Spurs v. Raptors: Desperation Is A Start
At this point, desperation doesn’t seem to be enough. With a point guard struggling to regain his All Star form and a dynamic wing trying to return after missing significant time to injury, it’s no wonder they find themselves in the worst stretch of an up and down season. Even when they look most engaged, it has often been too little, too late, losing games they shouldn’t to opponents beneath their level of talent. Players are frustrated, and the season’s promise has been replaced with skepticism and exhaustion.
I am, of course, describing the current incarnation of the Toronto Raptors, but I could just as easily be describing February’s Spurs, a team that spent weeks trudging through the mud looking for a way out. Toronto came to the AT&T Center Tuesday night seeking an opportunity to course correct a season that has taken a sudden and brutal turn for the worse. Key injuries to the roster have disrupted their continuity and put a big strain on Kyle Lowry to keep the team afloat. He is clearly exhausted, and the rest of the roster has not been able to help lighten his load. And although the Raptors have the luxury of playing in the East, the advantages of maintaining seeding in a weak conference have not been enough to calm growing fears that the team is past its breaking point.
The Raptors have lost nine of the eleven games they’ve played since the All Star break. One of those wins was against the Sixers, and the other, a drubbing of the East-leading Hawks, has faded far enough into memory to feel like the work of an entirely different team. Lowry’s numbers have fallen off a cliff, and the team has followed him into the abyss.
But even watching San Antonio destroy Toronto so thoroughly Tuesday night wasn’t enough to pronounce the Raptors dead. The Spurs looked every bit the championship contender they were last season, taking each hit the Raptors gave them and continuing to attack. It was easy to watch the performance and forget that in December, the Spurs had their own 2-9 stretch, or that just last month, they somehow left a Rodeo Road Trip worse than they entered it.
That’s been the story of the Spurs’ season. It’s easy to forget – watching Tony Parker hit basket after basket – that he couldn’t spin past Andre Miller like a week ago. It’s easy to forget – watching Tiago Splitter successfully toss his weirdo hook in the opening quarter – that he’s only been in the starting lineup for a handful of games this season. Things have turned quickly in San Antonio.
Granted, some bad competition has helped. But wins against a beat up Kings squad and a heartbroken Bulls team are nothing to apologize about, especially if those victories have somehow resuscitated your previously aimless roster. Tuesday night’s contest wasn’t exactly a huge test, either, but the Raptors did enough to turn a 26-point deficit into something of a competitive game in the final quarter.
Kyle Lowry finally had a good game (even if three of his three-pointers came in garbage-time desperation heaves), and the Raptors got some great contributions from Amir Johnson. (Not including, of course, the hilarious 360 layup attempt around the 8:45 mark of the second quarter. Seriously, go watch that.) And when they were buried deep in a massive hole, Toronto found a gear they forgot about and very nearly pulled it off. But the Spurs were just too much to handle.
Popovich was clearly amped for this one, making statement substitutions early on, pulling out Danny Green less than a minute in for a defensive blunder, and then pulling out his replacement, Marco Belinelli, about a minute after that. He wasn’t having any of it, and the Spurs were going to play a focused, efficient game whether they wanted to or not. For the most part, as has been the case throughout this six game win streak, the team responded in kind.
Kawhi Leonard’s monster double-double and fifth consecutive 20+ point performance stole the show, but Tony Parker and Danny Green had huge games. And the Spurs got some good shooting from the bench, with Marco Belinelli, Matt Bonner, and Aron Baynes helping to sustain the attack. Six games out of one of their worst stretches in years, the Spurs look like a different team.
After the game, Kawhi Leonard told Bill Schoenig that he’s still getting hand treatments everyday to reach full health by the playoffs. “Healthy” as you and I define it – going to work without discomfort, being able to move without lingering pains – isn’t quite a threshold an NBA player hits in the course of a long, busy season. Most of these guys are playing with bumps and bruises, and even little pains often linger. For the Spurs, who have lost key players at different points during the season, “healthier” has been good enough. As players like Parker and Leonard round into a form that approximates the highs of last year, the team has rounded with them. But it’s worth noting that maladies can rear their head at any time to disrupt the march to the playoffs.
This is where the Raptors find themselves. Not every team makes its way through these weeds, and there are plenty of teams that have fallen off suddenly, never to make it back. (Doug Collins’ 2012 Sixers team comes to mind. As does the post-selfie Pacers.) But there’s enough room here to maintain the faintest sliver of optimism. Six games has been enough to talk Spurs fans off a cliff in a brutal Western Conference race, and the Raptors have much more than that left to hang on to a relatively secure seed in the East. But if they want to make the most of the time left to regroup, what they showed in the second half Tuesday night helps. Desperation might not be enough, but as the Spurs have learned, it’s a start.
