Raptors Continue to Show Major Defensive Issues in Blowout Loss to Jazz

The Toronto Raptors have some serious defensive issues to deal with following another lopsided loss against the Utah Jazz

Defense was never supposed to be the problem for the Toronto Raptors.

This was a team built with a defense-first attitude from the top down. It was a team that wanted to wreak havoc on a nightly basis and make opposing teams miserable every time they took the court. For the first couple of weeks, that's who the Raptors were.

Since then, everything has gone wrong.

The Raptors came into Thursday night with the league's worst defense over the last two weeks. Against the Utah Jazz, it got downright ugly. Without their best defender OG Anunoby, who is expected to miss ‘a while’ with a hip pointer injury, Toronto's defense took another step in the wrong direction, falling 119-103, their sixth loss in their last seven games.

The Raptors’ hyper-aggressive defense burned them early. They trapped every pick-and-roll in the first quarter, letting Utah pick them apart either finding easy buckets and the rim or making kick-out passes to open shooters. The Jazz recorded assists on 12 of their 13 first-quarter buckets for 32 points.

Yikes.

"We just didn’t cover up enough at the rim or at least wrap them up and make them shoot free throws or things like that,"  Nurse said. "But I think guys we're trying to execute the stuff and we're just missed coverages and they made us pay for them."

Yet somehow Toronto hung around in the first half. Khem Birch filled Anunoby’s void in the starting lineup and did the one thing he said he hates doing: scoring. The 29-year-old center showed the kind of chemistry with Fred VanVleet that should make him a permanent starter the rest of the season. He worked smoothly worked a two-man game with VanVleet, letting the guard slither around the defense before finding Birch for easy floaters. When Birch slowed down in the second half, VanVleet and Gary Trent Jr. took over, leading the way with 24 and 31 points, respectively. It was Trent's second-best offensive night as a Raptor.

The problem for the Raptors was the offense couldn't keep up all night and when it slowed after a 61-point first half, the defense couldn't pick up the slack. Despite forcing 22 turnovers — kudos to the Raptors' defense for that — the Jazz just kept moving the ball, finding open shooters, and taking advantage of the chaos Toronto was trying to cause.

"Well we've gotta stick to what we do and what we do is we try to protect the paint first and then get out and challenge hard," Nurse said. "When we're in [protecting the paint] and we're out quickly [contesting three-point shots] and we’re flying around a little bit is when we're at our best and we're just not having enough of that, we're not quite getting out to make them miss enough."

A 31-17 third quarter in favor of Utah just about wrapped up the night.

Watanabe Itching to Return

Yuta Watanabe is getting “pissed” about his injury, Raptors coach Nick Nurse said pre-game. He’s been sidelined all season with a left calf strain that he reaggravated a few weeks ago rehabbing the injury.

Up Next: Sacramento Kings

The Raptors will be right back at it Friday night when they head to Sacramento to take on the Kings at 10 p.m. ET.