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Not every at-bat needs to be a home run. Not every swing needs to be for the fences. Sometimes you just need a bloop single. That’s exactly what Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors opted for by signing Jodie Meeks to a rest-of-season-contract.

Jodie Meeks is a nine-year veteran with experience under his belt. He’s played significant minutes in the playoffs before, granted it’s not exactly “recent experience.” He’s not going to be a consistent part of Toronto’s playoff rotation. He’s there to provide a stable presence in the locker room and be an insurance option in case of the unthinkable.

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The Toronto Raptors have signed Jodie Meeks to a contract for the rest of the season. His signing won't change the franchise, but it's a solid decision.

Not every at-bat needs to be a home run. Not every swing needs to be for the fences. Sometimes you just need a bloop single. That's exactly what Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors opted for by signing Jodie Meeks to a rest-of-season-contract.

Jodie Meeks is a nine-year veteran with experience under his belt. He's played significant minutes in the playoffs before, granted it's not exactly "recent experience." He's not going to be a consistent part of Toronto's playoff rotation. He's there to provide a stable presence in the locker room and be an insurance option in case of the unthinkable.

Meeks spent 10-days with the Raptors earlier this season and appeared in two contests. 10-days is relatively meaningless in the big picture of things, but having familiarity with the coaching staff and rest of the roster is not.

Nick Nurse and the rest of the coaching staff clearly had a positive experience with Meeks. If not, they wouldn't have invited him back. As a 31-year-old veteran, he knows why he was added to this team. Meeks has no visions of grandeur. He's not expecting minutes.

Just one season removed from playing in 77 games, Meeks hasn't been out of the league as long as you'd think. Meeks received a 25-game suspension at the end of last season due to performance-enhancing drugs. If it weren't for that suspension, which bled into the beginning of this year, he probably would not have been available at this time.

However, that suspension was enough to free him up for of the season, and with only a few weeks remaining, he's still available for a playoff run.

As Ray Allen showed us in the celebrity game, shooting never leaves you. And even at 31 (it's not like 31 is that old anyway), Jodie Meeks is still an ice-cold shooter. He's shot greater than 37-percent from deep during his career and has shot above 40-percent in two of the past four seasons (not counting his 4-9 performance in 15-16).

If for whatever reason Meeks was forced to actually play meaningful minutes in a playoff game, Toronto could hide him on the opposing team's worst offensive player and have him space the floor offensively.

He won't tear it up. He'll survive. That's all the Raptors need out of him.

Toronto didn't sign their next superstar. They didn't even sign a legitimate rotation piece. They got a solid option at the end of their bench. That's enough.

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Jodie Meeks is a solid, safe signing for the Toronto Raptors

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Not every at-bat needs to be a home run. Not every swing needs to be for the fences. Sometimes you just need a bloop single. That's exactly what Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors opted for by signing Jodie Meeks to a rest-of-season-contract. Jodie Meeks is a nine-year veteran with experience under his belt.

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Recent years prove that the raptors always have problems in the playoffs. the past years the raptors have been taken out in the playoffs by the same team in the past 2 year--Cleveland Cavaliers have made it so the raptors can't win the east, not saying that they can't but from previous years it has show that the

Toronto Raptors are incapable of making the playoffs. hopefully now that they have changed some things such as, coach, players, etc. the raptors have the chance to push to the finals and compete for the championship, Leonard is a feagent this off-season and the only way the Raptors see him staying is they win the east and or win a championship

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Mike Bossetti and Connor Chambers discuss the Toronto Raptors recent struggles, their projected playoff rotation, and who is the easiest first-round matchup.

The latest episode of the Raptors Rapture podcast continues as Mike Bossetti talks with Toronto Sports Views host, Connor Chambers about the Toronto Raptors struggles, biggest playoff questions, and more.

If you are a fan of the show, please make sure to subscribe on iTunes or follow us on Spreaker. Also, make sure to rate and review the show and share on social media.

The podcast can also be heard right here, using the player below:

Raptors recent struggles

The Toronto Raptors are 5-5 in their last 10 contests. Is this reason for concern? Or is the team just looking forward to the quickly approaching postseason?

Easy stretch coming

The Raptors have the easiest remaining schedule in the entire NBA. Do they have any chance at earning the first overall seed or does Milwaukee already have it locked up?

What do the Raptors need to show over these last couple of games? The team looks will be at full strength for the first time since the Marc Gasol and Jeremy Lin acquisitions.

Does first round opponent matter?

Should Toronto have a preference who they play in the first round?

The Detroit Pistons are undefeated in three games against the Raptors so far this season, but that could be a result of players missing games more than anything else. The Nets haven't been as successful, but does their style more easily translate to an upset?

