If the Raptors have lost confidence in themselves, who could blame them?

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BOSTON Do you want a wild stat? Of course you do.

The Raptors have allowed the third-highest effective field goal percentage this year against their opponents. Given that the offense has exploded this year, it’s also the third-highest opponent’s effective field goal percentage in modern NBA history.

Yet somehow the Raptors hadn’t allowed any of eFG’s top 100% performance. The two teams worse than them, San Antonio and Houston, gave up 14 and eight.

It is a small miracle of mathematics. It is what it is.

The Raptors (40-41) appear six times in the 100 worst shooting efforts by effective field goal percentage, factoring in the added value of 3-pointers. They also appear six times in the biggest gap between their eFG% and their opponents in a single game, including in their 121-102 loss to Boston on Friday, befitting a team that placed 29th in both categories. before the trade deadline, when he acquired Jakob Poeltl.

It’s nothing more than that, said Fred VanVleet Friday morning when asked for the 3,492nd time why his team has lacked energy and effort at various times this year. If I had an answer for you, it would be answered in the field. At first it was just one of those things where we just weren’t precise enough in our details, in our execution. This part is draining. Just don’t. Then you go down and some nights you can’t score for six minutes at a time and you lose some energy. (some nights) we cannot take pictures. It just drains some of the energy.

When Poeltl is on the field not since the trade, but only in the minutes he played before Friday, the Raptors move to the equivalent of 22nd on offense and 24th on defense in eFG%. So from horribly comic to ordinarily bad. They went back to the old Friday night, not forcing a miss from inside the arc in the first half. The Celtics ended up shooting 81.1 percent from two-point range, a record after the ABA merger. The previous record was 80%, held by the 2016-17 Celtics and 2017-18 Rockets.

If you want to explain why on so many nights this year the Raptors have seemed to lack energy, the simplest answer is probably the right one: they know that unless they turn the other team over, they have very unlikely to chain several stops. together. And if they do that, they don’t have much of a chance of scoring multiple possessions in a row. They don’t have the shooting or the play. On that note, the Raptors have shot 15-for-64 from 3-point range over Boston’s last two games.

You don’t have to look for interpersonal dynamics or dysfunction to explain the erosion of the Raptors’ pain nature. Mathematics simply reduces self-confidence.

Of course, is the way we play in defense tiring? Is it difficult? Of course, said VanVleet. Is it even harder without a great man? Of course. If you don’t try, you don’t stand a chance with what we do. It takes a lot of energy, effort and intensity. These things can sometimes pile on top of each other. At the same time, it’s up to the players on the pitch to find out.

Or maybe they just realized it’s just too much work. On Friday, Jayson Tatum treated Precious Achiuwa, who was the closest player to a center the Raptors regularly used in the rotation before the trade, as if no one was protecting the rim. Tatum is special, but that’s how opposing players have attacked the Raptors for much of the year.

In the 21 games since the All-Star break before Friday, the Raptors ranked second in the league in defensive rating, behind only Boston. By making life a little harder for their opponents, while playing aggressively to create turnovers, the Raptors’ defense has been largely exceptional.

It was natural to wonder if the Raptors could completely change their patterns with a real center with pedigree, but that really didn’t happen.

I think we always try to make the best decision based on our team first and foremost,” Nick Nurse said of defensive strategy. It’s also something I really believe in.

The part he shouldn’t say out loud: The Raptors aren’t good enough offensively, both in creating in the half-court and in shooting, to live without transition opportunities. Taking risks on the offensive glass to get second chances, even if they lead to bad situations the other way, or pressuring the ball in an attempt to create turnovers is necessary. Watching the Raptors try to face the Celtics, even without three of their top six players, in the half court on Friday was tough. Nurse said before the season that he wanted to improve the teams’ shooting spectrum, but they still shoot so much from their shots, whether in the unrestricted area paint or in the midrange. Maybe Nurse could have played a little more Malachi Flynn this year to give the Raptors a little more shot, but that’s the most minor of notes. The nursing team is remarkably short of creativity and shot.

Poeltl is helping the Raptors normalize things, if only a little. Against the league’s top teams, however, it would be weird if the Raptors didn’t lose a good chunk of their self-confidence. The front office should take notes. Everyone on the Raptors owns a piece of this season, but the executives own the biggest part.

Until the offseason, it’s up to the players.

We had a chance, an opportunity to go play, VanVleet said after the game when asked if the Raptors still had the collective will to compete. I don’t really see any other way forward. I think it’s a pretty simple move, and I don’t care what you believe or how you feel about the situation. If you’re in the locker room and you put on a uniform, you have to stick together and be part of the team. It’s easy to show character when things are going well, but you (must) get up when things (are) not going well.

Comments

To add insult to injury, the 76ers, playing without all of their starters, beat the Hawks in Atlanta. Had the Raptors won any of those games in Boston, they would still have a chance to become the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. With the loss, the Raptors will finish ninth and host Chicago on Wednesday in the 9-10 Play-In game. The winner will face the loser of the match Miami-Atlanta on the side 7-8.

Pascal Siakam passed the 8,000 point mark for his career, joining DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Vince Carter and Chris Bosh as players to do so as the Raptors.

Honestly, Nurse wouldn’t have been wrong to use all seven timeouts in the first half.

Optically, Scottie Barnes doing a 360 dunk with the Raptors trailing by 33 isn’t, well, optimal.

Sure, they went scoreless in their next nine possessions, but Siakam splitting Robert Williams III’s legs on a wire to Poeltl to open the game was pretty cool.

Once the shots stopped coming in, the Raptors got a little too aggressive in traffic. OG Anunoby, in particular, forced games that weren’t there.

The Raptors were obliterated early on their defensive glass, especially on longer rebounds. Which team had nothing to play in this match, again?

(Photo of Robert Williams III defending the rim against Pascal Siakam: Winslow Townson/USA Today)

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