As play-in battle with Bulls looms, Raptors can’t clear up taking pictures woes

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BOSTON – The objective is to get the ball within the basket, and for essentially the most half this season, the Toronto Raptors have been horrible at it.

It’s not precisely the elephant within the room. It’s not prefer it hasn’t been a daily subject of dialog.

It’s simply that accepting the truth of it has taken a while.

When the Raptors shot simply 24.4 per cent from the three-point line within the pre-season, it was simply ‘pre-season’. After they shot 29.5 per cent from the three-point line in November, it was ‘early’. After they had been twenty eighth in three-point taking pictures in December, it was ‘accidents’ and once they had been twenty third in January and nineteenth in February, it was issues starting to ‘even out’. However then they slid again to twenty fourth in March and it was, um, simply the Raptors being the Raptors.

And but there’s nonetheless optimism. Raptors head coach Nick Nurse – to his credit score, I suppose – has persistently been upbeat, or hopeful not less than, in regards to the Raptors’ taking pictures, making it sound like a turnaround is true across the nook.

“Since February 1, we’ve performed stable ball and at occasions actually good,” he mentioned earlier this week, referring to Toronto’s 17-11 file over the previous two months or so. “The defensive numbers have proven that we’ve been actually good as effectively, on high of that, not that it issues, however you recognize, I feel it’s a reasonably good indicator of connection and your chemistry and the way you’re taking part in.

“[But] I feel, pay attention, for us to essentially hit one other stage I feel our shot-making nonetheless has to get a little bit higher. I feel we’re creating actually good pictures for guys which can be fairly good historic shooters, and people numbers nonetheless have some room to go up.”

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I virtually really feel dangerous declaring that shortly after Nurse made his feedback, his membership went out towards Boston and shot 6-of-33 from deep and 41.1 per cent total in Toronto’s loss to a short-handed Celtics staff on Wednesday.

The topic got here up once more earlier than the Raptors confronted Boston within the second recreation of their two-game sequence on Friday and you can virtually hear the shrug in Nurse’s voice. “I went again and watched the tape. There have been 13, I feel, the place there have been no contests, large open. Gotta make ’em. Gotta preserve producing and gotta make some extra.”

So, what would Friday’s rematch deliver?

Extra of the identical, solely worse, it seems, in a 121-102 loss that gave the Celtics 56 wins and a four-game sweep of the season sequence, whereas dropping Toronto to 40-41 on the season and spoiling what slim likelihood that that they had of overtaking Atlanta for the No. 8 seed.

So, some certainty: the ninth-place Raptors will host previous buddy DeMar DeRozan and the Tenth-place Chicago Bulls within the first play-in match recreation in franchise historical past. In the event that they win that recreation – slated for Wednesday evening – they’ll journey to play the loser of the Miami-Atlanta recreation needing to win that to safe the eighth and closing playoff spot. From there, they might begin a seven-game sequence on the highway towards the first-place Milwaukee Bucks.

Needs to be high-quality.

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Offensively, the Raptors picked up the place they left off once they misplaced to Boston on Wednesday, and shot 6-of-33 from three and 41 per cent from the ground.

Truly, they picked up the tempo.

The Raptors did pressure 4 fast Boston turnovers within the first 4 minutes, however they turned it over twice themselves on the identical play in every case.

They made solely two of their first 12 pictures and completed the primary quarter taking pictures simply 7-of-24. A few of their appears to be like had been open, and so they missed them. Numerous them had been tough – desperation forays within the tooth of the Celtics defence – and so they missed these, too.

The distinction is that the Raptors defence didn’t journey with them from their resort to TD Backyard. Boston led 34-16 after the primary quarter and had been up 36 with two minutes to play within the half earlier than the Raptors put collectively a 9-1 run to chop Boston’s result in 68-40.

“ … We simply made some dangerous selections [offensively] and that’s when it acquired powerful,” mentioned Nurse. “We had been actually harm in transition on a few of these. Not getting again, or if we had been again, it was a fast, early drive on the rim or out to a 3. “We simply weren’t rotating out superb.”

“Our defence has remained fairly stable when going via these taking pictures slumps. Tonight it didn’t.”

It may have been worse. Boston is second within the NBA in three-pointers made and seventh in proportion however was simply 9-of-25 from deep within the first half, with Jayson Tatum 0-of-5. However Tatum nonetheless had 21 factors after sitting out Wednesday’s recreation and Boston – amazingly – was an ideal 15-of-15 on twos because the Celtics transformed too many straightforward lobs on the rim by Robert Williams and picked Toronto aside with quite a lot of again cuts as Raptors defenders acquired beat making an attempt to remove the three-point line.