Playoff rotation

Nick Nurse said that "the plan" is for a nine-man playoff rotation. Who does that leave out? Patrick McCaw is an obvious candidate. Who else might find themselves without playoff minutes?

Paul George's comments

Lastly, Mike and Connor discuss Paul George's comments and whether they mean anything towards Kawhi's chances of re-signing.

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Toronto Raptors Podcast: Recent struggles and playoff preparation

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The latest episode of the Raptors Rapture podcast continues as Mike Bossetti talks with Toronto Sports Views host, Connor Chambers about the Toronto Raptors struggles, biggest playoff questions, and more. If you are a fan of the show, please make sure to subscribe on iTunes or follow us on Spreaker.

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Dunking off the backboard. Drinking a beer. Nonchalantly spinning the ball in Serge Ibaka's face. LeBron James's apparent lack of respect for Toronto has added some drama to the Eastern Conference semifinals at the Raptors' expense.

"We can't allow that type of freedom, that type of comfort with him or any other player, to be able to spin the ball like that," Raptors guard Norm Powell said Friday morning after shootaround. "It's disrespectful. But it shows us that we're playing too soft. We need to come out with a mentality and a physicality and a force on both ends that says, 'You're not gonna get anything easy.'

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REGULAR SEASON ONBAMEMES PLAYOFFS Regular Season Raptors vs Playoff Raptors | NBA Meme on ME.ME

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REGULAR SEASON ONBAMEMES PLAYOFFS Regular season Raptors vs. Playoff Raptors from Facebook tagged as NBA Meme

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Late march in Toronto and across the city early signs of spring abound. Some days, the thermometer approaches double-digits. In suburban gardens, the first snowdrops are blooming. Only the worst of the city’s ubiquitous, often trash-filled ice banks remain. And at Scotiabank Arena, Norman Powell is checking in cold off the bench and changing a game. It must be playoff time soon.

Since his rookie season, Powell has made a habit of producing Great performances off the end of the bench at this time of year, whether it was against the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2016 playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks a year later, or a couple times against the Orlando Magic late last season.

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Arden Zwelling |@ardenzwelling

TORONTO - It's late-march in Toronto and across the city early signs of spring abound. Some days, the thermometer approaches double-digits. In suburban gardens, the first snowdrops are blooming. Only the worst of the city's ubiquitous, often trash-filled ice banks remain. And at Scotiabank Arena, Norman Powell is checking in cold off the bench and changing a game.

It must be playoff time soon. Since his rookie season, Powell has made a funny habit of producing out-of-nowhere performances off the end of the bench at this time of year, whether it was against the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the 2016 playoffs, the Milwaukee Bucks a year later, or a couple times against the Orlando Magic late last season.

Sunday, it came against the Charlotte Hornets, who ultimately prevailed, 115-114, on an absurd buzzer-beater from inside their own half. Not much you can do about that. About once a decade, a team takes that bad beat. But the fact the Raptors were even in position to win the game was almost entirely thanks to Powell's nine-minute, seven-point, two-steal, one-block fourth-quarter shift.

It was a different game at the end of three. The Raptors were half-asleep and trailing by a dozen. Head coach Nick Nurse was experimenting with different lineups, which left Powell, who inhabits a lonely position with one foot in and one foot out of Toronto's rotations, neglected. He sat for the entire first half. He played only three minutes in the third.

But Powell was everywhere in the fourth, draining three of the four shots he took (including his lone three), deflecting three passes, forcing a pair of turnovers, and even getting up at the rim for this devastating block of Kemba Walker:

#UTG #BetOnYourself pic.twitter.com/IUGk3pHjH1

- Toronto Raptors (@Raptors) March 25, 2019

He played only a dozen minutes and somehow ended up with the fourth-highest usage rate on his team. When he checked out with three minutes remaining in the fourth, the Raptors bench gave him a standing ovation.

"I was interested in seeing Patrick McCaw tonight. Brought him off [the bench] early both halves. That kind of made Norm suffer a little bit. But it seems like it maybe motivated him," Nurse said after the game, explaining why Powell didn't touch the floor until the third. "He really came in with a lot of juice. And I give him a lot of credit for that. I give him a lot of credit for sitting there the whole time and then coming in with a big burst of energy and playing really well."

Powell's late-game surge is only a marginally important thing in a marginally important loss. But it does give Nurse something to ponder over the coming weeks, as he shrinks his rotations and figures out who he'll be leaning on come the playoffs. The fact Powell is capable of that zero-to-100 performance, as he's now proven on numerous occasions, has to be rattling around Nurse's frontal lobe in late April, when he ultimately encounters a playoff situation in which he needs a spark. When the carefully laid plans go to hell. When he just wants to shake things up.

