Coach of the Year – Nick Nurse: As we have learned over the past couple of seasons, top NBA personalities don’t necessarily always love each other. In an era of infinite statistical analysis, the human side of basketball still remains a major factor. Yes, the Raptors were the best team in the Eastern Conference last season. And Nick Nurse was part of that success. But Nurse has had to incorporate Kawhi Leonard, who left the San Antonio Spurs under inauspicious circumstances, and a moody and oft-injured Kyle Lowry who doesn’t appear to be on good terms with the team’s GM. We just saw Jimmy Butler and Leonard become a major distraction for their respective former teams. That Nurse has been able to steer the Raptors’ ship atop the East yet again — and while replacing a player favorite coach in Dwane Casey, no less — is an impressive feat.
Why Raptors’ Pascal Siakam is worthy of being an NBA all-star this season – Sportsnet.ca
Siakam is averaging career-best numbers across the board. He also ranks near the top of the league in efficiency, with the 12th-highest field goal percentage among players that average 25 minutes or more (57.2 per cent).
Those numbers are solid, but advanced metrics help paint an even clearer picture of Siakam’s value.
The Cameroonian ranks 18th league-wide with 5.0 win shares and ranks tied for 17th in offensive win shares (3.1) as well, which indicates his immense value on the offensive end.
Siakam is right behind some of the game’s best players on the win-shares list, including Kyrie Irving, Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid, despite the Raptors rarely running plays through him; a lot of Siakam’s offensive success comes from thriving in chaos and capitalizing off opponents’ mistakes. Having a go-to spin move that continues stifling defenders helps, too.
Close games are welcome stress tests for the Raptors and their marquee players | The Star
“I think we want to see just some more minutes together, just some more cohesion together,” Nurse said when Lowry returned from a 10-game injury absence. “When there’s close late games, where are we going, what are we doing, how are we getting the ball?
“It’s pretty simple when one of them’s on and one of them’s off. It becomes a little harder, in a good way. It’s a good problem that you’ve got two choices to make, who’s bringing it, who isn’t bringing it.”
Little did Nurse know what was coming. Two of Toronto’s last three games have come down to final possessions and, while neither Lowry nor Leonard actually made a game-winning shot, they both made game-winning plays for teammates.
Tuesday against Atlanta, Leonard made the decisive defensive play and Lowry fed Serge Ibaka for the game-winning dunk. Sunday in Washington, Leonard rebounded his own miss and made a pass to Ibaka for the game-breaking three-pointer with fewer than 15 seconds remaining in the second overtime period.
Leonard and Lowry had both missed potential game-winning shots against Washington but game-winning plays count just as much — and are just as important.
Leonard has said often this season that the crucible of tight regular-season games can only help the Raptors when the playoffs roll around, and Sunday’s taut affair in Washington had him at it again.
“Helps us get better as a team,” he said of the 140-138 double-overtime victory that extended Toronto’s NBA-best record to 33-12 and was their fifth win in a row. “Executing, just being familiar with those close games down the stretch. Seconds on the clock, one minute left, needing stops.”
Travel woes: Wizards stuck on tarmac for 5 hours on trip to London | NBC Sports Washington
After Sunday’s double-overtime heartbreaker to the Toronto Raptors, the Wizards experienced a travel nightmare thanks to a combination of mother nature and other logistical issues.
The short story: After spending over five hours on the tarmac, they never made it to London.
As detailed in the Wizards Talk podcast attached below, NBC Sports Washington’s Chris Miller decided to throw a movie on and pass out while sitting in the Virgin Atlantic plane destined for England.
Upon waking up, he learned one of two plane de-icing stations at Dulles International Airport broke down which caused massive delays in the midst of Sunday night’s steady snowfall.
Ultimately, inclement weather wasn’t the reason for derailing Washington’s trip to London. Airlines have regulations in place that state a pilot can only be on duty for a set number of hours for precautionary reasons. Washington’s pilot had reached his limit.
Raptors need to find that killer instinct | Toronto Sun
“We just have to be more mature,” Green said. “Learn how to keep leads. Keep our foot on the gas. Keep teams at bay. Obviously they got hot. They made shots. That’s what they do, but we have to put ourselves in a better position and not let them do that.
“It was an experience that we kind of realize we are getting there but we’re not fully there yet,” he said of the takeaway from the afternoon. “Obviously some tough matches coming up so we still have some work to do.”
