Morning Coffee – Thu, Mar 30

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— William Lou (@william_lou) March 29, 2023

Raptors need to turn around their clutch offence to thrive late in season – The Athletic

As you might have guessed, the Raptors are one of those teams with a higher turnover percentage in the clutch compared to their overall numbers. They turn the ball over on just 12 percent of possessions overall, the lowest rate in the league. In the clutch, that goes up to 13 percent, which is 18th in those situations. Only three teams, Milwaukee, San Antonio and Houston, have bigger drops.

It is not as if turnovers themselves are the problem. It just highlights what we already know: The Raptors, whose half-court offence ranks in the 13th percentile for the season, per Synergy Sports, struggle to exploit set defences. When they do, they struggle to hit the shots they produce.

Miami’s Bam Adebayo drives to the net against Raptors Jakob Poeltl (19). (John E. Sokolowski / USA Today)
What is the difference between the Heat, who might be able to avoid the Play-In Tournament, and currently sit seventh in the standings as opposed to the Raptors, who are in ninth? It comes down to 180 minutes — the 100 the Heat have played in the clutch since Jan. 1, and the 80 the Raptors have played. In those situations, Miami’s offensive numbers get better compared to their overall numbers. They don’t get dramatically better, but in a scenario in which efficiency tends to drop, a slight improvement is actually a massive relative victory.

Overall, the Raptors have scored 95 points more than their opponents through 76 games, while the Heat have been outscored by 72 points. If both teams played to the expectations of their point differential, the Raptors would be five games better than the Heat. Instead, the Heat are two games better than the Raptors.

“I can safely say that we have more experience than any other team this year,” Spoelstra said of playing in tight games. “We got a lot of reps with it. We understand what we are trying to get done.”

The Raptors’ numbers? They get way, way worse.

Raptors’ road to NBA play-in more ‘dangerous’ than they are | The Star

So much for the Raptors stealthily arriving in the post-season as an overlooked underdog.

Not that it necessarily matters. Toronto’s Masai Ujiri era, which began with the team president unleashing a public “F— Brooklyn!” in the lead-up to the 2014 playoffs, has never made keeping a low profile an organizational priority. Which is largely a good thing. In sports and in life, projecting confidence can be a weapon.

The problem is that while Ujiri had plenty of reason for trash-talking confidence most of a decade ago, Tuesday’s big talk from Siakam isn’t grounded in much that’s tangible. The good news is that Toronto is in the midst of its longest win streak of the season. The bad news is that longest win streak of the season has stretched a paltry three games.

Which is only to ask: Is there any logical reason why the Raptors, eighth in the East heading into Wednesday, would actually be considered a matchup “nightmare” in the playoffs? Would anyone, beyond performative platitudes, reasonably consider them “dangerous”?

Maybe so if all of Toronto’s games could somehow be played in Toronto. As a home team, after all, the Raptors owned the fifth-best record in the East. Alas, if the Raptors make the playoffs, they’ll need to start a best-of-seven series on the road. And Toronto ranks 25th in road winning percentage.

That tells you something about the year-over-year fall-off of a franchise that was expected to be far better than a ho-hum 38-38 at this point. A season ago, don’t forget, the 48-win Raptors ranked fifth in road winning percentage and earned a fifth seed into the post-season. A season ago, the Raptors, fully healthy, actually seemed dangerous.

But whatever gritty resilience the Raptors carried around 12 months ago, they’ve rediscovered it only sporadically this season, when almost every sign of life has been promptly negated by the arrival of another stinker, like last week’s loss to the Pacers or the 1-4 road trip at the beginning of March.

Given that lack of consistency, it’s hard to imagine any of the teams at the top of the East losing serious sleep over Toronto. Coming up on the four-year anniversary of their only championship, the Raptors have won precisely one playoff series since they raised that banner. And the odds of them winning another next month are long.

There’s parity in the NBA, sure. But lately it’s been a parity at the top. Since the NBA initiated the play-in concept in 2020, play-in teams are 0-for-10 in first-round series. None of those 10 teams have so much as taken a series to seven games. Only three have gone to six.

The Raptors started Wednesday deadlocked in eighth place with the Atlanta Hawks, who’d hold the tiebreaker should it come to that. And while it’s true they were also only 2 1/2 games behind sixth-place Brooklyn for a chance at avoiding the play-in tournament that includes seeds seven through 10, the road ahead is rough. In their remaining six games, the Raptors are facing the toughest schedule in the East as measured by the combined winning percentages of their opponents.

This is the worst road Raptors team in a decade but an excellent home squad | Toronto Sun

The home slate is all but done for the Raptors this season and that’s extremely bad news for a team that has thrived like few others when playing at its own fortress.

Toronto has won 65% of the time at Scotiabank Arena in 2022-23 (including victories in 10-of-11), vs. 33% of the road games.

The 2017-18 Raptors set the franchise record with 34 home wins and three others won 30 or more (2018-19, 2015-16, 2006-07). A win over Milwaukee in the season finale would put this Raptors team tied for sixth in home wins in a season with 27.

Only five Raptors teams that played a full 82 game season have ever won fewer road outings than this one, though they’ll surely win a few more in the next week (they’re due, having dropped 6-of-7 away). Still, this will be the first Raptors team to win fewer than 20 on the road in a full year in a decade.

Unless the Raptors can move up to No. 7 in the East, the team will have to find a way on the road in the play-in at least once. Seventh would mean hosting No. 8, as well as the 9-10 winner if you lose to No. 8. Staying at nine would at least result in hosting No. 10 (likely Chicago).

Should the Raptors advance to the playoffs, of course, there’s no way out of beginning on the road.

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