He's been doing it most of the season, really. Sunday was an extremely rare occasion in which the Raptors did not list an inactive regular. The team's full arsenal was at Nurse's disposal, which is why he mixed and matched with so many different lineups throughout the night, and ended up giving 10 players 11 minutes or more of run.

The return of Kyle Lowry facilitated it. After missing four of Toronto's last five games with injuries to each of his ankles, Lowry was back on the floor doing his thing, barking out orders, slinging the ball around, absorbing his team-leading 22nd charge of the season. He didn't look his best, and probably shouldn't have been expected to, considering he's feeling far from it.

"It's not going to be 100 per cent the whole season, I can say that right now," Lowry said after the game. "I just want to get out there. I could sit out until the playoffs with the type of injury that I have. But I want to play, keep a rhythm, and get out there with the guys and play some basketball. If I can get out there and play, I'm gonna go play. It could take me a while for this one to really heal, but you don't want that. It's going to take too long. So, I'll just get out there and go play. And deal with it as it goes."

Well, that's certainly something to monitor. The returns are at least better from fellow point guard Fred VanVleet, who also recently suffered an injury absence, but looks even better now than he did prior.

In the 35 days he was sidelined, VanVleet apparently discovered a way to completely bypass the shaking-off-the-rust stage most athletes experience in returning to their sport's highest level of competition after a long layoff. He played 31 minutes his first night back and looked markedly more dangerous than he did prior to his injury, with 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting. He followed that up with a plus-33 performance in nearly 30 minutes the night following, and a busy, 40-minute, 23-point effort two nights later.

Sunday, VanVleet took the court for the fifth time in eight days after missing more than a month, and again looked terrific, scoring a dozen on 5-of-9 shooting over 31 minutes.

"Yeah, he's playing great," Nurse said prior to Sunday's game. "I think his health is at its peak right now. He's in great shape, he's physically feeling good - and that's maybe for the first time all year, really.

"He's just back to the guy we remember from a year ago a little bit more. It really gives us a weapon. He's tough, he's smart, he shoots, he'll get that odd layup here and there when the shot clock's running down, and he'll make that shot-clock basket in the fourth quarter. He gets Kyle to the two, he's a good leader. He's an important player for us."

And there is a cascading reaction to VanVleet's return that can be felt throughout Toronto's roster. For starters, Lowry can play some shooting guard in the thick of games, after his run with the starters to begin the night, and before he takes a crucial playmaking role with Toronto's closing lineup.

Playing a full game as point guard is a physical and mental grind. The ball's always in your hands, you're constantly thinking, reading, analyzing, and selecting depending on what looks a defence is showing you, and your defensive assignment is rarely an easy one. Letting Lowry ease up on the gas and play the two guard for a spell, while VanVleet takes over primary facilitating duties, can only help Toronto's most important player stay fresh for a game's most crucial minutes.

"It's important. I think it's a lot of work bringing the ball up the floor, especially when teams are hounding you full court," Nurse said. "To ease a few of those burdens - bringing it up, maybe running the team - and letting [Lowry] concentrate on getting that three-ball off or screening or whatever the other things he can do for us, for six, eight, 10, 12 minutes a game, is important. I think it gets him to the end of the game a little better, physically and mentally."

VanVleet's presence has a similar effect on Jeremy Lin, who can slide over to a shooting guard role in Toronto's bench lineup. Whether it's due to familiarity, ingenuity, or both, the Raptors reserves tend to run better with VanVleet playing point. Nurse likes to say he's looking for "mistake-free basketball" from his bench, which means don't turn the ball over and definitely don't mess up your defensive coverages. Too often of late, the Raptors have done the opposite.

Of course, it's been a big ask for Lin to step into a new team and immediately take over such a crucial position in an unfamiliar system alongside players he's never played with before. But such is NBA life. It's clear that when all point guards are available, VanVleet gets the most out of Toronto's bench.

And VanVleet's energy, cleverness, and creativity can only help players like Lin, OG Anunoby, and Powell, who will be playing off of him come the playoffs, trying to either extend whatever early-game momentum the starters generate, or potentially kickstart the Raptors out of a funk. (Not to mention either Serge Ibaka or Marc Gasol, who could each fill out that unit depending on matchups)

Will all three of Lin, Anunoby, and Powell see meaningful minutes in mid-to-late April? Probably not. Nurse will likely run a nine-man rotation, with one of Lowry, Kawhi Leonard, or Pascal Siakam taking turns running with the reserves.

Whose minutes suffer? Sunday it was Powell's, until it wasn't. In the second half it was Lin, who didn't touch the floor. Anunoby's way too versatile and effective defensively to drop out of the rotation entirely. And don't forget McCaw, who's still floating around the periphery.

It's a lot of moving parts. A lot of things to sort out over the next two-and-a-half weeks. Must be spring.

