Raptors return to court for first time since March shutdown
After four months without competitive basketball, the Toronto Raptors began putting the puzzle pieces of the 2019-20 NBA season back together as they returned to the practice court Saturday afternoon.
"It did feel like Day 1 of training camp, today," Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. "I mean just a lot of the drills, a lot of the demeanor of the players, etcetera. I think it was very interesting, a lot of things that brought back similarities from each of the training camps I've been a part of with the Raptors."
Once the all-clear message came from the league around 10:30 this morning, the Raptors hit the court for five-on-five activities for the first time since the league shut down on March 11.
Day 1 saw a lot of tinkering from Nurse, who said he was trying to check out some different lineup combinations while keeping his two team teams balanced during five-on-five drills.
"It was good," Fred VanVleet said. "We've got to flesh some things out over these next couple of weeks and get ready to play, but [we're] kind of taking the marathon approach too. We've still got a long way to go."
VanVleet said he's not concerned about the team's ability to gel after such a long layoff. Having played with so many different lineups throughout the year, he said the team should be ready to go once play officially returns on August 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers.
"It's all good," Pascal Siakam said. "Obviously you're going to be a little rusty out there, but that's expected. But I think it's good that we're back here. We just want to play, like everyone is excited about playing."
Strategically, Nurse said he plans on working on a few new wrinkles that he'd like to try when the playoffs commence next month. He had hoped to work them late in the season as the playoffs neared, but with such a condensed schedule now, he expects some of those tactical changes may have to be saved for practice.
"A lot of those things are ATO (after timeout) things, draw ups after timeouts that we're doing, but we'll find a way, we'll manage a way to do some experimenting," Nurse said.
Ultimately, aside from some rust a few fixable things, Nurse said he was pleased with the way things went.
Life in the Disney bubble
The Raptors are fairly used to quarantine at this point. The COVID-19 shut down began with a two-week quarantine for Raptors players after Rudy Gobert tested positive on March 11. Now, after a few weeks quarantined in Fort Myers, Florida, Siakam said the Disney bubble isn't too different.
"We're finding things to do, like video games, like anything that I can do to just let time fly, and then just be ready mentally," Siakam said. "We just want to play man, like I miss playing basketball and it definitely felt like a basketball atmosphere, and that's all I really care about."
Raptors Jersey Statements
The Raptors have formed a committee to come up with what the team should wear as their social justice statements when the season returns, Siakam said.
"I think we have a lot of plans," Siakam said. "We just want to anything that we can to make a change."
