Fingers crossed, the Toronto Raptors are going to make it out of this with their season still alive.
There is reason for optimism. Some of them were on the floor Tuesday night as the Raptors hosted the Philadelphia 76ers. More will be back soon.
In the stands? Not quite so much at a not-even-close-to-half-full Scotiabank Arena. While 9,900 — 50 per cent capacity — are allowed under COVID-19 restrictions in Ontario, only 6,960 showed up, as fans likely figure spending the money and the time while going without food or drink to watch fragments of a basketball team as a virus courses through the city wasn’t worth it.
But the Raptors are making progress. They had actual starters in their starting lineup, with Pascal Siakam and Gary Trent Jr. making their return from the NBA’s health and safety protocols. They were joined by second-year point guard Malachi Flynn, who has been on the fringes of Raptors head coach Nick Nurse’s rotation all season but at least knows where to go and when most of the time.
Given the Raptors were playing their second game with a makeshift lineup — they still have more players in protocols (five) than they do hardship signees (four) to replace them — and haven’t had a full practice in two weeks, every little bit helps, especially after Dalano Banton was a late scratch due to a bruised his knee in the Raptors’ blowout loss to Cleveland on Sunday.
The partial Raptors put in a full effort against a Sixers team that was missing only Danny Green, Andre Drummond and Shake Milton from their regular rotation due to Covid, with Green’s absence especially notable because Tuesday night was supposed to be the evening he finally got his championship ring from 2019.
Oh well, another time.
The Raptors’ 114-109 loss was tight throughout and a huge improvement on their 45-point blowout loss to Cleveland on Sunday. They played with nine players — well after halftime when DJ Wilson finally cleared Covid screening — but it was a better nine.
And any thoughts Raptors head coach Nick Nurse had of easing Trent Jr. and Siakam back into things? Forget about it as he leaned on them for 41 and 42 minutes, respectively.
“I knew I was going to play a lot,” said Siakam. “Come out when you’re tired kind of thing. But I was tired the whole game.”
Still, they almost pulled it out. A pair of buckets from Trent Jr. gave the Raptors a one-point lead with 1:41 to play and a Siakam layup helped keep it that way with 69 seconds left. But a Joel Embiid put-back erased the Raptors’ lead and Toronto couldn’t score in the final minute.
There were several exceptional efforts, Chris Boucher’s at the top of the list as the Montrealer bounced back from a dismal outing against Cleveland with 28 points, 19 rebounds and five threes on seven tries.
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Siakam returned to action with 28 points, eight assists and six rebounds in 42 minutes, while hardship signee Wilson played well again, with nine points and six rebounds in 13 second-half minutes. Don’t be surprised if the former Milwaukee Bucks first-round pick ends up sticking around.
The loss dropped the Raptors to 14-17 while the Sixers improved to 18-16.
Embiid was a handful, predictably. He scored 24 of his 36 in the second half and nine in the fourth quarter, including a clutch three, the game-winning putback and a gorgeous dump off to Matisse Thybulle as the Sixers avoided what would have been a tough-to-explain loss.
Embiid has famously had his struggles in Toronto and against the Raptors. There was the second-round playoff series in 2019 when he shot 37 per cent from the floor over seven games. Or his first visit back to Scotiabank Arena in 2019-20 when the league’s most dominant centre went 0-of-11 from the floor and didn’t score a point in 32 minutes.
But he was the one superstar on the floor and he reminded the Raptors of it every time he bulled his way to the rim with neither the ghost of Marc Gasol or the wraith-like frame of Boucher offering much resistance, despite best intentions.
“Aw man, that’s a big guy, I won’t lie,” Boucher, who was giving up 100 pounds to the Philly centre, said afterwards. “… But it was a really great experience to play against an all-star like that and just realizing the stuff that you could do and how hard it is to to play against a guy like that. So I’ve learned a lot and hopefully I could take that to the next game and then whoever I’m playing against and just find ways to make myself like I said useful.”
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There is some light at the end of the tunnel. For one, the Raptors who have had Covid recently have come through it generally unscathed. Unlike last season when Fred VanVleet said it was something he “wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy” and the aftereffects of being sidelined lingered for weeks or even months in some cases, the fully vaccinated Raptors are hopeful for a smoother recovery.
“I think this time around it was a little lighter, I would say,” said Siakam, who was one of the Raptors who got Covid prior to the all-star break last season and suffered mightily. “I remember that first time it was just a lot and just feeling really sick and my body losing a lot of weight, and just uncomfortable. This time around it felt like a cold, to be honest. My body didn’t go through that much. You just spend like eight, nine days without playing basketball and then you get out there on the floor and work out as soon as you can. So I think just those things, but in terms of the symptoms and stuff, it was OK.”
More help could be coming as well. The Raptors don’t play again until Friday night, and there could be some leeway coming with how long players — and perhaps everyone else — will have to remain in isolation following positive tests.
The NBA has already relaxed its isolation guidelines from 10 days to six days for vaccinated players who are asymptomatic after the sixth day (players who were negative on two PCR tests 24 hours apart were already allowed to return sooner) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States has recommended reducing the isolation period to five days for those that are asymptomatic.
There is some expectation that the province could reduce the isolation period as well.
Can’t wait to get back with the guys again trying to make sense of all the protocols but it is what it is! Feeling good see you soon. Let’s go @Raptors
— Fred VanVleet (@FredVanVleet) December 28, 2021
Even using the 10-day guideline, any of the Raptors who went into protocols Dec. 22 or earlier should be cleared when the Raptors host the Los Angeles Clippers on New Year’s Eve, which could mean starters VanVleet, OG Anunoby, and Scottie Barnes could be back having missed just two games.
If it all comes to pass, the Raptors’ Covid crisis 2.0 will have been well-timed, with Toronto having only had to play twice with a drastically reduced lineup. It may have spoiled Christmas for a few guys — picture VanVleet’s little ones running around the tree with Daddy isolating somewhere in the house — but the Raptors shouldn’t have their season cratered by events outside their control like when they got smashed by the virus last March in Tampa.
“The good news is we got three games postponed and Golden State didn’t bring their team here,” said Nurse. “That was a couple of good news… (stories) out of it. There’s still two losses here that we’re not going to get back … although I would say this, it seems to me that everybody’s reacting pretty well.”
With a little luck, they might even be able to hold a practice one of these days.
Short-handed Raptors take step in the right direction vs. 76ers
Source: Pinas Ko Mahal
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