The Raptors' Hopes For Second-Half Rest Has Vanished as Fight For Playoff Spot Commences

The Toronto Raptors had hoped to ease off the gas a little bit in a jam-packed second-half schedule, but those hopes have all but vanished lately

Aaron Rose | Mar 15, 2021

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

When the Toronto Raptors' second-half schedule was released late last month Raptors coach Nick Nurse said it reminded him of his days coaching in the United States Basketball League.

"It looked busy," he said. "Looked like a lot of games."

It's a jam-packed 35-game schedule — potentially 36 if Toronto reschedules its postponed game against the Chicago Bulls — in just 67 days. In order to make that work, the Raptors will play at least eight back-to-backs and a four-game West Coast road trip that spans six days in early May.

Oy.

Back then, Nurse had a pretty good plan for battling the schedule. The Raptors were 16-17 on February 24 when the schedule came out, sitting in the fifth seed in the Eastern Conference. They had strung together a recent four-game winning streak and were feeling pretty good about themselves. So good, perhaps, that some rest might be on the horizon for Toronto's stars.

"There's gotta probably be a look at, I haven't done it yet, but thinking about managing [players' minutes]," Nurse said on February 24. "I think that maybe getting more guys on the floor in certain situations and maybe using a deeper roster in some fashion or other. I'm kicking those ideas around in my head, or I'll start to. I'll probably leave that for a few days."

Well, rest certainly came for some of those stars, just not in a way anyone would have hoped. Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and OG Anunoby have been out for over two weeks due to COVID-19 protocols and the Raptors haven't won a game since. As of Monday, they sit at 17-22, tied for the eighth-worst record in the NBA, and those grandiose hopes of resting players down the stretch have all but vanished.

"That’s obviously been put to the backburner or even to the side for now," Nurse said prior to Sunday night's game. "I’m knee-deep in trying to manage this situation without looking too far down the road."

The good news for Toronto is that help should be on the way. Some of Toronto's missing players have already cleared COVID-19 protocols and have begun working out 1-on-0 and the rest of the group shouldn't be too far behind, Nurse said. The team is hopeful that some of the group, if not everyone, will be back in some capacity by Wednesday night's game against the Detroit Pistons or at worst later on in the week.

The Raptors are fortunate that the Eastern Conference is a bit of a mess this season. Even at five games below .500, they're only one game out of the 10th seed and a spot in the play-in tournament and only three games back of the sixth-seeded Charlotte Hornets. With three games coming up against the Pistons, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Houston Rockets, it's quite possible Toronto strings together a nice little run over the next few games and begins clawing out of the NBA's basement.

"When we get guys back we can play to a level that we know we can play to," Kyle Lowry said Sunday. "I wouldn’t say there’s more pressure. Honestly, you want to be in sixth place so you don’t have to play in no play-in games, but we have to do what we have to do to get to that point where we’re where we need to be. If we’re eighth, seven, we have to play a play-in game but we still get an opportunity to do something."

Toronto's season even when everyone is healthy has been a little bit strange. They've played just 14 games this year in which Lowry, Fred Vanleet, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, Norman Powell were all healthy and available at tipoff. In those games, they've gone 4-10. Eight of those losses came right at the start of the season when the Raptors were still trying to sort things out. Since then, they've gone 4-2, all while knocking off some pretty talented teams even when the Raptors aren't at full strength.

"I think that it's such an odd year," Nurse said. "It feels to me, is that who you're playing is like irrelevant almost. When the really really good teams by record come to town, we take care of business. The records are like out the [window]."

That's why there is still hope for something special this season. The Raptors have already shown they can take down the Brooklyn Nets, albeit without Kevin Durant for most of the game, the Milwaukee Bucks in Milwaukee, and the Philadelphia 76ers.

"We're a good team, and we've just got to believe it," Powell said. "Once we get our guys back, and those guys get back into the flow of things, I feel like we're going to be a team that's gonna be able to go on a huge run and collect some wins. Hopefully down the stretch. We've got a lot of time left. Not to hit the panic button just yet."

It's too early to hit the panic button with 30-plus games to go in the season while being just one game out of a quasi-playoff spot, but the Raptors are going to have to turn things around soon. Their room for error has all but vanished and it's going to be a slog to really solidify themselves as a playoff team in their exhausting second-half schedule.

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