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Powell proving yet again he can be spark for Raptors come playoff time - Sportsnet.ca

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Norman Powell's late-game surge is only a marginally important thing in a marginally important loss. But it does give Nurse something to ponder over the coming weeks, as he shrinks his rotations and figures out who he'll be leaning on come the playoffs.

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Kyle Lowry took off his sunglasses and put down three boxes of shoes. It was his birthday. He is 33, playing for the best team he’s been on in his life, less than three weeks before the playoffs begin. His ankles hurt. “It sucks,” Lowry said. Monday, long after practice. “It does suck. But I’m doing all I can to be ready for June. That’s all that matters: April, May, June. Yeah, it sucks.”

Lowry says the right ankle is more about a sore foot and Lowry said Sunday he was unlikely to be 100 per cent the rest of the season.

Old story, for him.“But I’ll be fine,” he said. “No matter how I play or what’s wrong with me, no one’s gonna care, right? So me saying my ankles hurt doesn’t matter.”

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Kyle Lowry took off his sunglasses and put down three boxes of shoes. It was his birthday. He is 33, playing for the best team he's been on in his life, less than three weeks before the playoffs begin. His ankles hurt.

"It sucks," said the Toronto Raptors point guard Monday, long after practice. "It does suck. But I'm doing all I can to be ready for June. That's all that matters: April, May, June. Yeah, it sucks."

Raptors guard Kyle Lowry on the upcoming playoffs: "It's about seizing the opportunity to be in a situation that I've never been in before." (Steve Russell / Toronto Star)

Lowry played Sunday as the Raptors lost a game to Charlotte where they tried really hard in the first five minutes and again in the last five minutes and watched a 50-footer bank in to beat them. He practised Monday. The team says nothing is structurally wrong, but he has sprained each of his ankles in the last two weeks: first the left, then the right. They still hurt - Lowry says the right ankle is more about a sore foot - and Lowry said Sunday he was unlikely to be 100 per cent the rest of the season. Old story, for him.

"But I'll be fine," he said. "No matter how I play or what's wrong with me, no one's gonna care, right? So me saying my ankles hurt doesn't matter."

Why not?

"I think the last couple years, the last three years, if you look at my numbers, people say I don't play well in the playoffs," Lowry said. "Look at my numbers. They're not bad. They're actually pretty good numbers."

Lowry knows his playoff reputation, which has been somewhat conflated with some of Toronto's team failures: three sweeps in the past four years, two of them humiliations at the hands of Cleveland and LeBron James. In 2017, Lowry said, "I know I'm not a LeBron, and DeMar (DeRozan)'s not a LeBron."

But the short, squat, fierce and cerebral guard also believes he's been better than he's been made out to be, and not enough people have noticed. He charts it back to Game 2 of the Miami series in 2016; to that point he had shot 33 per cent or so through Toronto's first 11 games against Indiana and the Heat, including that lonely post-game when he was shooting on a darkened Air Canada Centre court after that Game 1 loss to Miami.

"I've been in a groove since," Lowry said. "Go ahead and look at all the numbers and, ever since then, every playoffs, every series, I've just been in a good groove."

He's ... not wrong. The 2016 post-season was boom and bust for Lowry especially, back when he and the departed DeRozan tried to shoulder so much of the load, and teams loaded up to stop them. Through nine playoff games, it was often bust. Lowry shot .308 in those first nine games. He had 11 points in Toronto's near-death Game 7 against Indiana, on 14 shots. He went out and shot in his hoodie after Game 1 of the second round, and it made ESPN.

And since then, the difference is stark. Before Game 3 against Miami in 2016, Lowry scored 528 playoff points in 20 games as a Raptor by shooting .365 from the field, .257 from three, and .731 from the free-throw line for a true shooting percentage of .527, which is awful. In the 27 games since, which included his greatest moments in Games 5 to 7 against Miami, he has scored 560 points on .473/.401/.790 shooting, for a true shooting percentage of .605. He's shot over .600 in that combined measure over a full season once in his career.

And then last year a healthy Lowry was terrific. Lowry averaged 17.4 points, 8.5 assists (his best mark ever), 4.3 rebounds, 1.5 steals, and shot a line of .508/.444/.813. He wasn't enough to save the Raptors against LeBron, even in the close ones. But he was good.

Partly, it was the result of an intentional redefinition of his role. Lowry averaged 16.5 shot attempts in the grinding run to the conference final in 2016. He attempted more than 15 shots once in the 14 playoff games that followed : the critical Game 4 win in Milwaukee in 2017. He was asked if he deliberately pulled back from his 2016 hero mode and its mixed results in favour of a more controlled approach.

