Raptors swarm Caris LeVert in Game 1
Imagine what things would look like if the Toronto Raptors took the court for a playoff game without Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and Marc Gasol.
That's essentially what the Brooklyn Nets are doing these days. It's nobody's fault that the Nets look the way they do, but when you take the court without five of your top players — excluding Kevin Durant — things look pretty rough.
If it were the Raptors, opposing teams would swarm Fred VanVleet, forcing the ball out of his hands and making guys like Terence Davis II and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson win the game.
Last night, that's exactly what the Raptors did to Brooklyn and Nets' star Caris LeVert.
The 25-year-old LeVert was one of the best players in the NBA's seeding games, averaging 25 points on 48% shooting with just under seven assists. Coming into the series, Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said he was planning to swarm LeVert with multiple defenders.
On Monday, that's exactly what they did.
Fred VanVleet was the primary defender on LeVert for most of the night, defending him for 18.9 partial possessions, according to NBA Stats. On those possessions, LeVert went 0-for-4 from the field with 0 points and five assists. But it wasn't just VanVleet's defense that caused LeVert problems. Whenever he touched the ball the Raptors swarmed him with secondary defenders.
"We really wanted to show him a crowd and make him kick it out and he was happy to do that which is the sign of a great player," VanVleet said. "He ended up with 15 assists and that was kind of by virtue of him being aggressive and also by the set up of our game plan."
On this play, LeVert is swarmed out of the Jarrett Allen screen. Marc Gasol steps up to stop the drive and OG Anunoby steps in, away from Garrett Temple and Rodions Kurucs to force the ball out of LeVert's hands.
Later in the quarter, the Raptors played it the same way, swarming LeVert's drive and rotating first to force the ball out of Kurucs' hands, then out of LeVert's hands, but not too much to leave Joe Harris open in the corner.
"They were trapping a lot. Obviously there was a lot of attention every time I had the ball," LeVert said post-game. "They were trapping all of my ISOs, in the mid-post, up top, all of my ball screens, so I felt like that was the gameplan throughout the whole game."
He finished the game with a career-high 15 assists and 15 points on just 5-for-14 shooting.
Ultimately, the Raptors aren't going to let LeVert beat them. If Garrett Temple and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot can make enough plays to beat the reigning champions, than kudos to them.
