Somehow the odds of the Raptors repeating as NBA champs remain at 10-1 with real playoff basketball less than a week away.
That’s a slight improvement over where the Raptors had been but they remain behind the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers and the Milwaukee Bucks as favourites to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Currently the Lakers are working Dion Waiters and J.R. Smith into their rotation after losing both Avery Bradley and Rajon Rondo. LeBron James has been slowed by a hamstring issue and the team has a losing record since arriving in Orlando at 3-4.
The Clippers’ issues have been more self-inflicted, although there has been some bad timing and luck there was well. Super-sub Lou Williams side trip to a famous chicken wing joint that happens to double as a strip joint cost him a 10-day quarantine. Both Pat Beverley and Montrezl Harrell missed time as they had to quarantine after leaving the bubble for family issues. It meant the Clippers were rarely at full strength during the seeding games in which they have gone 3-3.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, is in a bit of a tailspin of its own having won just two of six games in Orlando and looking rather out of sorts from the team that dominated the pre-pandemic portion of the schedule.
All the Raptors have done in Orlando, while managing to lead the charge in the fight for social justice no less, is go a solid 5-1. Since the middle of January the Raptors record is 26-5, which is five full games better than any other team in the NBA.
Still, the focus when talk turns to potential NBA finalists seems to be anywhere but on Toronto.
Taking much from Monday’s win over the Bucks is likely not a good idea given Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t play and the Bucks barely looked interested in the game.
Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said as much post-game.
But taken as a whole, the Raptors can realistically look at their own position and the respective positions of the other front-runners and believe they head into the playoff round in better shape than any other team.
This isn’t news to the Raptors who have long believed and said they are a tough team to beat no matter who they are playing .
Nurse still wants his troops to find a little better offensive rhythm and even as good as the defence has been most nights in the bubble, he would like to see things get a little crisper on that end too.
But while their biggest and most feared opponents deal with injury issues and absence issues and cohesiveness issues, Nurse’s biggest issue seems to be finding minutes for all his deserving rotation players.
Through the successful playoff run a year ago Nurse went with primarily an eight-man rotation although there were games he stuck to just seven.
Even with Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green gone, Nurse still finds himself with more realistic options for minutes than he has minutes to spread around.
After a starting five of Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol, Nurse still has Serge Ibaka, Norm Powell and Rondae Hollis Jefferson coming off the bench.
Beyond those eight he has Terence Davis, who played well beyond his rookie status this year, as well as Chris Boucher and Matt Thomas, who were the talk of the bubble after their performances against the Bucks on Monday.
Nurse has numbers and he has versatility and after Monday’s game was sounding sort of put on the spot when the talk turned to keeping all those options happy with minutes.
“The rotation stays at seven, eight,” Nurse said after about the fourth question about how good his outside the rotation guys played Monday. “It’s great they played well and we can use these guys as sparks here and there and you know my theory. If I throw you in a game and you start playing well, your three-minute stint could turn into an 18-minute stint and we just want to keep these guys confident so maybe they’re able to do that a couple of times in a playoff series.”
In terms of health, the Raptors have one lone issue and that is with Pat McCaw, who has a benign mass on the back of his left knee and was forced to leave the bubble for treatment for it.
McCaw, when healthy, is a member of Nurse’s seven or eight man rotation, but his absence has not left the team in jeopardy just because of all that earlier mentioned depth.
Really, when your biggest issue is trying to explain to the media why the ninth and tenth best guys on your team, as good as they’ve been, probably won’t be seeing a lot of time, it’s a pretty good issue to have.
And it begs the question why more people aren’t seeing the Raptors for the threat to repeat that they really are.
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