Josh Lewenberg TSN Raptors Reporter Follow|Archive
”We are going to hold everybody accountable because we need to. We need, after that performance, we need a culture reset here. We need to figure it out. Yes, there’s been some success, but at the end of the day we are trying to win a championship here. To me making the playoffs is nothing. That was back in the day. Now we have to figure out how we can win in the playoffs. That’s the goal.”
Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri
May 9, 2017
It was the morning of May 9, barely 41 hours after the Toronto Raptors were knocked out of the playoffs, again at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The year prior it was a badge of honour – stealing two games from the eventual NBA champs in the conference finals. This time it was embarrassing.
Reluctantly, team president Masai Ujiri delivered his annual end-of-season address. The wounds were still fresh following their second-round sweep. The off-season had just begun and he didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, but he used the opportunity to send a well-thought-out message to the organization and those within it: things needed to change.
Nobody was quite sure what a “culture reset” meant. Even now, nearly a full year later, it’s open to interpretation.
At the time, many believed it was the beginning of the end for this Raptors team as we knew it, that maybe Dwane Casey’s job was in jeopardy or the long-time core of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan would be split up. None of that turned out to be the case.
Instead, the term has become synonymous with the team’s on-court makeover this season, the stylistic changes that have turned their once stagnant and predictable offence into an inclusive, free-flowing system. Their assists are up, they’re shooting more threes and they’re playing at a quicker pace, as planned. However, there’s more to the culture reset than meets the eye.
When Ujiri was finally able to take some time and evaluate what went wrong and how to best move forward, he looked beyond personnel. He spent most of May reviewing the team’s day-to-day procedures – how they practised, trained, travelled and interacted with one another – and asked himself: Can we do this better?
“We have to dig deep into everything we do,” he had said last spring. “We can’t just pinpoint coaching. We can’t just pinpoint not making shots. [It’s] our attitude, our leadership, everything. The way we work together. I think those things we need to revisit and then get on with it.”
“The culture change is about the whole organization,” Casey, who worked closely with Ujiri to reinvent the team’s philosophy over the summer, said last week. “It's not about offense and defense. Believe me, when he mentioned that, it was about all of us. Everything we do. From scouting, training, how we go about our day in the front office, it's included in that.”
The two words that came up most often when interviewing players and team staff members for this story were accountability and communication – a couple of guiding principles in many of the changes they’ve made behind the scenes.
PRACTICE
This season has seen the Raptors hold fewer formal practices than ever before under Casey. This is a trend that started a few years back, as the team became a winner and began prioritizing rest – especially for its veteran core. Gone are the long, physically demanding sessions that Casey would put them through early in his tenure.
The biggest difference this year is that instead of bringing guys in for partial or light practices they’ve opted to give them more days off, putting the onus on players and the assistant coaches they train with to get individual work done. In the interest of better preserving players, physically and mentally throughout the course of a long season and into the playoffs, they believe that managing their workloads on off days is every bit as important as reducing the minutes they play.
If it seems like they have loosened the reigns, think again. The longest-tenured players say the Raptors have never been stricter in enforcing team rules, all of which were outlined in a meeting at the start of training camp.
Casey requires all of his players to have their shirts tucked in during practice. He asks that players clean up after themselves, even though they have support staff on site. If a player leaves his sweaty jersey on the court after practice or on the bench after shootaround he’s forced to pay a small fine. If a player is late for a practice, film session or meeting they are fined.
“If a guy’s not disciplined off the floor he’s not going to be disciplined on the floor,” Casey told TSN. “So all those things are really important. We’re sticklers for being on time. I don’t want to take guys’ money but we will for guys being late. We go by the minute. We’ve done it all year if guys are a couple minutes late for a meeting or whatever.”
“I think the biggest thing that came out of it was holding everybody accountable, holding everybody to the same standard,” said Fred VanVleet. “Obviously we’re in a league of stars and superstars and you’ve got to massage guys’ egos, but I think this year more so than last year we’ve held everybody to the same standard and guys are being held accountable, from Kyle and DeMar all the way down to me and Lucas [Nogueira], or whoever, Bruno [Caboclo] when he was here.”
“We had a lot of things in place [already] but as a team sometimes things slip,” Casey added. “It was more tightening things up as much as anything else. Not making it like a prison or anything like that. You want it to be fun for guys to come to work, but at the same time there’s a discipline factor to it. Our guys have been great. A couple guys [have been] late but we haven’t had anything major as far as discipline is concerned.”
STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING
The organization has put a greater emphasis on weight training and conditioning. Early in the off-season they assigned players specific goals and monitored their progress throughout the summer and into camp.
One of their focuses is body fat. They challenged each player to get and stay under 10 per cent body fat, a target that all but one had reached by the end of preseason.
The team has been tracking it regularly all year. Alex McKechnie (director of sports science), Scott McCullough (head athletic trainer), Jon Lee (strength and conditioning coach) and the rest of the Raptors training staff have individual programs set up with each player. Guys that fail to reach their goal have to put in extra work on the underwater treadmill and the stationary bike.
TRAVEL
Things have also changed on the road. It used to be that players were on different schedules after practice or morning shootaround. Some would have media obligations, some would stick around to get extra work in, while others – usually the veteran guys – would finish up and take a cab or Uber back to the hotel.
That is no longer permitted. Media availability has been moved before shootaround. Afterwards, everybody has to wait around until the last guy is done before they all leave together on the team bus.
“Everything’s just kinda more team built and everything’s more team-oriented,” Lowry said. “It’s not like it was a bad thing before but we wanna be on the same page. We wanna be together, we make sure that we’re all communicating. We’re all on the same page and it’s not one person’s doing this, one person’s doing that. Everybody’s doing everything together.”
To a man, every player says the team is closer this season. Winning will do that, but they insist there’s more to it. The young guys – who make up two-thirds of the roster – spent the bulk of the summer working out together and bonding in Los Angeles, Vegas and Toronto. Meanwhile, most of the vets had been teammates before, some for years. From the start of camp the team made a conscious effort to bridge those two factions, promoting unity and togetherness.
VanVleet notes that they’ve gone out for more group dinners this year than last, some team organized but many arranged by the players themselves. Lowry says that, more than ever before, he feels open communication is encouraged throughout the organization and that everybody has a voice.
To this point, their season has been a resounding success. They’ll go into the playoffs as the top seed in their conference for the first time in franchise history. Casey did what few thought he would be able to do by revamping their style of play with virtually the same personnel. He might be rewarded with the NBA’s Coach of the Year award for it. Their stars, DeRozan and Lowry, not only bought into the so-called culture reset, they’ve fully embraced it.
They know it doesn’t mean much if their success doesn’t carry over into the playoffs. That’s what these changes were implemented for, after all.
If they do breakthrough in the postseason we’ll continue to credit their stunning on-court transformation, and justifiably so. If nothing else, those changes are quantifiable. They went from dead last in the league in assists to sixth. They went from 22nd in three-point attempts to third. We can see the difference those tweaks have made.
It’s impossible to measure how much the Raptors’ behind-the-scenes culture reset has contributed to their success. Individually, most of their off-court changes are small and seemingly insignificant, but the internal thinking is that they all add up to something bigger, something that will help put them over the top.
“They’re small details but they make a difference,” Lowry said. “If you look at our team there’s no outcast. Everyone’s together. Everyone loves being around each other. Everyone has a relationship with each individual, so that’s big.”
“I think that there’s just a little bit more of a togetherness,” echoed VanVleet. “Obviously Masai’s [culture reset], or whatever you want to call it, paved the way.”
“I’m a big believer in the basketball gods,” said Casey. “If you do things right, live right, the basketball gods are always going to [reward you]. If you’ve worked [hard] and know that you’ve done the little things there’s a karma and the basketball gods seem to always smile on you. That’s been my history throughout basketball.”
Norm Powell and Serge Ibaka added 13 points apiece for the Raptors, who have 58 wins with two games to go. Jakob Poeltl and Delon Wright each finished with 12 points, while Kyle Lowry had 11.
“We needed it. All I can say is we needed it,” Casey said on Anunoby. “We’re trying to rest people. It’s not like we totally need rest, but I think it’s the prudent thing to do for our team. We needed that. He needed that. I thought it was a good thing as far as his shooting, his offensive game was concerned. I thought he did a good job defensively.”
Casey gave DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valaniunas the night off with an eye toward the playoffs, which begin on Saturday with the Raptors as the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the first time. With the big games from Miles and Anunoby, the move paid off for all four players.
Miles scored 22 points in one of his best performances of the season, while Anunoby added a career-high 21 points, and the undermanned Raptors beat Orlando 112-101 on Sunday in their final home game of the regular season.
On a night when Toronto Raptors coach Dwane Casey gave two starters a rest, C.J. Miles and OG Anunoby filled in the void.
