Nick Nurse Floats the Idea of Different Starting Lineups & Discusses Playing Khem Birch & Precious Achiuwa Together

The Toronto Raptors are toying with the idea of changing their starting lineup night to night and potentially playing Khem Birch and Precious Achiuwa together

Aaron Rose | Jan 3, 2022

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It’s been almost 16 months since the Toronto Raptors accidentally backed into this idea of hyper small ball basketball. They were desperate for answers, struggling to defend Boston Celtics guard Kemba Walker in the 2020 Eastern Conference Semifinals. Boston had found a simple formula for success: run pick-and-rolls right at Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol. In order to shake things up, Raptors coach Nick Nurse decided to go small, throwing Kyle Lowry, Fred VanVleet, Norman Powell, OG Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam on the floor together, a group that had played one minute together all season.

On paper, the Raptors swapped out their defensive-minded bigs for Powell, an offense-first 6-foot-3 guard. It should have meant more offense, right? Yet in 32 crunch time minutes together in that series the small-ball lineup shut down the Celtics, holding Boston to 37.9% shooting and posting a defensive rating of 85.0, nearly 20 points per 100 possessions better than their regular season defensive rating of 104.7.

Weird, huh?

Today, the Raptors are toying around with the same idea. They’ve decided to start games with their bigs on the bench in favor of move versatility with Gary Trent Jr. and Scottie Barnes joining VanVleet, Anunoby, and Siakam in a quasi-small ball lineup.

Why?

“I’m hoping that this group will give us our best defensive team at the end of games,” Nurse said Sunday. “Hopefully it’s gonna be a real tough defensive team and that’s the end goal, to figure out our best defensive team and then figure out where the offense comes from each night.”

So far, things have worked out as expected. In 112 possessions together (56 minutes) — a very small sample size — that unit has held opponents to 42% shooting and posted a defensive rating of 95.6, nearly 15 points per 100 possessions better than their 110.0 defensive rating for the season. But for impressive as those numbers have been defensively, Toronto has yet to use that lineup against any of the league’s top centers. And that’s where things get complicated.

Nurse has once again floated the idea of having multiple starting lineups depending on matchups. One night, for example, the Raptors may go small when they’re playing a team like the New York Knicks who were without Mitchell Robinson and Nerlens Noel on Sunday. On other nights, maybe Khem Birch or Precious Achiuwa gets the start as the Raptors try to man up against bigs like Joel Embiid.

“I don’t think it matters,” said Siakam who is asked to take on bigger opponents when Birch and Achiuwa are off the floor. “I think the way we play we don’t have positions really. I think there’s almost five people out there that don’t have a position. We can all play each other’s positions and I think it doesn’t really matter.”

But there may be an issue with bringing both Birch and Achiuwa off the bench together. The two bigs have not played a single minute together this season. On Sunday, Nurse brought Birch off the bench as the lone big in the first and third quarters and let Achiuwa handle the second and fourth quarters, with each big playing about 18 minutes.

“I’m not quite sure how that’s gonna work,” Nurse said of the two bigs both coming off the bench and potentially playing together. “We’re gonna have to talk through it and communicate through it and have some patience probably with it.”

It’s a topic that’s already come up within the organization. While Birch and Achiuwa haven’t practiced playing together so far, there’s an expectation that those minutes are coming either in practice or in a game, Birch said.

“They’ve just got to make sure they know some of the basic sets and out-of-bounds plays and things like that,” Nurse said. “Who’s gonna guard who — I really like both of their feet. What are we gonna run on offense? Give ‘em a chance if that happens.”

It’s going to take a little while to figure out how to optimize this rotation. With so many equally talented players and no clear-cut starting lineup, there will certainly be some tinkering. But having too many healthy players is certainly not a problem the Raptors are going to be complaining about any time soon.

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