Defensive Growing Pains Continue for Burgeoning Chris Boucher

The Toronto Raptors have battled inconsistent play from Chris Boucher this season, but growing pains are OK in a down year for the organization

Aaron Rose | Mar 23, 2021

Defensive Growing Pains Continue for Burgeoning Chris Boucher /

As the Toronto Raptors season continues to head south the organization will eventually transition into an evaluation period.

There are some things we already know about the future of the Raptors. Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and OG Anunoby will headline to group for the next three to four years and the core of whatever Toronto's next contention team looks like. After that things begin to get a lot more murky. Monday night's loss to the Houston Rockets was a perfect illustration of just how confusing Toronto's depth has been this season.

The Raptors played seven different 'bench' players Monday night, including Stanley Johnson who started in place of OG Anunoby. Between them, Toronto scored 15 points and none showed much of a reason for more playing time.

In all likelihood, the Raptors are going to undergo some significant revamping in the offseason. A lot of that bench rotation will be replaced with the usual churnover that comes during that time of year. But for as much disappointment as the bench has caused this season, there has been at least one bright spot: Chris Boucher.

Toronto's 28-year-old forward has come a long way over the past few seasons when he first broke into the league as a wiry, energetic small-ball big who could bring energy off the bench but not much else. These days, Boucher has become an elite pick-and-roll man — 75th percentile in the league per NBA Stats — and an equally adept pick-and-popper who is shooting 42% on catch-and-shoot 3-pointers this season, the fourth-best rate of any centre averaging at least three attempts per game.

That kind of offensive explosiveness will likely keep Boucher around next season and potentially earn him a bit of a payday down the road. The problem, however, is his defence.

“Well, he doesn’t rebound defensively very well," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said after a March 18th practice. "It’s difficult, man. If he’s going to be playing against big, strong 10-year veterans in the league, they’re gonna look at him, his stature, and try to plant him under the basket and push him out of the way, aren’t they?”

Defensive rebounding has been one of many big problems for Toronto this season. They're the second-worst defensive rebounding team in the NBA on a percentage basis, per Cleaning the Glass, and when Boucher is on the court they're even worse. They allow offensive rebounds on 29.7% of their opponent's misses when Boucher is playing, which is a percentage that ranks worse than the Minnesota Timberwolves who rank last in the league at 28.1%.

Then there's his defence in general. From a shot-blocking point of view, Boucher is elite. He's third in the league in total blocked shots this season and he's third in the NBA in contested 3-point shots, according to NBA Stats. He had the perfect combination of length, speed, hustle, and jumping ability to be a major problem for 3-point shooters. The key to his development will be learning how to control that incredible talent.

"Listen, it’s a little bit of a Catch-22 with him," Nurse said following Monday night's game in which Boucher took an ill-advised foul on a 3-point shooter in crunch time. "He blocks a lot of 3-point shots but any time you foul a 3-point shooter it seems like a really bad play and it usually is."

The margin for error between blocking a 3-point shooter and fouling a 3-point shooter is tiny and a lot of it has to do with how Boucher approaches his closeout. Typically when he's flying out to the perimeter he's looking to block the shot rather than just contest or disrupt the shooter's motion. These days, however, shooters have all kinds of little tricks to draw fouls on aggressive closeouts, whether it's sidestepping or hesitating just long enough to lure the defender into a bad foul.

"It’s just a balance of whether he thinks he’s gonna just contest or get by the guy and he gets caught in between a little bit," Nurse said. "It’s just an experience thing. ... He’s gonna have to just learn that in the speed of the game and how far he is away and what chance he has and who the personnel is that’s shooting the ball."

Boucher knows that. It's the kind of growing pains that come with being an undrafted developmental prospect who has suddenly seen his playing time jump to almost 24 minutes played per game.

"I think I definitely gotta get better," he said after that March 18 practice. "As a shot-blocker, it's kind of like a reflex to think that it's always a base-go or something like that, and it's not. So that's the things I've gotta get better. Especially for shot-contesting, I'm jumping most of the time, and sometimes you just need to contest it, and I need to start getting that a contested shot is always better than just a blow-by. This is all stuff that I've gotta get better at. The more we emphasize on it, like I said, I'm gonna get better."

It appears increasingly like that's what the rest of the season is going to be devoted to. While the Raptors aren't completely out of the playoff picture and certainly won't throw games or intentionally tank, there should be a lot of opportunity to work out some of the kinks with the young players while separating the wheat from the chaff in the rotation. We know Boucher will be back next season alongside Toronto's developing core and if he can clean up some of his defensive errors, he could be a really valuable player for the Raptors going forward.

Further Reading