First-Round Sweep Puts Toronto Raptors' Future in Limbo and Sunday NBA Takeaways
The Toronto Raptors had no answer for the Washington Wizards.
Now, the freshly swept Raps will face an offseason of top-to-bottom organizational questions.
Toronto's utter collapse in this series, mercifully ended by Sunday's 125-94 shellacking, was a microcosm of the way it played for nearly the entire second half of the 2014-15 regular season. No, the Raptors didn't lose every game by 30 points, but they hadn't looked anything like a playoff team—in performance or intensity—for months.
They'd lacked life since the calendar flipped to 2015, and they basically played dead against Washington.
And the Raptors know it, as Patrick Patterson bluntly explained, per Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun:
Eric Koreen of Toronto's National Post delved into the game with more detail:
"This was a bad defensive team virtually all year long, and all of their worst qualities were on display on Sunday. They helped too much, and did not have the speed or intuitiveness to recover.
They failed to communicate in transition, leaving any given Washington player totally unaccounted for. They lost various Wizards off of the ball, getting caught ball watching. They got beat on the perimeter so often that the Wizards enjoyed a parade to the free-throw line.
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Toronto's defense, which ranked 23rd in the league after Jan. 1, per NBA.com, allowed the Wizards to hit 15 of 26 triples in Game 4. And it also permitted the kind of uninterrupted player and ball movement that led to 30 Washington assists on 41 field goals.
This is a Wizards team, by the way, that ranked 21st in the league in offensive efficiency during the regular season, per NBA.com.
The Raptors now trudge into the summer lacking a clear direction forward and struggling against the pull of tethers to their recent past.
Head coach Dwane Casey signed a new three-year deal last spring, and Kyle Lowry inked a new four-year pact in July. DeMar DeRozan and his career 27 percent shooting from long range will be on the payroll as the team's shooting guard through 2017.
The Raptors are financially committed to all three of those people, and after watching the series against Washington, it's difficult to make the case that any of them has a place in the team's core going forward.
Not only that, but Amir Johnson and recently crowned Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams are unrestricted free agents. Johnson's balky ankles make him a risky play, and Williams' low-efficiency, defense-free game is replaceable on the open market. It's entirely possible Toronto won't bring either one back.
And why should it?
A collapse like this can linger, affecting a team's culture—especially if fresh personnel don't arrive to shake up the mix. Plus, it was this core that totally caved in the regular season and playoffs. If this is the best it can do against a Wizards team with plenty of its own problems, where's the sense in keeping it together and trying again?
Rest assured that rhetorical question will also affect extension negotiations with Jonas Valanciunas this summer.
That sounds harsh, but Washington was a mediocre team that absolutely steamrolled a Raptors squad that had home-court advantage in this series. And it's easy to forget, but Toronto was also the higher-seeded team when it was bounced from the playoffs last year.
In some sense, potentially breaking up the current Raptors core won't be emotionally difficult for general manager Masai Ujiri because he didn't put it together in the first place. Remember, this team is essentially an accident—one that was on the brink of a teardown-and-tank track last year before the Rudy Gay trade unexpectedly rejuvenated the roster.
Making two straight playoff appearances wasn't the plan until surprising circumstances removed alternatives.
Now, after seeing the current team fail spectacularly, Ujiri, who made tons of aggressive moves in his time with the Denver Nuggets, has a full summer to think about building a new one.
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Love-Less Cavaliers Move On
The good news for the Cleveland Cavaliers is that they're advancing to the next round of the NBA playoffs. The bad news is that they aren't moving on at full strength.
Led by 27 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists from LeBron James, Cleveland completed its first-round sweep of a competitive but overmatched Boston Celtics squad with a 101-93 win Sunday. But with that series complete, it's Kevin Love's injury and J.R. Smith's ejection that matter now.
Love dislocated his left shoulder after getting tangled up with Kelly Olynyk in the first quarter. He'll be reevaluated upon returning to Cleveland, so the severity of the injury and the potential length of his absence aren't yet known. But it's hard to be optimistic after watching Love make a beeline for the locker room immediately following the play.
From Love's perspective, Olynyk crossed the line between physical and dirty, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com:
The strangest wrinkle in all of this is the potential impact it might have on Love's free agency.
