The Toronto Raptors have been very good for a half-decade, even if the playoff results haven’t been thrilling by any stretch of the imagination. There is something to be said for the best run in franchise history and, despite the lack of overall respect for the run (including continued Christmas absences), the results speak for themselves to some degree.
With that said, the 2017-2018 season is a big one for a Raptors team that invested quite a bit in this current group during the summer and, in speaking with David Aldridge of NBA.com, All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry opened up on some of the changes that Toronto is enacting to make a real run. The Raptors are excelling offensively and they are even more watchable, with Lowry explaining that three-point focus sweeping the league is also infecting the play of his team.
“The 3-point game is helping us evolve, it’s spacing us out a lot more. I think it helps with everything — it helps us with spacing, pace, understanding where we all want to be on the floor. And it gives us the confidence to all do it. We all can shoot it without nobody bitching at you. No one cares who shoots the three. We want everybody to be successful.”
The Raptors are scoring at a stellar rate of 110.6 points per 100 possessions and, unlike the past, the performance feels more sustainable in a playoff setting, simply because it is more varied and difficult to guard than the stagnant, iso-heavy deployment in recent years.
“It took us a while to get out of habits that were successful for us. We still won 50-plus games with the way we was playing. But once we bought in, and understood how we could be better at it, you started to see the effects of it during the season. It took us a little while. Even preseason, we wasn’t there. First couple of games, we were still trying to figure it out. Now, you see it. We’re finding our rhythm. Guys understand where to be, how to move the ball, everything.”
Everything in December has to be viewed through the prism of (relatively) small sample size but the eye test also backs up Lowry’s sentiments. Defensively, the Raptors are doing enough to be dangerous (currently sitting at No. 6 in the NBA) and this offensive overhaul could prove to be quite important.
More than anyone, this Toronto core, led by Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, knows that regular season performance matters very little. But this time, it may be real for the Raptors and they seem to realize it.