"No, it's just playing, being healthy, doing whatever I have to do to win the game," Lowry said. "Sometimes people only look at scoring, but it's everything else I feel like I bring to the game. And no one notices that, because they say, 'He had a meltdown against Cleveland,' whatever year that was. Go back and look at the numbers. 'Is Kyle Lowry so important during the playoffs?' Go back and look at the numbers, I've been pretty good, and I'm happy with the way I've performed personally in the playoffs.

"And that's why it's an unfair judgment, and that's why I don't care what I feel like, nothing matters, everybody's going to say what they're going to say anyways. And it sounds like I'm being defensive, in protecting myself, but go look at them. Go look at the numbers. I've done it the last three years."

His injuries were a part of some of his failings, too; the knee against Brooklyn in 2014, everything in the Washington mess of 2015, the sprained ankle after two games against Cleveland in 2017. Last season he was healthy, and the Raptors disintegrated in seven days against the Cavaliers. He said Monday, "I've done what I can do, and last year I felt like I had even more to give, and this year I feel like I'll be at a high level."

Less than three weeks away. Lowry says, "It's not about me aging; it's about seizing the opportunity to be in a situation that I've never been in before." Lowry doesn't think people care about how his ankles feel but, quietly, he cares about what people think. This is another chance to change the story, with a better team than ever. Just watch.

Bruce Arthur is a Toronto-based sports columnist. Follow him on Twitter: @bruce_arthur

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Kyle Lowry knows he's a playoff performer, and the numbers back him up | The Star

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Kyle Lowry took off his sunglasses and put down three boxes of shoes. It was his birthday. He is 33, playing for the best team he's been on in his life, less than three weeks before the playoffs begin. His ankles hurt. "It sucks," said the Toronto Raptors point guard Monday, long after practice.

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As it goes every year the Raptors have made the playoffs, it has always been nearly and identical route to the playoffs. Every year the raptors have made the playoffs for the past six years their route to the eastern conference finals and even so the final has always been similar.

Now that they have acquired new stars to the team—although the playoff route wont change and we have to see them play the same teams every year, hopefully the outcome of the season will be different and not get taken out of the playoffs in the first or second round this. The Raptors is looking like they have set the bar high and looking to make a push to win a championship.

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after the raptors just clinched the playoffs by losing to the hornets by a brutal game winner. the Raptors now have their eyes set on the playoffs and are now looking to rest some of the guys that they have in min as a starter for the playoffs.

Sources believe that with Kyle's ankle being iffy and if it starts to bother him that he might have to sit a couple of games in the playoffs, Leonard is going to be most-likely sitting every other game therefore, Raptors are going to be mixing guys in and out of the starting line up which may have an impact on how others play and may also cause some sorts of dysfunction on the court.

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.
— Adrian Cheddie (@adriancheddie) March 18, 2019

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.

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If the #Raptors are healthy in the playoffs, they should be able to beat the #Pistons in 5 games.

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The Raptors It’s definitely not this reductive. But, fundamentally, the NBA’s three-point revolution comes down to kindergarten mathematics. It is widely understood that three is more than two. Thus, if you’re a basketball team and you want to score a lot of points, often a prerequisite to winning more games your thought to try to score three of them as often as possible.

Of course, it’s not so easy. Three-pointers are harder to hit than two-pointers. You’re pretty far from the basket. On the perimeter, it can be difficult to get open. There are a lot of really tall dudes throwing their really long arms and really big hands in your way. And shooting is a lot like hitting for a baseball player. Sometimes you get hot and can’t miss. And sometimes, for whatever reason, you lose your feel for it completely. It can be maddening.

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Arden Zwelling |@ardenzwelling

Arden Zwelling@ardenzwelling

TORONTO - It's definitely not this reductive. But, fundamentally, the NBA's three-point revolution comes down to kindergarten mathematics. It is widely understood that three is more than two. Thus, if you're a basketball team and you want to score a lot of points - often a prerequisite to winning games - you ought to try to score three of them as often as possible. It's just more efficient. It gets you there faster.

Of course, it's not so easy. Three-pointers are harder to hit than two-pointers. You're pretty far from the basket. On the perimeter, it can be difficult to get open. There are a lot of really tall dudes throwing their really long arms and really big hands in your way. And shooting is a lot like hitting for a baseball player. Sometimes you get hot and can't miss. And sometimes, for whatever reason, you lose your feel for it completely. It can be maddening.

But, these days, most NBA teams are willing to accept the increased degree of difficulty, and increased level of variance, for the increased reward when it's going well. Everyone's letting it rain. And if you're hitting a decent percentage, you're probably going to win more often than not.

That's not why the Toronto Raptors crushed the Brooklyn Nets Friday night, 122-105. The win had much more to do with the Raptors sorting out some early defensive issues on the fly, and getting one of the most complete bench efforts the team has seen all season, as Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, Norman Powell, OG Anunoby, and Greg Monroe all finished with double-figure scoring and at least one assist each.

