Darko Rajakovic tried going into his bag early in the Toronto Raptors’ pitiful loss to the Atlanta Hawks. In the first quarter when Scottie Barnes usually sits down for Toronto’s first substitution of the game, instead it was Dennis Schroder who went to the bench. Malachi Flynn entered the game to play alongside the other starters, which constituted only the second time all season he had had a chance to do so. Later, Flynn played alongside Schroder, as the Raptors tried to supercharge the offense with as much ball handling on the floor as possible. That, too, lost its minutes. Even later, the Raptors went uber small with OG Anunoby and Barnes as the frontcourt. The idea was to ramp up the switchability as much as possible to contain the ball and disallow penetration. But the offense faltered and gave up transition attempts for Atlanta, and Schroder found himself sealed and beaten in transition by bigs. “Tonight we wanted to match Dennis’ minutes with Trae Young,” explained Rajakovic after the game. “I thought in [the] game 48 hours ago, we did [a] solid job on him defensively, and wanted to match his minutes and his sub pattern there. And we tweaked our rotation there as well. It was also a good opportunity for us to see what it looks like, our lineups with Dennis in [the] second unit, what Malachi looks [like] with our starters there. What Scottie looks [like] playing different minutes there. Just continuing to learn our team.” There is more the Raptors should want to learn going forward. How do the starters look with other players in place of Flynn, in place of Schroder? I, for one, would love to know how Otto Porter jr. looks — he was available despite not playing, after Rajakovic claimed he would be in the rotation going forward, but it’s hard to know whether it will take a week or a month for him to ramp up to game shape after missing a game. But how would Gary Trent jr. look alongside the starters? Precious Achiuwa? He had flashes of brilliance against Atlanta and flashes of airballs. Rajakovic should be looking to find out the answers to all those questions, too. As it stands, the threesome of Anunoby, Barnes, and Siakam have played 80 percent of their minutes alongside both of Schroder and Jakob Poeltl. Then another 18 percent of their minutes have included one or the other of Schroder or Poeltl. What do the three look like alongside other players? As for the changes Rajakovic did try against Atlanta, the Hawks always had an answer. For every bucket, there was an equal and opposite reaction — generally, a Trae Young pull-up triple. The Raptors gave up the shot in such a variety of ways. Sometimes it was failed pick-and-roll coverages. Sometimes it was a lost coverage in isolation. Sometimes it was in a zone, as the Raptors simply failed to track him from one point defender to the other. And if Toronto did force a miss, the Hawks always found a way to grab the ball on the offensive glass. “Our communication was not great tonight, and when you don’t have communication, it’s hard to execute any kind of coverage or any kind of defense,” said Rajakovic. The defense has been trending in the wrong direction despite an impressive second half in Toronto’s first game against Atlanta. And for every impressive moment, there has been a rough one to follow. In this second contest, Toronto just didn’t find a spark all night. There was no emotion or passion. When the coaching staff tried to pull levers, it resulted in nothing. At one point, the staff called a play to end a quarter, and the result was a Barnes drive to nowhere and a kickout to Siakam. Barnes dashed back to the perimeter to reset and attack again, but Siakam looked him off and attempted a runner from 18 feet that missed well wide. One might criticize the two for lacking chemistry together, but it was really the entire Raptors’ team. Many of those usual back screens that turn into lobs weren’t open, yet Poeltl collected multiple turnovers throwing those lobs anyway. You can’t rotation-hack your way into having a good team. It is Goodhart’s Law that as soon as a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. While this was likely even more applicable to last year’s Raptors than this season’s iteration, it certainly described Toronto’s rotations against the Hawks. It doesn’t matter who’s playing together if they’re not trying hard on defense. Atlanta outscored Toronto 24-3 on second-chance points. The Hawks attempted 101 shots to Toronto’s 77 — that gap of 24 extra shots was one the Raptors only managed to achieve four times last year. This used to be the Raptors’ identity. Losing to your own middling (and former) brand of kung fu is a particularly painful way to go. Losing your identity is one thing, but having another team parade it in front of you during a loss is another. So Toronto shouldn’t be trying to rotation-hack its way into success. That’s fine. At the very least, it can rotation-hack its way into finding out something more than it knows now. Rajakovic continues saying that he is still learning his team. In that regard, Toronto’s loss to Atlanta was a good step forward. But much of the whole race still requires running. Toronto has had its Big Three of Anunoby, Siakam, and Barnes together for more than two full seasons. And there’s still more to learn about how best to surround them. Hopefully, there will be enough time to find out the answers before the Raptors make decisions that alter the franchise for the long-term.The post The Raptors tried new rotations and still lost first appeared on Raptors Republic.
Source: https://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2023/12 ... till-lost/