Raptors Takeaways: Orlando looks steps ahead of Toronto after dominant win

O-town? Oh no. 

Cheezy, sure, but accurate.

For the second time in as many years, the Raptors arrived in Orlando hoping to build a little momentum after a so-so start to the season.

Last year Toronto didn’t make the trip until early December but on paper, the then 6-20 Magic should have been easy pickings.

Instead, the Raptors ran into a buzz saw and were manhandled in both games, the start of a December swoon that in many ways derailed the Raptors’ season.

Meanwhile, the Magic have been a different team since. They played .500 basketball the rest of last season and have signalled early in this one that their rebuilding phase is over, and they expect to be a factor in the East. They have a clean cap sheet, plenty of draft capital and a deep, young roster with which to make their next steps.

What direction the Raptors are headed in is an open question. The Magic protected homecourt against the Raptors convincingly again as they won 126-107, a score that very much reflected which team was bigger, more physical, more competitive and a more convincing playoff contender.

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The Magic improved to 9-5 on the season and find themselves in a playoff spot while the Raptors lost their third game in their past four starts to fall to 6-8 and are outside of both a playoff spot and a spot in the season-ending play-in tournament. 

The loss effectively eliminates the Raptors from a chance to advance in the In-Season Tournament as they are 0-2 with a -22-point differential. The Raptors shot 50.7 per cent from the floor and 14-of-28 from three but toasted themselves by making 23 turnovers and giving up 14 offensive rebounds to the Magic, who shot 50.5 per cent from the floor and 12-of-31 from three while making just 12 turnovers.

Dennis Schroder led Toronto with 24 points (though counted only one assist) while the Magic’s Paulo Banchero had 25 points to lead the Magic.

The takeaways:

Out of their league?

The Raptors schedule has been a little strange in that heading into Tuesday night’s matchup against the Magic nearly half of their games so far had been against the three teams in the East widely viewed as title contenders — two each against Boston, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. They are 1-5 in those games.

They were 5-2 in the rest of their games with wins over two likely playoff teams (Minnesota and Dallas) and three more against teams that are almost certainly lottery-bound in San Antonio, Washington and Detroit.

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Playing the Magic Tuesday and Indiana on Wednesday night represents the beginning of a long stretch against Eastern Conference teams in their weight class, or at least teams that they will have to battle with if they want to sneak into the top six of the conference or even for positioning in the play-in tournament.

After Indiana, the Raptors host the struggling Bulls on Friday and then take to the road for games against Cleveland and Brooklyn on Sunday and Tuesday. If the Raptors are serious about being a playoff team — or even a play-in team — going 3-2 in this stretch would send a message. They are 0-1 before heading to Indiana to play the Pacers.

The bench sob

It’s been a while since the Raptors have had a really effective bench unit, and it turns out it’s hard to create one on the fly.

Rajakovic has stood firm on his pre-season plan to have a 10-man rotation as a way to preserve his starters, develop players and build out a dedicated unit that can have its own identity.

It works sometimes. Against the woeful Detroit Pistons, a “Scottie plus bench” lineup extended the Raptors first quarter lead in the opening minutes of the second quarter and basically turned the game into a blowout, though it was likely heading that way anyway.

It was a different story against the much better and much deeper Magic. Toronto was trailing by seven to start the second quarter and then nearly played their way out of the game as Orlando went up by 19 midway through the second thanks to a 15-3 run to start the period.

It was a perfect combination of offensive incompetence and defensive negligence. The Magic scored on tip-ins after missed fastbreak lay-ups, uncontested threes and lay-ups off back cuts that had the Raptors looking at each other, confused.

Barnes couldn’t lift a lineup that featured Precious Achiuwa, Malachi Flynn, Chris Boucher and Gary Trent Jr. and fared no better when Gradey Dick and O.G. Anunoby took the floor to help. There was a reason the Raptors played their starters more than any other team in the NBA the past two seasons and if this keeps up, Rajakovic might soon appreciate why. The Magic bench out-scored Toronto 56-32.