Until Jonas Valanciunas is back in action - he's still weeks away - those five will be the Raptors' second unit. Toronto's coaching staff has been running the group through extra work before and after practices of late and, in games like Friday's, you can see it paying off. The 60 points the reserves scored against the Nets were only two shy of a season-high.

"It's taken us 45 games to figure it out," Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said. "But it looks like, if we're healthy, that's the group. It should be a good group. It really should."

But back to the three-pointers for a minute. When the NBA adopted the three-point line for the 1979-80 season, teams attempted only 2.8 three-pointers per game. A decade-and-a-half later, in the 1994-95 season, teams suddenly began attempting 15.3 per game - a more-than five shot increase on the season prior - marking the end of the single-digit era.

This season, teams are attempting 31.1 per game, the most ever. It marks the ninth consecutive season in which three-point attempts have increased league-wide. Currently, only two teams are attempting fewer than 25 three-pointers per night. Only five seasons ago, just four teams averaged 25 or more.

And how does Toronto fit in? The Raptors are among the top-10 teams in the league when it comes to three-point attempts (33 per game), but among the bottom-10 when it comes to three-point percentage (they came into Friday's game converting 34.4 per cent of the time).

The magic number for Toronto and three-pointers, it appears, is exactly what they've been averaging - 34 per cent. Coming into Friday's game, the Raptors had gone 20-3 in games that they shot 34 per cent or better from beyond the arc. They were 11-9 when they didn't. Friday, they were shooting 34 per cent from three until the final minute, when they missed three consecutively and dropped to 31 per cent. Funny, that.

For a while there, the Raptors were struggling mightily to convert from distance. They shot below their magic number in 10 of the 15 games they played in the month of December. Accordingly, it was the worst month Toronto's had this season, as they went 8-7 and lost their grip on the Eastern Conference's top position.

But since, things have begun to normalize. Toronto was above the 34 per cent mark in three of five January games coming into Friday night, winning all of them, including a pair of nights when they shot 45 and 52 per cent while making more than 30 attempts.

"The winds of change," Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said before Friday's game. "I just think it took time. We stay with it. You keep giving guys confidence. You look at the shots and you evaluate them pretty closely and they look like they're pretty good. You tell those guys to make them and keep taking them. Let's make sure we're taking the right ones and most of them are the right ones. These are the ones we want to take in the film sessions. And we're going to step into them and start making them. And we finally started doing that."

Friday, Toronto's first points came on a three, as a beautiful series of passing and movement freed up Kyle Lowry in the corner for a wide-open look. Fred VanVleet then came off the bench and hit a pair of his own. But Toronto finished the quarter with only seven attempted, which isn't enough over the course of a game. It's a reason why the Nets surged ahead early.

Another is that the Nets have been playing pretty well of late, winning 13 of 17, including victories over the Raptors and Philadelphia 76ers, a pair of first-rate teams. Perhaps you hadn't noticed. Nurse had.

"It's a good team, man - 13-and-4 in their last 17. Somebody should talk about that," Nurse said before the game, praising a team that could very well end up an opponent in the first round of the playoffs. "They've done a great job of handling injuries, playing their system, playing hard, making shots."

And so maybe it shouldn't have been much of a surprise to see the Nets up by seven after a first quarter in which they shot 50 per cent from the field and 6-of-10 from beyond the arc. Again, the three-pointer was the difference. Over and over, Brooklyn would penetrate the paint and kick the ball out to the perimeter, where Raptors defenders were slow to recover and disrupt clean looks.

The difference in the second quarter? The Raptors clamped down defensively, limiting Brooklyn to 1-of-5 shooting from range. And at the other end, Toronto started hoisting, and making, more threes, including four in the final three-and-a-half minutes, which helped the Raptors win the quarter, 36-18, and take a commanding 11-point lead into halftime.

It continued in the third, as Danny Green hit a spot-up three just a couple of minutes in, forcing the Nets into an early timeout that ultimately coincided with the end of the game's competitiveness. The Raptors let loose from there, putting up 35 in the quarter while aggressively closing out on Brooklyn shooters again, limiting the Nets to 1-of-7 from range in the quarter.

In the end, the effort was comprehensive. Kawhi Leonard had 20 points and 11 rebounds; Pascal Siakam had 16 and 6; Serge Ibaka, 14 and 9. Eight players finished with double-digit scoring, including five off the bench. Of Toronto's 48 buckets, 32 were assisted. And, of course, thanks to a couple of bad C.J. Miles misses in the dying seconds, the Raptors hit just below 34 per cent of their three's, ruining a perfectly good narrative.

