Nick Nurse Ready to Tinker with Rotation Against Knicks
Three-game losing streaks are nothing to worry about in the NBA.
Last year the Toronto Raptors had two of them. The first one spanned from December 3 to 8 with losses to Miami, Houston, and Philadelphia, and the next one came a few months later spanning February 25 to March 1 with losses to Milwaukee, Charlotte, and Denver. Even the 2018-19 team that went on to win the NBA Finals went on a three-game skid, dropping three straight to New Orleans, Detroit, and Boston early in the season.
Yet when it comes at the start of the season, there's a panic that sets in.
"There's definitely tension in the locker room," Raptors centre Alex Len said. "Nobody likes losing."
But Raptors coach Nick Nurse isn't particularly worried.
"I think there was certainly some disappointment following the game the other night, and there's certainly a lot of teaching moments," He said. "Yeah, there's a very serious tone of teaching to get better, and lots to teach. There's lots of teaching points. Tension might be a bit strong but there's certainly a lot of seriousness, and we need to win a game."
To him, the Raptors' 0-3 start to the season isn't much different from any other 0-3 stretch over the course of the usual 82-game schedule.
"You don’t treat it any differently than you would 40 games in, I don’t think," he said. "Maybe a little, maybe there’s more teaching now. We’re still trying to learn some things and things maybe we thought we should have known we didn’t, we’ve got to go back over or things that are flaring up a little bit that we’ve got to douse out a little bit. So I think that, I don’t know, I give the guys credit, I think they’ve worked in between, they’ve concentrated hard in between, and they’ve come out ready to go. Now the next challenge is can we sustain it and can we do it when it matters most in the fourth quarter?"
The other challenge for the Raptors will be managing the minutes when Kyle Lowry is not on the floor. So far this season they're minus-40 when Lowry has sat and plus-14 with him playing.
"I think that the big key is can I find the right combination of guys out there when he goes off, or is there a tinkering I can do with who's out there without him, things like that are where I'm at with it right now," Nurse said. "I think you'll see more of that tonight, different combinations of lineup."
So far Norman Powell, Chris Boucher, Matt Thomas, and DeAndre' Bembry have received the bulk of the team's bench minutes. Tonight, against the New York Knicks, it sounds like Nurse might change things up a little bit, perhaps turn to sophomore Terence Davis II or rookie Malachi Flynn who have yet to see much playing time this season.
"Yeah, to answer your question, yeah, he is," Nurse said when asked if Flynn will be in the mix for a rotation spot sometime soon. "And there's still other guys there too we're trying to evaluate and possibly try, namely Terence Davis. There's a guy that we know and just again, trying to give Norman his run out, and trying to get Matt a chance to solidify a position, and we tried Bembry a little bit. So there's some guys, and we'll just keep kind of tinkering until somebody grabs a hold of those spots."
If the Raptors can get out to an early lead and sustain it, there should be an opportunity to see some more of the younger bench players against a young, developing Knicks team.
