of games, injury woes, and the fact that home games are being played in Tampa due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Raptors have clawed their way back into the postseason picture after a horrid month of March, but they are still a few notches below the rest of their competition in the East, despite the best efforts of players like Gary Trent Jr. and Pascal Siakam.
Despite the fact that the Knicks defeated the Raptors 120-103 in a game that was not as close as that scoreline would indicate, Thibodeau knows that Toronto isn’t playing with a full deck right now, as injuries and COVID struggles have neutered what could have been one of the best teams in the East.
Final from The Garden. pic.twitter.com/froztjbYV3
— Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) April 24, 2021
"“They’ve had a very unusual season in terms of playing away from home, then being hit with COVID and having injuries,” Thibodeau said Saturday. “They had a four-game winning streak going into this game and any team that has [Kyle] Lowry and a [Fred] VanVleet, and [OG] Anunoby and [Pascal] Siakam, that’s a heck of a team.”"
The Toronto Raptors are better than their record suggests.
Not only did Kyle Lowry miss a large chunk of the season due to his injury problems, but Siakam, VanVleet, Anunoby, and Malachi Flynn all were out for several games due to COVID-19 battles. With the likes of Aron Baynes and Stanley Johnson eating up tons of rotation time, the Raptors were struggling to compete with the league’s best teams.
The Toronto Raptors have reached the dizzying heights of “respectable” over the last few weeks, as the Trent addition has helped Toronto become more deadly on the offensive end. Despite that, this team is limping to the finish, and the Knicks made it painfully clear that these wounded Raptors don’t have the same bark or bite as their more successful teammates.
The Raptors have one of the stronger starting lineups in the East, but all of the unique challenges this season has thrown at them has prevented the squad from truly flexing their muscles. Thibodeau knows that the Raptors, under normal circumstances, would be more deadly than the feckless team that is getting wheeled out on a nightly basis this year.