Toronto’s season slowed to a crawl after a Nov. 16 win over the Miami Heat, the team playing just three games over the next 11 days. The schedule break could hardly have been better timed.
With an injury list as long as the to-do list you’ve been procrastinating on, what the Raptors needed was the greatest healer, time. Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, Scottie Barnes, Precious Achiuwa, Otto Porter Jr., Chris Boucher, Gary Trent Jr., and Dalano Banton have all missed games for the Raptors over this stretch but Monday was when the sun finally rose again.
Achiuwa and Porter Jr. were the only ones listed on the injury report, making the game against the Cleveland Cavaliers that night the healthiest the Raptors had been entering a game since Nov. 4 in Dallas. It was a sight for sore eyes.
“I was frustrated, which is normal as a person,” Siakam said of the injury coming after eight games that saw him average 25.6 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 7.9 assists. “I have a lot of goals and ambitions, I put a lot of work into what I do and I have all these plans in my head and I think that, most of the time, God is like, ‘I know you have these plans but I got my plans at the end of the day.’
“It always happens that way but the good thing is that his plan is better than mine, so, I just follow it and I know I’m always gonna come back and after that I’ll be better than I was before.”
He was excited to be back out on the floor, you could tell.
With his first opportunity against the Cavs, Pascal Siakam drove right at Isaac Okoro and made a tough shot falling away after a spin. The next time down the floor, now matched up against Evan Mobley, Siakam shook him out of his shoes and earned himself a wide-open finish underneath the basket.
There was a three-point attempt from the corner that was in rhythm but rimmed out, and a fadeaway he knocked down in isolation against Okoro. This was all in his first shift where he went to the bench with eight points and four rebounds. In the second quarter, there was a mid-range clinic, and the third was a steady manipulation in the paint to either get to the line or create advantages for teammates. By the fourth, it was elementary. The Raptors won running away.
All told, Siakam was able to get out there for 30 minutes and provide 18 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. There were several contributors in a 100-88 win but Siakam and O.G. Anunoby were the standouts, the latter adding yet another impressive two-way performance to a breakout season.
Zooming out, the most encouraging aspect of this win was the Raptors looking far less strained with their best player allowing everyone else down the line to slot into a more comfortable role. Cleveland had just nine turnovers for the entire game and it didn’t matter. Toronto grabbed just seven offensive rebounds for the game, no panic. Chris Boucher had zeroes across the board in the first half but Barnes and Trent Jr. provided pop off the bench. Thad Young and Juancho Hernangomez both started and could excel and be fully appreciated in ancillary roles because the big man on campus was back.
It has been a tale of two teams through the Raptors’ opening 20 games, the one with Siakam and the one without. Even though the records were similar – 6-4 with him after this latest victory over the Cavs compared to 5-5 without him – the film, strength of schedule, and underlying numbers show just how much the team missed Siakam.
In nine games before Siakam’s injury, his All-NBA First Team calibre play helped the Raptors rank fourth in net rating, seventh in offence, and fifth in defence. The team was one of the best in taking care of the ball but also forcing the ball out of the opposition’s hands, was surprisingly one of the league’s best defensive rebounding teams after seriously struggling with that last season, and were still grabbing offensive rebounds on the other end at a solid clip as well.
Some of this was skewed by blowout wins over Atlanta and San Antonio, but the Raptors also had the rest of those games come against Cleveland, Brooklyn, Miami, Philadelphia, and Dallas.
In the 10 games played after Siakam went down with a groin injury, the Raptors ranked 24th in net rating, 27th in offence, and 19th in defence. Despite leading the league in both forcing turnovers and grabbing offensive rebounds to maximize a possession advantage for the majority of games, transition only accounted for about 17 percent of the team’s possessions.Three-quarters of the team’s possessions came in the half-court where the team produced just 84.1 points per-100 half-court possessions, 12.4 below league-average.
As alluded to before, there were more players than Siakam injured during this stretch, but this is generally what life without a superstar looks like.
“Not much,” VanVleet said when asked what he’s learned about the team through 20 games. “It’s hard to sum up anything so inconsistent with injuries and different lineups and different rotations. We’ve got a lot, we’ve got a lot of stuff, a lot of a little bit of everything which is good. We gotta figure out how we’re gonna put that together to be the best version of what we are, whatever that is, and we’re in a good spot.”
Helping cobble together the best version of the team should be the positives that emerged during Siakam’s absence as well. Thad Young has found his groove in the rotation, seeing serious floor time over the last seven games averaging 29 minutes, 11.0 points, 7.0 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.9 steals while shooting 66.7 percent on twos. He’s bided his time, been a mentor to the younger players, and is now reaping the rewards of putting in the work that has seen him be a meaningful contributor in the league for so long.
Another player who has come a long way during this time is Juancho Hernangomez, who appeared an afterthought early in the season but has battled his way into the rotation with consistency and hustle on the defensive end accompanied by smart instincts on offence. He has shown his IQ in executing the team’s defensive principles and become an important contributor on the glass with 6.9 boards per over his last seven games. Entering the Cavs game, he had also scored at least nine points in four of five games.
Add them to the list of complementary pieces that currently includes Boucher, Achiuwa (when healthy – he’ll be re-evaluated in two to three weeks), and Trent Jr. along with situational contributors in Christian Koloko, Khem Birch, Dalano Banton, Malachi Flynn, and Jeff Dowtin Jr. and Nick Nurse has some depth to work with.
The strides Anunoby has made offensively should also be cause for optimism, being a consistent source of dribble penetration and once his corner three-point shooting comes around – currently at 30 percent compared to over 40 percent for his career – he should see another uptick in efficiency. The all-world defence continues to amaze.
The Raptors are finally healthy, and in a win over the third-seeded Cavs, showed chunks of what they can be at their absolute best. With an 11-9 record, Toronto is now only a game-and-a-half behind Cleveland with three-quarters of the season to play and so this is an opportunity to make a big push.
Seeing this team make big gains in its overall health is as great a sight as Siakam back in uniform. It all starts with him and everyone can feel a whole lot more comfortable about the finish line with him back doing what he does best.