Will The Toronto Raptors Make The Playoffs This Year?
Rebounding and defense will be the key to Making The Playoffs
When looking back at the 2020–2021 NBA season there are many reasons the Toronto Raptors missed out on the postseason.
One can point to the fact that they were playing in Tampa Bay and that every single game was essentially a road game. It uprooted them from their homes, and families forced them to play in an unfamiliar environment with unprecedented restrictions imposed on them because of Covid-19.
Another reason we fell short may have been the loss of Marc Gasol and Serge Ibaka in free agency decimated our Center rotation. Those two had anchored the Raptor's defense successfully over the last few years while also contributing on the offensive end. Both of them were leaders in the rebounding department as well. Their replacements Bayne and Len struggled all year on both ends of the ball.
Despite that, during one stretch the Raptors were one of the hottest teams in the league until of course the Covid bug hit the team and it forced several players and coaches to miss games due to league Covid-19 protocols.
But alas, playing in Tampa, the decisions of free agents like Gasol and Ibaka, or the impact of Covid-19 are all factors that are beyond our control. I argue it is far better to focus on two things that we have more control over which are our defense and rebounding.
Do The Raptors Have Enough Scoring To Make The Playoffs?
In many games last year the team would go through 2–5 minute droughts where it seemed like they couldn’t buy a bucket. It’s easy to look at our offense and say that we just didn’t have the firepower to compete with some of the star-studded teams in the East and the West.
However, upon closer examination, although our offense took a step back from the previous year (we were 13th in the league in 2019 and fell to 16th in 2020). Our offense was not the biggest reason we lost so many games.
We were a middle-of-the-pack offensive team in 2019, and we kept that the same in 2020. The reason we went from having the second-best record in the league to being 24th in league standings was that we took a tremendous step back in the defensive end.
Defensive Rebounding Was One Factor That Kept Us From The Post Season Last Year
If you want to look at the biggest disparity between 2019 and 2020 which had the largest impact on our team's performance one doesn’t have to look far beyond our defensive rebounding numbers.
We slipped from being 7th in the league in defensive rebounding to 29th! Less defensive rebounds mean more 2nd chance points for our opponents as the Raptors could not close out the defensive possession. This had a tremendous effect on the team's morale because nothing is more deflating than playing hard defense for 22 seconds and then giving up the defensive rebound.
In 2019 our defensive rating was 2nd in the league, but last year it was 15th. That is an enormous drop, and I believe it is primarily to do with an inability to come up with loose balls on the defensive end.
But it's not just on the defensive end that the lack of rebounding affected us. The raptors play an aggressive defense intending to come up with steals/deflections/turnovers so that they can have more opportunities to score on the fast break. Without closing out the defensive possession properly they missed out on a lot of fast-break points that could’ve been easy buckets and made a big difference on so many close games last year.
It’s often been said “defense wins championships” but I disagree, I think that “defense and rebounding win championships”. A team can play the best defense in the league but if they keep giving up offensive rebounds, they will give up too many 2nd chance points and hurt their overall team defense.
New Acquisitions This Year Can Help Us Defend And Rebound To Make The Playoffs
When one looks at the current Raptors roster there is reason for optimism. The additions of Birch and Gillespie seemed to improve our defensive rebounding towards the end of the year. The addition of Achiuwa and Barnes (who both project to be plus rebounders) should help the team start out-rebounding opponents. The 2021–2022 Raptors have more length and strength than we have seen in many years and early results are already quite encouraging.
In 5 Summer league games, the Raptors won the rebounding battle 4 out of 5 times. Let's hope that is a sign of things to come, if it is, then there is no reason to believe that we can’t be a top 10 defensive team in the NBA next year. If we are a top 10 defensive team, a playoff berth is likely.
