Rob Gray-USA TODAY Sports
Raptors Face Another Difficult Playoff Push With Plenty of Learning Experiences from Last Season
Fred VanVleet came into this season vowing he'd treat his body differently.
He’d risen to every challenge for the better part of the first 50 games of last year, stepping into the void left by Kyle Lowry and at times even carrying the Toronto Raptors without Pascal Siakam. That was until an awkward fall in late February against the New Orleans Pelicans that aggravated his hip and derailed his year.
VanVleet was never the same following the injury. He missed 11 of Toronto’s final 26 games after the All-Star Break and the burst he’d had early in the year vanished. He still showed up as much as he could as the Raptors pushed to avoid the play-in tournament, eventually clinching the sixth seed in the conference and a first-round date with the Philadelphia 76ers. But the toll proved too much. Midway through Game 4 in the first round, VanVleet’s body failed him for good. He took an intentional foul against Tyrese Maxey and walked off the court for the final time.
“The last push that we made to get to that position that we were in, I think that I kinda zoned out a little bit in terms of listening to my body,” VanVleet said on media day in September.
A year later, Toronto and VanVleet find themselves in a very similar position. The Raptors are once again fighting for their playoff lives, coming out of the All-Star Break sitting 10th in the East, two games up on the Chicago Bulls for the final play-in spot, and 4.5 games back of the sixth-seeded New York Knicks.
The situation standings-wise is a little bleaker, but VanVleet and this Raptors roster are virtually at full strength. O.G. Anunoby, Gary Trent Jr., and Thad Young all practiced Tuesday and are expected to play Thursday when the Raptors return to Scotiabank Arena to take on the New Orleans Pelicans. VanVleet, meanwhile, is healthy and playing the best basketball of his season.
“I haven’t had — knock on wood — an injury,” VanVleet said Tuesday. “I suffered an injury last year and I missed time. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t do anything different because we got ourselves in position to be the (fifth)-seed last year. I knew what I was doing and it hurt at the end of the season to finish like that but all of that is behind us.”
VanVleet did change a few things in the summer on the heels of last year’s playoff exit. While he wouldn’t reveal his offseason changes, he did say he wanted to be better prepared for the second half of the year. In his words, he wanted to “peak” at the right time.
“I’m happy with the way that it’s going,” VanVleet said of the results. “Obviously, I got off to a slow start for various reasons, but I’ve been playing a lot better basketball … and hopefully I can continue to get better throughout the season and play my best in April and hopefully take this team far. That’s really all I’m focused on.”
Toronto’s roster is a little deeper this time around. The addition of Jakob Poeltl at the trade deadline gave the Raptors another rotation player, one who is expected to step into the starting rotation and bump Trent to the bench. In theory, that should alleviate some of the pressure on the starters to log heavy minutes as Toronto pushes through the final 23 games.
“The way we balance it is hopefully we stay a little healthier than we did a year ago down the stretch and we're able to play some of these other guys,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “That's the hope, right, is that we have some better health here than we've had for the last year and a half and we can spread the mere minutes out a little bit.”
It's not going to be easy though. Toronto’s remaining schedule is considered the fifth most difficult in the NBA with games against Boston, Milwaukee, Denver, Cleveland, and Philadelphia on the horizon, and playing .475 basketball as the Raptors have done so far this year isn't going to cut it.
The key this time around is going to be pushing VanVleet and the roster enough to make the playoffs without exhausting the team too much for any meaningful first-round action. They're healthy now. Let's keep it that way.
Further Reading
Jakob Poeltl's offensive explosion vs Magic leads Raptors into much-needed break
Raptors seeing early defensive returns as Jakob Poeltl finds his footing in Toronto's system
Fred VanVleet & Pascal Siakam thrive alongside Jakob Poeltl as Raptors narrowly top Pistons