There's a lot more going on in an NBA basketball game than just making or missing long-distance shots. The Raptors can win when they shoot below 34 per cent from range (clearly), and they can lose when they shoot above it. It can't be that simple. But sometimes it is.

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Raptors' defence overshadows power of three-ball - Sportsnet.ca

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Arden Zwelling |@ardenzwelling Arden Zwelling @ardenzwelling TORONTO - It's definitely not this reductive. But, fundamentally, the NBA's three-point revolution comes down to kindergarten mathematics. It is widely understood that three is more than two.

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The most promising playoff run in Raptors history will begin in a little more than three weeks. And if you’re head coach Nick Nurse, you’ve probably spent a few minutes contemplating your optimal rotation.

Begin with the starting five. Kyle Lowry, assuming he’ll be long recovered from Monday’s ankle tweak against the Knicks, is a no-brainer as your longest-serving, offence-triggering mainstay. Kawhi Leonard, who’ll be load-managed and readied by the best science available. Matchups can vary, but on most nights you probably also lean toward Pascal Siakam, Danny Green and Marc Gasol to round out the first five. Because on paper, that’s arguably your best lineup. if leonard is willing to take on the extra load management and step up to be then main focal point of the offence theni can see the raptors making a push to the finals

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The most promising playoff run in Raptors history will begin in a little more than three weeks. And if you're head coach Nick Nurse, you've probably spent a few minutes contemplating your optimal rotation.

Begin with the starting five. Kyle Lowry, assuming he'll be long recovered from Monday's ankle tweak against the Knicks, is a no-brainer as your longest-serving, offence-triggering mainstay. Ditto Kawhi Leonard, who'll be load-managed and readied by the best science available. Matchups can vary, but on most nights you probably also lean toward Pascal Siakam, Danny Green and Marc Gasol to round out the first five. Because on paper, that's arguably your best lineup.

With the varied lineups the Raptors have put on the floor this year, Marc Gasol, Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam might want to wear "Hello, my name is ..." cards come playoff time. (Rick Madonik / Toronto Star)

There's a factor, mind you, that gives you at least a nanosecond of pause: Paper's great. But those five humans have coexisted on a basketball court for a grand total of 62 minutes this season, according to numbers at NBA.com. There are pieces of ankle tape with which Lowry has become better acquainted.

And even if you swap out Gasol, a trade-deadline acquisition, for Serge Ibaka, who's been around all season, that quintet of Lowry, Leonard, Siakam, Green and Ibaka has only found itself on the floor together in less than half of the Raptors' 71 games. If the regular season is supposed to be a rehearsal for the real thing, let's just say Toronto is probably a few run-throughs short.

The first-round opponent remains unknown. If the 16-team bracket started Tuesday it would have been Brooklyn. There's a chance it turns out to be Miami, or even Detroit and Dwane Casey. But you can make the case that the Raptors' real first-round challenger will be unfamiliarity.

Lowry, who was listed Tuesday as "questionable" for Wednesday night's game in Oklahoma City, has called the lack of time with a full complement of players "super frustrating for our team."

"But we've done a great job handling everything and playing through the injuries and the rest games, and trying to keep everyone together," Lowry said.

To that end the coming two games against Oklahoma City, the second half of which goes Friday in Toronto, were supposed to be an important test run against a rare playoff-bound opponent on the remaining schedule. Wednesday, after all, figured to see Leonard back in the lineup after he was held out of Monday's win over the Knicks. It happens to coincide with what's expected to be Ibaka's first game back from his three-game suspension for punch-tossing.

"I think by the end of this week we are gonna finally get our entire team on the floor," Nurse said before Monday's game.

But as Nurse noted after Monday's win over the Knicks, when Lowry's health became the latest focal point of concern, the coach should have knocked on wood. Lowry may or may not be available now. And really, given the way this season has gone, who's surprised?

And how much togetherness is actually required? There was a time when championship teams stayed together for a long, slow climb up the mountain toward the Larry O'Brien Trophy. Pat Riley, the legendary coach of championship teams with the Lakers and Heat, called it the Principle of Perfect Painful Progression. It required patience. And it required personnel continuity, year after year after year.

Toronto tried that approach with teams built around Lowry and DeMar DeRozan. It brought unprecedented success to a once-fallow basketball outpost. But when two wins in the 2016 Eastern Conference final amounted to the pinnacle of the progression, a shifting of gears was in order.

Now, with the NBA on the precipice of its first post-season in 13 years without LeBron James, the Raptors come into the championship tournament without presupposed limits. There's a sense they've got a card or two up their sleeve. If a team can be this good to this point, surely it's possessed of another gear as yet unleashed. The thing is, nobody's seen it - or, at least, nobody's seen it in anything but glimpses.

