10 things: In only three quarters, Fred VanVleet makes his All-Star case

Here are 10 takeaways from the Toronto Raptors‘ 120-105 win over the New York Knicks.

One — The Raptors had their full complement of rotation players available for the first time all season. Until now, the coaching staff had to make adjustments between Pascal Siakam’s shoulder surgery, OG Anunoby’s hip pointer, Scottie Barnes’ jammed thumb, Khem Birch’s knee swelling, and most recently with 10 players in COVID protocols at once.

Finally, we got to see the Raptors at full strength, and while the win came against a Knicks team that is both sick and banged up, it was impressive to watch the Raptors dismantle their opponent with relative ease, opening up a 25-point lead and only trailing once all night by one point in the first quarter. More importantly, it gave us the first chance to truly assess how Nick Nurse sees his rotation.

Two — Nurse’s starting lineup was to go with his five best players. He didn’t need to over complicate things. Between Fred VanVleet, Gary Trent Jr., Anunoby, Siakam and Barnes, he has five players who can all play defence at a high level, while also being threats to score 20 or more. The only real question is who will play centre in that group, and Nurse’s choice was Barnes, who also excelled at centre in the Raptors’ last win over the Knicks in December.

In this game, the offence was geared more towards VanVleet and Siakam, who had it going from start to finish, but you could easily envision games where Trent Jr., Barnes and Anunoby take more of a lead when needed. Nurse added the caveat in his pre-game interview that he may look to shuffle the group according to matchups, but realistically, this is his best option both in the short- and long-term.

The Raptors need to see if their five best players can play together, and hopefully they stay healthy enough to get some run.

Three — By starting the game without a centre, that left Nurse with three centres coming off the bench but it actually worked to his advantage. The Raptors’ best stretch of the game was at the start of the second quarter, where they held New York to one single point over the first six minutes of play. That stretch is typically reserved for the Raptors’ woeful bench bleeding points, but Nurse was able to mix in his starters effectively to go along with a two-centre lineup in the middle featuring Chris Boucher at power forward, and either Birch or Precious Achiuwa at centre.

The Knicks couldn’t get anything to fall in the paint against that group, and the Raptors were able to go on a 15-1 run to open up the game. Offence is admittedly difficult to come by when the Raptors have so little spacing on the floor, but they can sustain themselves by playing off their defence and getting out on the fast break. Not often do you see centres throwing lobs to the power forward ahead of the defence as Achiuwa did to set up Boucher.

Four — VanVleet won the game in the third quarter by scoring 19 of his 35 points. VanVleet was modest after the game, crediting the ability to play catch-and-shoot to the work of his teammates, but his third quarter outburst was almost entirely of his own doing as he knocked down five pull-up threes.

The Knicks kept getting caught flat-footed on pick-and-rolls involving VanVleet, with sophomore Obi Toppin being the biggest culprit of this as he would instinctively drop back, which is the exact opposite of what you should do against a lights-out shooter.

For his last basket of the quarter, VanVleet made sure to get the switch specifically against Toppin just to nail another three in his eye before chilling on the bench for the fourth quarter. The Raptors’ substandard record is the only thing keeping VanVleet from an All-Star berth, although without him the Raptors genuinely might be in the lottery.

Five — Siakam is looking completely comfortable in his role and is causally flirting with triple-doubles. He followed up his monstrous 19-rebound effort against the Clippers with another 13 rebounds tonight, and he showed great patience in how he attacked the basket.

On one play in the second quarter, Siakam was posting up around the free-throw line, spotted the double team coming from his right, and quickly fed a shovel pass to Achiuwa for a dunk. A few minutes later, Siakam was on the move in transition, used an exaggerated Eurostep to avoid the defender trying to step in for a charge, before throwing a gorgeous kickout feed to Trent Jr. for three after all five Knicks had sagged into the paint.

Siakam topped it off with a few smart cuts to make himself available when his teammates attacked, scored a few easy ones in transition, and knocked down a few jumpers just to keep the defence honest. He made 20 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists look effortless and natural when it’s anything but.

Six — Anunoby is a different player when he can leverage his strength going downhill. His three-point shot hasn’t been as sharp as it was since his season was interrupted by injuries and COVID, but the downhill element of his game is still there. Anunoby put R.J. Barrett in foul trouble in the first quarter by out-muscling him were the six-foot-eight Barrett was bouncing off Anunoby as he forced his way to the cup.

Anunoby is also usually good for at least one steal per game leading to a breakaway dunk, and he got himself to the foul line five times. When the threes start to return, expect Anunoby to be around 20 points a night, even if he only gets a handful of chances per game to call his own number.

Seven — Barnes was not very noticeable on offence. Part of that could be that he’s coming off a two-week absence between COVID and a game missed due to knee tendinitis, but it’s also likely a product of his role in this starting lineup. VanVleet and Siakam are clearly the first and second options, Anunoby and Trent Jr. rarely pass when the ball comes to them, and Barnes is always thinking pass-first, so the end result will be fairly similar to the modest numbers that Barnes managed today.

It’s noteworthy that five of Barnes’ nine field-goal attempts were from three, where even though it’s not his strength per se, that’s just what will be available for him when other players are generating the bulk of the scoring. One way for Barnes to get more involved is when Nurse uses him with the bench lineups, but there’s often a lack of spacing with those groups that prevents Barnes from getting downhill as often as he likes.

Eight — This was not Trent Jr.’s night as he fouled out in 20 minutes. He was limited in the first half with three fouls, picked up his fourth and fifth fouls in the opening two minutes of the second half, and before fouling out in the fourth.

Upon review of the tape, most of the fouls were innocuous and one of them was a complete phantom call, but the trend was clear. Five of his fouls were on reach-ins, which is one of his go-to moves on defence. Part of why he is the league leader in steals and deflections per game is because he is aggressive with his hands, and while he is rarely penalized this harshly, it’s inevitable that he will eventually run into a strict officiating crew. He’s won more gambles than he has lost this season, so there’s no reason to change his approach as of yet.

Nine — Nurse chose to axe both of his backup point guards with his full lineup available. It’s a strange look in the modern NBA, which is largely dominated by guard play, but the Raptors simply lack guard talent off the bench that none of them deserve even more than 10 minutes per game.

Nurse used Barnes as a de facto point guard with the second unit, which was also his biggest group of the game as it featured six-foot-six Svi Mykhailiuk as the smallest player on the floor while the other four players all boasted seven-foot wingspans. Shooting is obviously at a premium in this look, but Nurse will happily settle for reliable defence from his second unit, which has been largely unproductive on both ends of the floor.

Ten — The one spot that doesn’t have an answer is backup shooting guard. Mykhailiuk was almost invisible in this game outside of one breakaway layup, he didn’t even attempt a single three, and has not made more than two threes in any game all season despite that being his sole purpose.

There are only two shooting guards on the roster, and most of the bigs aren’t a threat to shoot, which means that Mykhailiuk can’t really be dropped. Nurse’s options are to try Yuta Watanabe as the backup shooting guard, even though he’s not a volume shooter either, or to extend Anunoby as a shooting guard with the second unit which is a luxury that is only possible when everyone is healthy.

It’s ultimately up to the front office to upgrade this position.

10 things: In only three quarters, Fred VanVleet makes his All-Star case
Source: Healthy Lifestyle