The Raptors find themselves in a familiar position. Big picture, yet again, the franchise trails a playoff series 1-0. Zoom in on the themes of this season, and once again they have to make do with very likely being short handed.
After elbows to the mouth and getting stepped on (completely inadvertently), Toronto has to find a way to punch back.
“We’ve played without guys all year,” Fred VanVleet said at practice Sunday. “Obviously, this time of year you would like to have all your best players but we’ll see what the situation is, find out in the morning who’s in, who’s out, and then it’ll be time for somebody else to step up.”
There may be those on the fringes of the rotation between Dalano Banton or Malachi Flynn or Yuta Watanabe who may be called upon to fill in for what currently look likely absences of Scottie Barnes, Gary Trent Jr., and Thad Young. Among those at the forefront of what the Raptors need to do, it is OG Anunoby’s moment to remind people of just how central he is to this core group.
Let’s rewind for a moment to his rookie 2017-18 season when the 13th game of his career became his first NBA start and the reward was a matchup with James Harden. That’s asking plenty. Anunoby played close to 30 minutes that night, spending 23 of them opposite the man who went on to win MVP that season and used the majority of those minutes to showcase an intimidating combination of strength and length. Harden shot 2-for-15 from the field including 1-of-6 beyond the arc, had six turnovers, and committed five fouls in his minutes with Anunoby on the court (6-of-10 with him off), and Anunoby has only expanded on his defensive portfolio ever since.
After high expectations coming in, Anunoby has played in just 48 games this season after a variety of injuries. There has been growth despite the limited time, though, and it’s the offensive side of his game that he’s tried to expand. After 71 post-ups in 2020-21, Anunoby has more than doubled that total to 143 while improving from shooting 35.7 percent on them last season to 48.1 percent this season and has made subtle improvements in his passing. After attempting 30 pull-up threes in 43 games last season (making just six), Anunoby has attempted 75 in 48 games this season and converted at 26.7 percent. Not all growth is linear, this is a shot Anunoby has to build comfort in taking first before he gets accustomed to making them.
Despite the work being put in to improve elsewhere, Anunoby remains very effective catching and shooting, converting 39.6 percent of those attempts from deep to trail only Fred VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr. in volume-adjusted efficiency. There was an offensive identity established in the unofficial second half of the season with him having only played six games after the all-star break, but with the likely absences in Game 2, Anunoby will need to be ready to take on a scoring load closer to what was expected at the beginning of the season when Pascal Siakam was out injured.
A player who provides what Anunoby does to a team can easily go underappreciated by those outside of who share a locker room with him, especially as he’s expanded his repertoire steadily rather than speedily. Some of that stems from the heightened expectations pinned on the player ever since Kawhi Leonard’s departure. Some of it stemmed from Siakam facing the biggest challenge of his NBA career and the hope that Anunoby might ascend to stardom. All of it is because, in the desire to see the Raptors win another championship, what players aren’t and what they are perceived as needing to be have garnered a larger lens than what they are.
Take Mikal Bridges of the Phoenix Suns for example. With pieces like Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Deandre Ayton, Jae Crowder, and strong bench options, Bridges can just be. Averages the last two seasons of 13.8 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.1 steals on healthy shooting efficiency and all-world defence can be appreciated for what they are because the Suns are clearly championship contenders. Even in this series against Philadelphia, someone like Matisse Thybulle only faces questions of making just enough shots to stay on the court rather than anything more because of the presence of Harden, Joel Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Tyrese Maxey.
Anunoby averaged 17.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.5 steals this season while providing strong defence and 36.3 percent shooting from deep. Over time, his role can gain further appreciation on the path to championship contention as it steadily crystallizes courtesy Siakam finding another career surge, VanVleet an all-star, and Barnes’ tantalizing future in front of him. In the here and now, it needs to be framed within the context of this series in front of them. The Raptors are on a phenomenal ride this season and in order for it to extend during the post-season, Anunoby will need to be more in the bigger ways while continuing to bring what he does around the edges.
In the clutch, Anunoby has shown just how much his ancillary support can mean. In late March, the Raptors trailed by seven against a Boston Celtics team without the services of Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Robert Williams III, and Al Horford. This was shaping up to be a bad home loss despite a Herculean effort from Pascal Siakam who finished with 40 points and 13 rebounds on the night.
After Daniel Theis knocked down a mid-range jumper with 4:12 remaining in the game, Toronto was on the ropes. Most of the team struggled, and with that type of effort from Siakam, any kind of assistance would do on this night. Coming down the floor, Siakam ran a pick-and-pop action with Thad Young, who missed an open three-pointer. As the shot went up, Anunoby swooped in from the corner to beat Mr. Hustle Marcus Smart to the loose ball and kicked it back out to Siakam. He found Fred VanVleet, who received a screen from Young and pulled up for three himself. Another miss followed, and Anunoby once again snuck in from the right elbow three-point area and grabbed yet another rebound over Smart. Instantly processing the space on the outside with three Celtics bodies in the paint, Anunoby then passed to VanVleet and screened Payton Pritchard to give his teammate a clean look. VanVleet knocked it down and the Raptors were alive again.
Toronto came back to win in overtime and while VanVleet came alive from beyond the arc at a most crucial time and Siakam was the superstar the team needed, Anunoby’s work around the edges kept the team alive when they were just about dead and buried.
“He’s such a versatile player, he can do it on both ends of the floor,” Siakam said after the victory. “Him just crashing [the glass] and doing all those little things, I think it’s only gonna help his game. We already know what he can do on the floor, spacing the floor, handle, post-ups, and all those things and now just being able to crash and get more plays for us is definitely gonna be good for us.”
Anunoby has made a habit of attacking the offensive glass late in games this season. While those two rebounds as well as the assist to VanVleet against the Celtics didn’t qualify as clutch stats as the game was beyond a five-point margin, the 24-year-old finished the regular season second only to Barnes in offensive rebounds in the last five minutes of games within five points or fewer despite the limited action this season. Until Feb. 16, after which he only played six games, Anunoby was second in points, third in three-pointers made, second in rebounding, second in steals, and first in blocks in the clutch.
While the wins have come in bunches since the all-star break, those numbers show just how much more he could add to a team that’s rolling. Siakam will continue to see plenty of bodies around the rim on the offensive end and James Harden’s performances may prove the ultimate barometer for the Sixers’ success, so Anunoby’s presence in this series looms ever larger with Toronto’s current health issues.
In the top tier of defenders in the league, an extremely capable floor spacer, and a core piece who’s been through some huge playoff battles, Anunoby’s season looks set to finish the way it started, with the Raptors ready to take everything he can bring. The last time Toronto faced Philly in the post-season, his length and spacing was sorely missed. Now, in theory, he’s one of many as another 6-foot-8 player with long arms, but for all practical purposes, he can very much be singular in what he provides.
Right now, the Raptors need him to be.