Operating off Raptors misses right into a scrambled Toronto defence didn’t harm their trigger, both.

Boston shot 55.6 p.c from the ground and was 15-of-44 from three, greater than sufficient than to outlive the 21 turnovers Toronto was in a position to pressure. Sam Hauser led them in scoring with 26 and was 6-of-12 from three.

Toronto shot 43 per cent from the ground and was 9-of-31 from deep. Pascal Siakam, who had 19 factors in half-hour, led the Raptors in scoring.

Toronto shot 15-of-64 from three over the 2 video games in Boston.

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The Celtics, who’re locked into the second seed within the East, had been with no two starters on Friday in Jaylen Brown and Marcus Good, in addition to Malcolm Brogdon, the doubtless sixth man of the yr, who scored 29 factors off the bench on Wednesday. It didn’t appear to matter as Tatum, a fringe MVP candidate, rotated again in as did Al Horford, the sharp-shooting veteran large, and Payton Pritchard, their wonderful third-string level guard.

They might not be the NBA’s greatest staff – although they is likely to be – however they’re virtually actually the league’s deepest.

The Raptors have really been an excellent defensive staff for the reason that all-star break, their 110.9 defensive score second throughout that interval to solely Boston, which explains their 12-9 file (earlier than final evening) for the reason that break.

However the taking pictures? It stays an issue as they’re twenty seventh in efficient subject objective proportion over the identical interval.

The excellent news is that they have room to go up proper throughout the board. It’s not simply three-point taking pictures the Raptors battle with.

Right here’s a sampling of the place the Raptors rank in quite a lot of taking pictures classes:

Drives: twenty ninth

Catch-and-shoot jumpers (all): twenty seventh

Catch-and-shoot threes: twenty sixth

Pull-up jumpers (all): twenty seventh

Pull-up threes: twenty ninth

Their total efficient subject objective proportion is twenty eighth, even with the uptick just lately.

What you’ll hear the Raptors say commonly is that they’re getting good pictures. They actually have a proprietary statistic for it: ‘anticipated factors per shot’ — which is meant to seize what ought to occur on a selected shot, primarily based on who’s taking it, how open they’re and who’s defending.

The Raptors apparently are superb at this. They generate good pictures.

“I’ll say I often simply grade it on like, what are we producing? You recognize what I imply? And if we’re producing good pictures within the circulate of the offence, then most occasions you recognize, you’ll have the ability to dwell with the consequence,” Fred VanVleet, who was 5-of-25 (4-of-18 from three) over his two video games in Boston, mentioned Wednesday. “And … clearly Boston is likely one of the greatest defensive groups within the league for a motive … So I often simply give attention to like, what pictures are we producing and tonight, you recognize, not nice when it comes to circulate and rhythm and power.”

The Raptors have created a taking part in type that offsets their taking pictures woes. At the least a part of the explanation they work so arduous to create turnovers and generate offensive rebounds is in order that they’ll take extra pictures than their opponents most nights, and hopefully with extra probabilities they’ll not less than break even. They’ve been profitable at it – the Raptors lead the NBA in shot differential – and so they’ve been in a position cling in on the perimeters of the playoff – or play-in race – due to it.

“I like to educate defensive basketball. I prefer to recreation plan, break it down, making an attempt to remove groups’ strengths, take away particular person gamers’ strengths, making an attempt to provide you with methods to make it tough for groups to attain,” mentioned Nurse earlier than the sport. “… The very first thing I’m all the time doing is placing collectively a recreation plan to win, and it all the time begins on the opposite finish of the ground.”

However when teaching a staff that struggles to create offence within the halfcourt?

“I feel we all the time attempt to make one of the best resolution primarily based on our staff,” he mentioned. “At the start. It’s additionally one thing I actually consider in.”

However it’s a lot simpler for those who can rating. Within the second half, the Celtics went into coast mode. They sat Tatum down after his 20 first-half minutes and instantly the rotations weren’t fairly so sharp and the power not effervescent fairly the identical.

The Raptors made three three-pointers within the first 5 minutes of the third quarter and had been in a position to minimize a 10-point chunk out of the Celtics lead, reducing it to 18 with 17 minutes to play. Doable.

However the Celtics continued to create their very own offence. A tip-in by Williams, a 3 from Horford, the fifth of the sport by Sam Hauser, beginning instead of Brown, and the lead was again to 25 earlier than they took a 95-73 lead into the fourth quarter.

The Celtics, it needs to be identified, have 10 gamers of their rotation averaging not less than one made three a recreation. Toronto has 4 and considered one of them – Gary Trent Jr. – was 0-for-Boston this week.

It’s a troublesome technique to play and it’s been the story of the Raptors’ season. Sadly, after 81 video games, it’s not altering.