Lowry gave huge props to both Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam for helping the Raptors pull this one out. He also sacrificed his body in a big way on the final play of the game throwing himself in the way of Beal as he attempted to haul in a desperate last second heave on a pass from under his own basket in hopes of getting off a tying shot. With Lowry playing free safety though it was not about to happen.
“We had to make sure we won that game,” Lowry said summing up his feelings on a hugely entertaining, though potentially harmful afternoon.
Celtics notebook: Brad Stevens OK with suggestions in the huddle – Boston Herald
It wasn’t quite Larry Bird overruling coach KC Jones to get the ball for a final play in Seattle, but Kyrie Irving did make a strong suggestion to Brad Stevens with 2.9 seconds left Saturday in Orlando.
Irving wasn’t at all subtle about the situation, which probably is just added fuel to his displeasure with the two-point loss when Gordon Hayward inbounded the ball to Jayson Tatum instead of going with the option that included Irving.
But Stevens is fine with the assistance from players, even in that tight time frame.
“Yeah, I’m always listening,” Stevens said. “I think it’s important to be a listener. So like the other day we had something drawn up, but I think Ky felt more comfortable doing something different, and he expressed it in a good way and we made a small tweak. And they had a couple of great options on that action, and J.T. had a great look, and that’s good.
“I love that. I want feedback. I think that’s good. And if guys are going to go out and make plays, ultimately they’ve got to be comfortable, so that’s part of it. I think a coach’s job is to ultimately have a plan but be able to listen to make sure that everybody feels good about it.”
Analysis: Raptors appear to be getting over the hump – Raptors HQ
So, the starters have held up OK (though we’ve lost out on those dominant variants to the starting lineup), but now we’ve gone from a bench that was problematic except for 2 positive contributors in Valanciunas and VanVleet mostly keeping it afloat, to having VanVleet starting and Valanciunas hurt, and being left with a bench that is basically just problematic.
This is actually a really good sign. Once the Raptors are fully healthy, the bench may sort itself out, especially as the Raptors have started using Siakam and their stars more with the bench units.
Before December 12th, Siakam had nine percent of his minutes come with bench units (no Lowry or Leonard). Since then, nearly 20 percent of his minutes have come in bench units. Lowry has gone from 34 percent of his minutes played away from Leonard (and that includes all those games Leonard missed) to over 50 percent since then (admittedly in a sample of only a few games). Leonard has gone from only 15 percent of his minutes away from Lowry to 23 percent in the past three games together.
If that trend continues when the team is healthy again, that should help bolster the bench to be a consistent positive contributor, while the starting and closing units should return to form — having the option to put Valanciunas at C or bring VanVleet as an extra ball handler is quite valuable, as seen in the lineup ratings up above.
The NBA announces that it has completed its investigation into Cleveland’s signing and subsequent release of Patrick McCaw and found no wrongdoing pic.twitter.com/oi5kqVm0pF
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) January 14, 2019
Toronto Raptors’ forward Kawhi Leonard and Utah Jazz’s guard Donovan Mitchell have been named Eastern and Western Conference Players of the Week, the league announced Monday.
Raptors need to find that killer instinct | Canada.com
“I kind of laughed when Beal got that three to put it into overtime,” Green said. “The ball rolled right to him, damn near the top of the key for a wide open three. It was almost storybook. We get the stop, it ricochets off four people and he ends up with the ball. Right at the wing that he just hit one from.”
Beal wasn’t done there but that did pretty much put a cap on his banner afternoon that included 14 points of regulation in the final 5:27 to force OT.
Green, though, was more interested in the Raptors’ response and while it came late it did come.
“We just have to be more mature,” Green said. “Learn how to keep leads. Keep our foot on the gas. Keep teams at bay. Obviously they got hot. They made shots. That’s what they do, but we have to put ourselves in a better position and not let them do that.
“It was an experience that we kind of realize we are getting there but we’re not fully there yet,” he said of the takeaway from the afternoon. “Obviously some tough matches coming up so we still have some work to do.”
Lowry gave huge props to both Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam for helping the Raptors pull this one out. He also sacrificed his body in a big way on the final play of the game throwing himself in the way of Beal as he attempted to haul in a desperate last second heave on a pass from under his own basket in hopes of getting off a tying shot. With Lowry playing free safety though it was not about to happen.
“We had to make sure we won that game,” Lowry said summing up his feelings on a hugely entertaining, though potentially harmful afternoon.