According to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, league sources believed Boston was gaining steam as a potential destination for Love this summer; Wojnarowski wonders if that's changed:
"It is only natural that if Love lost something significant in Boston—his season, for instance—embracing a free-agent move to the Celtics could be complicated, if not completely compromised. Love left the Garden with legitimate loathing of the Celtics on Sunday, and how that lasts could shape the future of the Cavaliers and Celtics.
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There's room for debate about Olynyk's intentions, but there's none when it comes to Smith's.
He clocked Jae Crowder with a backhanded closed fist, sending the Celtics wing to the deck. The fall wrenched Crowder's left knee grotesquely, and he had to be helped to the locker room.
Smith's subsequent ejection could result in a suspension, which would take effect in the next round when the Cavs will almost certainly face the Chicago Bulls. In a strange way, it might have been better for Cleveland to lose Game 4 against Boston. With or without Smith (and Love, for that matter), the Cavaliers were never going to lose a series against the Celtics.
Chicago, though hardly looking unbeatable in its own ongoing tussle with the Milwaukee Bucks, is a different class of foe. If Love misses some or all of the Cavs' upcoming series and Smith gets a one-game ban, the entire Eastern Conference landscape could change.
Stay tuned.
A Quick Celtics Post-Mortem
The Celtics were eliminated, but they were never beaten.
Boston, under head coach Brad Stevens, showed remarkable resilience and fight throughout a series it had almost no chance of winning. Though the talent disparity was immense, the Celtics played exceptionally hard throughout.
That makes it easier to understand the scene Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com described after Game 4's final buzzer:
The Celtics may not have the tools they need just yet, but Stevens' blueprint looks phenomenal.
Boston's building something great.
Clips Even the Score
The series between the San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Clippers, now knotted up at 2-2 after L.A. secured a 114-105 win in San Antonio on Sunday, is a test of our ability to grapple with two competing facts being equally true.
On the one hand, the Clippers have been playing some inspired ball, buoyed by their stars (Chris Paul had 34 points and seven assists; Blake Griffin totaled 20 points, 19 rebounds and seven assists) and getting just enough from a limited supporting cast.
Austin Rivers' wholly unlikely 16 bench points in Game 5 were critical to Los Angeles' victory, per a comment from Manu Ginobili to Dan McCarney of the San Antonio Express-News:
On the other, the Spurs have missed loads of quality shots and made uncharacteristic mistakes. They've now shot just 31.7 percent from long range in the series, despite no shortage of open looks. And in Game 4, San Antonio put the Clips into the bonus with some curious second-half fouls, sending Paul to the line repeatedly.
When combined, those competing truths have made it difficult to settle in on a crutch narrative. The Clippers' bench hasn't killed them. San Antonio's system hasn't overwhelmed the opposition's suspect defense.
It's just punches and counterpunches, points and counterpoints, resulting in a strange stasis, as Doc Rivers told reporters, per Paul Garcia of Project Spurs:
There may not be much momentum, but there's a whole lot of tension ahead, as J.J. Redick explained to Dan Woike of The Orange County Register:
If the Spurs hit shots or the Clippers' stars begin to wear down, this series could swing dramatically in San Antonio's favor. But if the give and take continues, a Game 7 feels almost inevitable.
Paul Pierce Doesn't Care Anymore
It's always great when an NBA vet reaches the point where he simply stops caring about maintaining a boring, sound bite-free facade.
Paul Pierce is at that point, and he proved it by adding to his recent streak of candor when he zinged Raptors brand ambassador/frequent courtside observer Drake on Twitter:
More of this, please, Truth.
Dallas Dodged the Broom
Toronto and Boston made postseason exits Sunday, but the Dallas Mavericks refused to make it a three-sweep affair.
Led by Monta Ellis' game-high 31 points, the Mavs extended their first-round series against the Houston Rockets to a fifth game with a 121-109 win.
Houston made it interesting down the stretch, closing to within single digits largely on the strength of Josh Smith's remarkable long-range shooting. He finished with 23 points on 8-of-10 from the field and 4-of-5 from long range.
Tim Cato of MavsMoneyBall.com was understandably confused:
In two playoff games without Rajon Rondo, Dallas has looked much more like the offensive superpower it was earlier in the year, tallying a total of 251 points in Games 3 and 4 combined. Granted, the Mavs defense has left plenty to be desired, but it at least feels like it's comfortable in its style of play again.
Nobody expects Dallas to come all the way back from a 3-0 deficit, but it was nice to see a veteran team that hasn't had the smoothest ride to this point getting a short reprieve before heading back to Houston for a tough Game 5 tilt.
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