Raptors’ loss helps greater good, but still tough pill to swallow

CHICAGO — Even if there is a long-term goal served, finding ways to lose rather than grinding out wins kind of sucks. 

You could see it in the face of Toronto Raptors forward Scottie Barnes, who seemed at a loss for words trying to explain how the team he’s leading looked too good to fail against the Chicago Bulls for most of the game, only to shut down like a smart phone left in the sun in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and an overtime period that never, ever should have happened.

“We got to stay together, keep fighting, but these one are tough,” said Barnes. “We just got to stay together, regroup and come back out the next night and try to get a win again.” 

You could see the disappointment in the dour look on the normally cheerful face of Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic, who is trying to figure out ways to keep his team developing, improving and competing, knowing that management is probably ‘fine’ with the tough losses racking up since they increase the chances of the team drafting a franchise-altering talent in June’s draft. 

Whenever that happens, it will be doubtless be great, but there have been some tough pills to swallow along the way and the Raptors 125-115 overtime loss to the Bulls Friday was perhaps the toughest so far this season. 

You could see it in the body language of Raptors guard Immanuel Quickley as he sat with his feet and ankles in tubs of ice, and more ice wrapped around his knees, trying to process how an otherwise solid outing spun out of control largely because of his egregious brain cramp, when he fouled Bulls guard Coby White on a three-point attempt with the Raptors up by four and four seconds remaining in regulation. 

White’s shot dropped through the rim and he fell to the floor as Quickley overcrowded him while trying to contest his shot, unwisely. The only realistic way the Bulls could have tied the game given the time remaining was four-point play — a made three and free throw. Standing back and waving White to the basket or giving up the three without being within three feet of him would have been the smarter play.

“It was a mistake I shouldn’t make,” said Quickley, who finished with 23 points, five assists and five rebounds on 6-of-16 shooting (4-of-11 from three) in 32 minutes before he fouled out in overtime. “I’ve been in the league five years now, I just got to be better. My instinct (was) ‘just don’t let them get a three,’ but I got to be better than that. That foul’s on me for sure. I just got to be better in that situation.”

On the bright side, the Raptors loss — their third straight and ninth in their past 11 games — helped the greater good of maintaining their draft lottery position, which will be an increasingly difficult task over the last six weeks of the season. 

Toronto is now 18-42 on the year and would have the fifth-best lottery odds were the season to end today. 

Unfortunately it doesn’t and the remaining 22 games on the Raptors schedule are filled with dates against opponents who are also more interested in their own lottery position than gathering a few more meaningless wins over the final weeks of the schedule. 

Losing will only get harder from here. 

The Bulls are ostensibly one of those teams with an eye on the lottery, having traded their best player (Zach LaVine) at the deadline so they can regain control of their own draft pick. Coming into Friday’s game, Chicago had won just eight of their previous 25 games. 

But even with that tumble, Chicago remains stubbornly in control of 10^th place in the East and the last spot in the play-in tournament. 

Below them in the standings the tire fires continue to smoulder. The Philadelphia 76ers will surely be officially throwing the towel now that Joel Embiid has been ruled out for the season due to his troublesome knee. The Sixers have lost nine straight and 11-of-12 and get to keep their own draft pick this year if it ends up in the top-six, otherwise they have to send it to the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder. With that kind of incentive, Philadelphia might not win again. 

They’re a team that was so determined to tank they made a trade with Phoenix before the season to get their own draft picks back so that when they did tank they’d get rewarded for it. Former Canadian men’s national team head coach Jordi Fernandez has done a good job getting the Nets to punch above their weight, but they have no interest in winning too many more games this season. They’re not going to catch the Bulls. 

Which brings us to the Raptors. 

They have no rational reason for winning too many more games either. Having come three-quarters through an 82-game season having lost twice as many games as they’ve won, it only makes sense that they ride it out and give themselves every chance possible to draft as high as they can to set up a bounce-back season a year from now. 

The problem is the Raptors — the ones who actually play and coach the games — have no interest in anything other than winning them. Barnes — who finished with 24 points, eight rebounds and six assists on 10-of-19 shooting (2-of-3 from three) against Chicago — said after the all-star break that he’s hoping to lead the Raptors on a charge up the standings and into the play-in tournament. 

And when you watch how they’ve played at times — losing in overtime to Miami, winning over the Suns, pushing the Celtics to the limit just since the all-star break — you could see how it might happen, especially considering the winning percentage of the Raptors remaining opponents is just .369, by far the easiest in the NBA. 

Certainly through the first 40 minutes against the Bulls, the Raptors looked like a team much more qualified to be in the play-in tournament than their hosts. 

The Raptors led 63-54 and were playing beautiful basketball, as they converted 50 per cent of their field goal attempts including 10-of-19 from three with 17 assists on 22 made shots. Ten different Raptors had played and nine of them had scored. The only blemish was Ochai Agbaji leaving the game after just 1:19 of floor time with a sprained right ankle. 

The game shifted in the third quarter as the defences tightened — both teams shot 40 per cent from the floor in third — but the Raptors maintained their advantage and were leading by 13 with 8:13 to play when the battery began to fade. 

Toronto went the next 4:35 without scoring a field goal as the Bulls tied the game with a 13-0 run that was aided by seven missed Raptors shots and three turnovers — one on a shot-clock violation and another on five-second violation — as Toronto’s offence turned to caked mud. 

How determined were the Raptors to win, actually though? 

Their cause wasn’t helped when starting centre Jakob Poeltl was done for the night after 22 minutes as he gets back up to speed after missing three weeks with a hip pointer. The big Austrian was plus-12 in his stint while his replacement, Orlando Robinson was minus-16 in his 24 minutes of floor time. As well, Rajakovic chose not to use veteran Chris Boucher of the bench to throw a jolt into the game when the Raptors began to flounder. Instead, he decided to stick with rookie Jonathan Mogbo who was scoreless in 29 minutes.

Still, it still looked like they might escape with a win when Gradey Dick — an 87 per cent free throw shooter — stepped to the line with the Raptors up three with six seconds left. But Dick made just one and then Quickley fouled White on his three. 

Toronto had a chance to win in regulation, but a play drawn up as a post-up for Barnes on his preferred left block bore no fruit at he missed a tough turnaround over Lonzo Ball. 

Overtime provide no redemption. The Raptors offence gasped even more as the free-flowing style that got them so many open looks in the first three quarters turned stiff, stilted and cautious. Toronto shot 2-of-11 in the extra frame and 7-of-28 in the game’s final 13 minutes. 

“They started switching more, 1-through-5 and we did not do a good enough job finding opportunities,” said Rajakovic. “And even when we did, we unfortunately missed some lay-ups and open shots.”