Aaron Gordon led the Magic with 16 points. Khem Birch of Montreal hauled down a game-high 12 rebounds to go with 12 points.
Casey said he’ll likely sit another starter Monday in Detroit, but it should be all hands on deck in their regular-season finale Wednesday in Miami.
“We shot the ball confidently,” Lowry said. “That’s the one thing about the game I really liked. We shot the ball confidently. We needed that, heading into the next couple of weeks, shooting the ball confidently.”
The Raptors led by double digits for much of the night, and took an 89-74 advantage into the fourth quarter in front of a sold-out Air Canada Centre crowd that included Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock.
A hook shot by Pascal Siakam gave Toronto a 22-point lead with about six minutes to play. The Magic pulled to within 12 points with a last gasp down the stretch, but that was as close as Orlando would get.
Miles, who’s struggled lately, shot 6 for 13 from the field and made five of his 10 three-point shots.
“It’s huge. That’s one reason we left him in there the other night, to kind of get his rhythm, his sea legs back,” Casey said. “A lot of times all a shooter needs is to see it go in. That’s why we wanted to get him some extended minutes last game and also tonight. Just trying to get guys in the right frame and right rhythm going into next week.”
Two nights earlier, the Raptors had clinched the No. 1 spot in the East and set records for both regular-season and home wins. The Raptors can reach the coveted 60-win mark with victories in their final two games, which Casey said would be a nice way to finish their historic regular season.
“I think in Seattle we won 60 three times and it’s a milestone,” said Casey, who was an assistant with the SuperSonics for 10 seasons. “You want to accomplish that. It’s not the end all, be all. We’d like to accomplish it, but not at the expense of overplaying players … but it’s important.
“There are very few times in your organization’s history that you have the opportunity to win 60. It’s a good mark to have along with winning your conference.”
Former Raptor Terrence Ross, sidelined with a knee injury most of the season, received warm applause when he checked into his first game since November from the ACC crowd.
Wright made the traditional home finale address to the fans before tipoff, thanking them for their support. There was also a moment of silence to remember the 15 members of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team that died in a bus crash on Friday night.
Powell and Lucas Nogueira started for DeRozan and Valanciunas, who both sat courtside, DeRozan in sweats and Valanciunas in a grey suit and bow tie. Powell left the game less than two minutes in with a sprained ankle, then returned in the second quarter. Nogueira left with hamstring tightness midway through the first quarter, didn’t return, and is scheduled to get an MRI.
Fred VanVleet played nine minutes before leaving the game with back tightness, leaving Toronto with eight players.
Trailing by a point late in the first, the Raptors ended the quarter on a 16-4 run and led 35-24 heading into the second.
A pair of Anunoby free throws midway through the second gave the Raptors a 15-point lead. Fans booed when Gordon went to line for three free throws with six-tenths of a second left in the first half. He hit two, cutting Toronto’s lead to 61-50 at the break.
Anunoby was a perfect 4 for 4 in the third, and a three from Miles with six seconds left sent the Raptors into the fourth with an 11-point lead.
TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors have already accomplished everything they set out to in the regular season. They will finish first in their division and conference; they will go down as the winningest team in franchise history; they will enjoy home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs. If they miss every shot they take between now and the beginning of the playoffs next weekend, it won’t make a lick of difference.
But, when the Raptors woke up Sunday morning, their schedule still had three games remaining on it, starting that night against a long-ago cooked Orlando Magic side that won’t win even half as many times as Toronto will this season. So, what’s a first-place team to do in three meaningless games?
“You can always work on something,” Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said before his group worked on its dismantling of an inferior team, topping the Magic, 112-101. “We want to come in and work on the little things. We’ll sprinkle in some things that we want to use next weekend every now and then. A little bit of everything, really.”
The Raptors did that, shooting well (50 per cent from the field, 42.5 per cent from three), assisting on 28 of 39 field goals, and — through the first three quarters, at least — carrying over some of the strong defensive tendencies they’ve been working to re-establish for weeks.
But they also faced misfortune, as several players came out of the game with injuries. Perhaps the most concerning was Fred VanVleet, who went to the dressing room in the second quarter with lower back tightness and took the rest of the night off.
Fortunately, VanVleet’s exit was precautionary, and Casey said the 24-year-old could have toughed it out if the game meant something. But with Toronto on a back-to-back, it may be wise to keep VanVleet off his feet Monday night when the Raptors play the Pistons in Detroit.