That might not be a wholly good thing. Some might call it alarming that Toronto's three best players - Leonard, Lowry and Siakam - have been on the court together in just 37 of Toronto's 71 games this season. Then again, when Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors en route to the 2017 NBA title, the trio of Durant, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson only played together in 57 regular-season games in the lead-up to their title run, and that went okay.

This team hasn't played enough with everyone together, but there's no shortage of big-game playing experience. That's why team president Masai Ujiri acquired Leonard and Green, who played on a championship team in 2014 with the San Antonio Spurs. That's why the move was made to pick up Gasol, he of the 59 career playoff games and a couple of Olympic silver medals. That's why Ibaka is on board, veteran that he is of the NBA final and 109 playoff matches. With that much experience in the rotation, how much fine-tuning is really required?

"All we need is a couple games on the floor together, we'll be all right," Lowry said this week.

Still, with just 11 regular-season contests to go until the real stuff begins, the injuries and late-season additions will likely leave Nurse experimenting into the post-season's first round.

"I'm okay with it now. I think we're still searching. I just think it's hard to call," Nurse said Monday, speaking of the thinking that's gone into this ultimate playoff rotation. "I think you're probably thinking nine (players) once you get to the playoffs, but you just don't know what happens. A big picks up a couple early fouls or a guard does, it just may throw somebody else into it."

In other words, some coaches build cohesiveness slowly over seasons. Nurse has been put in a position to make it up as he goes along. That should make the Raptors' most promising playoff run in history both exciting and surprising. As for whether it'll be successful, a coach can only knock on wood.

Dave Feschuk is a Toronto-based sports columnist. Follow him on Twitter: @dfeschuk

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Raptors can't tell their playoff rotation without a program | The Star

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The most promising playoff run in Raptors history will begin in a little more than three weeks. And if you're head coach Nick Nurse, you've probably spent a few minutes contemplating your optimal rotation. Begin with the starting five. Kyle Lowry, assuming he'll be long recovered from Monday's ankle tweak against the Knicks, is a no-brainer as your longest-serving, offence-triggering mainstay.

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This marks the sixth consecutive season the Raptors will be playing postseason basketball. The franchise qualified just five times during its first 18 years of existence. The Raptors were bounced from the second round by the Cleveland Cavaliers in each of the last two years. Their deepest run came in 2016 when they lost the Eastern Conference finals in six games to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Toronto currently sits second in the East with a 47-19 record, three games back of the Bucks for the number 1 seed in the east. Toronto is looking to make a playoff run, hopefully keep Leonard when the off season comes.

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John Raoux/Associated Press
The Toronto Raptors clinched a berth in the 2019 NBA playoffs Saturday thanks to the Charlotte Hornets' 131-114 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Toronto Raptors @Raptors
x - #WeTheNorth https://t.co/Q9M7bKhl1c

Toronto (47-19) becomes just the second team in the NBA to secure a spot in the 16-team field. Milwaukee (50-16) previously locked up a spot and currently owns a three-game lead for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

The Raptors have spent the entire regular season at or near the top of the East, so officially claiming a berth in the postseason doesn't come as a surprise. They'll spend the rest of the campaign trying to wrangle the top seed away from the Bucks.

That said, the biggest question is how Toronto will fare in the playoffs after retooling its roster in the offseason, highlighted by the arrival of Kawhi Leonard from the San Antonio Spurs.

There were mixed reactions when the Raptors dealt fan favorite DeMar DeRozan along with Jakob Poeltl and a first-round pick in the 2019 draft to the Spurs in exchange for Leonard and Danny Green.

In December, Toronto point guard Kyle Lowry admitted to ESPN's Rachel Nichols on The Jump (via Michelle R. Martinelli of For The Win) even he needed to overcome some emotions after watching his longtime backcourt mate leave the team.

"I felt betrayed because he felt betrayed because that's my guy, that's my best friend," Lowry said. "So yeah, I felt some type of way on a personal side. It's a harsh business. It's a great business, but sometimes moves are made that you're like, 'Ugh, wow, that sucks.'"

Toronto reached the conference finals in 2016 and was eliminated in the conference semifinals each of the past two seasons. All three times the Raptors fell short against LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers.

Now, with James out of the East and their own roster retooled with Leonard as the foundation, the Raptors will be expected to make the first NBA Finals appearance in team history.

Anything less would be a disappointment, especially with Leonard holding a player option that could make him an unrestricted free agent in the offseason.

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Kawhi Leonard, Raptors Clinch 2019 NBA Playoff Spot After Bucks Beat Hornets

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The Toronto Raptors clinched a berth in the 2019 NBA playoffs Saturday thanks to the Charlotte Hornets ' 131-114 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks . Toronto (47-19) becomes just the second team in the NBA to secure a spot in the 16-team field...