Opinion | Raptors had better hope the minutes don’t catch up to their starters

You only need to be a casual observer of Toronto’s NBA team to know that the Raptors have changed their view lately on preserving their best players for the playoffs. The franchise that made the phrase “load management” famous is no longer, in its post-championship incarnation, in the business of pacing its stars through the regular season.

The strategic doses of preventative rest that allowed Kawhi Leonard and his bum knee to thrive when it mattered in the title-winning cauldron simply aren’t a luxury the current club can afford. Such is the reality of a struggling, depth-challenged roster that sits five games below .500 heading into Wednesday’s home game against Milwaukee,

No coach demands as much of his best players as Toronto’s Nick Nurse. Last season it was Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam topping the league in minutes per game. This season three different Raptors — VanVleet, Siakam and O.G. Anunoby — rank among the top eight in that category. Pinpointing the cause of wear-and-tear injuries is hardly an exact science, but it’s easy enough to assume VanVleet’s lingering back injury, on the heels of the hip injury that ended his playoff run in Game 4, amounts to the inevitable result of such top-of-the-league deployment. In this era in which elite teams have used Toronto’s 2019 success as a template for preserving top talents, much to the chagrin of the ticket-buying public that never really knows when a superstar may or may not sit out, the Raptors are running a decidedly retro operation. They’re playing their best guys about as much as humanly possible in the nightly pursuit of wins, consequences be damned. There would be something to be admired about that if it was an act of against-the-grain choice. Alas, it’s the stuff of desperate necessity. Managing loads simply isn’t possible when you don’t manage to win.

There is a case to be made, of course, for playing the bench more frequently. To which Nurse would point to Monday’s loss to the Indiana Pacers. On a night when none of Nurse’s starters played fewer than VanVleet’s 36 minutes, none of the five Raptors brought off the bench got more than the 12 minutes afforded Precious Achiuwa, who was returning from an injury absence of more than two months.

And sadly for the Raptors, none of the bench players probably deserved so much as another minute of floor time, as the Pacers’ second unit roundly outplayed Toronto’s, outscoring them by an astounding 54-7.

“I don’t want to sit here and say that the (bench players) didn’t help (the starters) that much,” Nurse said after Tuesday’s practice.

But that, of course, is exactly what the coach was saying.

“The facts are there. You guys saw it, and the stats, and all that stuff back it up,” Nurse said. “But it doesn’t mean they can’t help ’em starting today and that’s what we gotta shoot for.”

Nurse’s chief quibble was the second unit’s defensive lapses, which were frequent and egregious. Maybe chief among the culprits would be Chris Boucher. At his best, he is one of Toronto’s most reliable sources of energy and shooting off the bench, Boucher has slumped of late, with his dismal three-point accuracy seemingly pulling the rest of his game into the pits. But defence is a collective effort, and Nurse clearly wasn’t pointing to one player.

“Yeah, (the bench players) are just not getting any stops,” Nurse said. “We had (the Pacers) really bottled up and they weren’t scoring at all and the floodgates kind of opened. I don’t expect (the bench) to go out there and maintain the same level of defence that the first unit has, but they gotta at least maintain a little bit.”

If you can sense Nurse’s patience running thin, it’s because the Raptors are running out of time to make a case to management that this is a team worth improving upon before the Feb. 9 trade deadline. Considering the team entered Tuesday 4 1/2 games out of the sixth playoff seed — the final seed not involved in the play-in tournament that see Nos. 7 through 10 fight it out for the final two playoff spots — it’s hardly unfathomable that the Raptors might consider selling assets with an eye toward improving their draft-lottery odds. Opt-out-eligible Gary Trent Jr. would be an obvious candidate for the trading block. Ditto VanVleet, although given the point guard’s place as the beating heart of the club that’d be a more difficult conversation. Let’s just say this coming six-game homestand, when the Raptors play host to sub-.500 Atlanta and woeful Charlotte, the latter twice, will be vital to keeping alive the notion that this is a season worth saving.

“I think that this is a perfect opportunity in front of our home crowd,” Siakam said. “I just want us to continue to stay together. Hoping that the atmosphere in the arena is great and we come in with a lot of energy as players. This is an important stretch.”

Siakam said Tuesday that he remains “optimistic” the Raptors can turn it around. And maybe no one would be surprised if this team stages a rally. It certainly did as much last season after a slow start, ultimately offering tantalizing glimpses of their potential in a 48-win run that saw the Raptors force a Game 6 in their first-round playoff series with the Sixers after falling into a 3-0 hole. The question is this, though: Even if a rally happens, starting now, can that rally be sustainable given the demands being placed upon Toronto’s best players?

If the answer to that question is going to be in the affirmative, Nurse understands it’s going to require more help from more capable and engaged hands off the bench.

“Listen, they gotta play a little better and we need them and we’ve got to get them going,” Nurse said. “That’s the main thing. But on the night, you gotta decide what you think is best. And that’s what we tried to go with.”

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