The sophomore guard is an exceptionally important component of Toronto’s second unit, playing more than 20 minutes per night and leading the team in three-point shooting at 41.5 per cent. He’s a part of three of Toronto’s five most-used lineups (and its four most effective per net rating), and it’s not uncommon to see him on the floor with the ball in his hands at the end of tight games.
Sunday, VanVleet was due for a larger-than-normal workload because the Raptors are using the next week to steal a bit of rest for some primary players. You won’t see a full shutdown of Toronto’s starters. But you won’t see any veterans logging 40 minutes, either.
To that end, DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas were given nights off Sunday. And don’t be surprised if Kyle Lowry or Serge Ibaka — perhaps even both — get a break Monday in Detroit. Casey is planning to use all of his regulars in Wednesday’s season finale in Miami, but even then you likely won’t see much second-half run for the team’s veterans.
“It’s not like we totally need rest,” Casey said. “But I think it’s the prudent thing to do for our team.”
Free Association Donnovan Bennett and JD Bunkis talk everything Toronto Raptors and take fans inside the NBA with news, analysis and interviews.
Norman Powell and Lucas Nogueira drew into the starting lineup in place of DeRozan and Valanciunas, in order to not disrupt Toronto’s revered second unit. But both left with injuries in the game’s first quarter — Powell in the game’s first minute, as he sprained his left ankle on a drive and limped back to the dressing room in considerable pain.
Powell walked back to the bench shortly after to continue playing, but as he did he passed Nogueira, who departed with left hamstring tightness and did not return. The 25-year-old centre was sent for an MRI after the game, and the team had nothing to announce regarding his availability going forward.
Of course, Nogueira isn’t a rotation cornerstone. But the Raptors would certainly like to get through these remaining contests without injury to anyone, regardless of prominence.
That means key members of Raptors 905, such as Lorenzo Brown, Malcolm Miller, Alfonzo McKinnie, and Malachi Richardson, could be in for a busy week. The 905 opened the three-game G League Championship series in Austin, Texas Sunday night. The Raptors play Monday in Detroit, and Game 2 of the G League series goes Tuesday in Toronto. One or more players could be in store for a back-to-back-to-back in three different cities.
Thanks to all those moving parts — and with only eight active players in the second half — the Raptors fielded some unique lineups Sunday and gave ancillary players an opportunity to shine. Rookie OG Anunoby was the biggest beneficiary, playing 34 minutes and finishing with a career-high 21 points, while shooting 5-of-9 from beyond the arc.
Delon Wright got to run the floor more than normal, putting up 12 points and four assists. Ibaka continued his recent run of strong play, finishing a plus-22 with 13 points, eight rebounds, and three blocked shots. And Powell had a strong fourth quarter, finishing with 12 points, five rebounds, four assists, and three steals.
Meanwhile, C.J. Miles heating up — he went 5-of-10 from distance — can be filed under promising developments.
“It’s huge,” Casey said of Miles’s night. “That’s one reason why we left him in there the other night. So he can kind of get a rhythm, get his sea legs back. A lot of times all a shooter needs is to see it go in.”
Miles entered Sunday in a shooting funk, having hit 7-of-35 attempted three-pointers over his last six games. That was somewhat troubling considering the 30-year-old veteran was signed this off-season specifically to provide the Raptors with reliable three-point shooting come the playoffs. Sunday’s game was an encouraging turn of events.
“I’m just trying to create a rhythm, find some gaps, find some consecutive shots,” Miles said. “Just trying to see the things that — when you go through some of the things you do at the gym, and you work and work — seeing those things come back out.”
With the win, the Raptors completed their most successful home season ever, winning 34 of the 41 games they played at Air Canada Centre. Only the Houston Rockets — the NBA’s best team — equalled that home effectiveness, going 34-7 themselves.
It’s an interesting thing. The Raptors don’t play particularly better statistically at home versus on the road (see chart below), with the exception of their defensive rating, which goes from 106 on the road to 100.7 at home. But for a team that will have home-court advantage throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs, it’s a good sign.
Raptors home vs. road per 100 possessions
PTS FG% 3P% REB AST TOV STL BLK Home 111 46.9 36.3 44.3 24.2 12.8 7.3 6.4 Road 110.9 47.3 35.4 42.8 23.9 13.7 8 5.6
“One of the things we said coming into the season was we want to make this place a special place to play. A tough place to play. I think we’ve done that,” Casey said. “Even some teams that don’t have big crowds in their home court come in here and get excited to start playing — sometimes we juice them up, too.”