Jalen Suggs wants your attention

It took about 30 seconds to remind anyone watching why the third-year Orlando guard was widely projected to go ahead of Scottie Barnes in the 2021 draft as he went 94-feet in about a split second after the Raptors on their initial possession.

He then picked up Dennis Schroder at midcourt and tried to make a steal on the Raptors guard but inadvertently fouled him. He fed teammate Paulo Banchero on a fastbreak leading to a trip to the free-throw line for the Magic big man. He hit a three and then ran around Pascal Siakam when the Raptors forward tried to post him up in transition and made the steal which led to Franz Wagner hitting a three prompting Rajakovic to call an earl timeout.

Suggs wasn’t done. He hit Magic rookie Anthony Black for a fastbreak dunk and hit another three of his own.

Suggs had eight points, a steal and an assist before the game was four minutes old and was doing it with maximum intensity the entire time. He finished with 18 points, four assists and two steals and was playing at the kind of level that inspires teammates.

No one is going to take Suggs ahead of Barnes — who had 14 points, eight rebounds, four assists and three steals — in a re-draft, but after being limited to just 101 games in his first two seasons due to injury, Suggs is proving to be the kind of player winning teams covet: plus size for his position, an unselfish, team-first approach and a determined competitor that takes things to heart.

Bad offence, better defence

The Magic came into the game as one of the best defensive teams in the NBA, a quality not typically associated with teams that have an average age of just 24 and that lack a single defensive difference maker — a big man, let’s say, who cleans up everyone’s mistakes at the bad of the defence.

Instead, they do it by playing really hard, being dogged at the point of attack and taking advantage of the size they have across just about every position to wreak havoc.

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The Raptors starters did a decent job in cutting a 19-point lead in the second quarter to 11 by halftime, but the third quarter unfolded predictably: a very good defensive team that is tied for first in forcing turnovers caused chaos amongst a shaky offensive team that ranks in the bottom half of the league when it comes to taking care of the ball.

In the first six minutes of the third quarter, the Raptors coughed the ball up six times and had another possession end when Schroder dribbled blindly into a crowd and had his shot blocked. The Magic were up 18 midway through the third quarter and Toronto was fortunate that the deficit wasn’t bigger as they started the fourth quarter down 100-82.

Good idea, nice try

That’s where the inaugural in-season tournament stands in my eyes to this point.

The funky courts did the job and got people talking about it more than the actual product has probably deserved at this stage, even if some of the conversation is around how the courts are either garishly ugly (as someone who doesn’t see colours very well, I am firmly in the ‘don’t care’ category on this) or potentially unsafe as players have complained about them being too slick and slippery at times.

But there are some bigger flaws, mainly that by elevating some regular season games to “IST” status, it automatically diminishes other regular season games that aren’t “special.”

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I have plenty of ideas on this – I spoke about my very official five-point plan with Danielle Michaud on the pre-game show today — but the most fundamental is separating the IST schedule from the regular-season schedule. The IST should be a stand-alone format and the NBA should cut back on the regular season to accommodate it.

My other points:

™ 1) The pool play portion of the IST should take place over a dedicated week where each team plays four games in seven days, ideally at six neutral sites, kind of like at a FIBA event. The regular season would stop at it would be all IST, all the time.

2) The tournament should give teams opportunities to experiment with their roster. You could require two-way players to play a certain number of minutes in IST games, or — if you wanted to get really crazy — points scored by players on two-way contracts could count as double. Imagine the storyline if Raptors two-way guard Marquis Nowell hit a three that counted for six points that advanced the Raptors to the knockout round and earned him a big whack of prize money in process?

3) The knockout round has to be expanded to 16 teams. With only the six pool-play winners and the two wild-card teams advancing in the current format, any teams that lose two games are basically eliminated. Expand the knockout round and make more games count, I say. Finally

4) To incentivize organizations and engage fan bases, the IST Cup should come with a “sandwich” pick in the upcoming draft, that is an extra pick at the end of the first round before the second round starts. Adam Silver, you’re welcome.

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