Dwane Casey and the Raptors Still Have Something to Prove

The 60-win Atlanta Hawks were known for their egalitarian, pass-heavy offence last year, but they always had a defence to complement the attack. Somehow, after losing DeMarre Carroll, their most acclaimed perimeter defender, that defence got better this year. Along with the San Antonio Spurs, the Hawks were the only team to allow fewer than a point per possession, according to NBA.com. The Hawks were smart, in sync and stingy.

In the second round of the playoffs, the Cleveland Cavaliers hung 77 3-pointers on the Hawks in a four-game sweep. They exceeded 120 points twice, and finished in triple digits all four times. By the end of the season, a poll of Eastern Conference general managers probably would have revealed the surging Hawks to be the second-most-feared team in the NBA's JV conference. The Cavaliers deconstructed them to the point that, with Al Horford entering free agency, there are legitimate questions about whether that team's core should be blown up and the Hawks should start anew.

On Thursday night, Dwane Casey, the coach of the team that gets the honour of being the East's final makeshift roadblock to the Cavs before the Finals, trotted out his sixth different starting lineup, elevating Luis Scola back to the starting five and hoping Patrick Patterson would prop up the wayward bench. For the Toronto Raptors, a team whose main problem in a 31-point Game 1 loss was defence, the move did not add up—Patterson is a far more versatile and capable defender than Scola. Casey probably concluded, however, that without Jonas Valanciunas, the Raptors needed someone to soak up extra minutes in the frontcourt to preserve Patterson and Bismack Biyombo, and Scola had done that all year long. It was worth a try.

Well, the Raptors cut the Cavaliers' output by seven points, so moral victory! (Let's not mention that the difference was almost entirely due to LeBron James' struggles at the free throw line.) More to the point, this was another move from Casey, a coach who has proven loathe to alter his rotations. During the regular season, the only change to the starting unit that he made that was not a direct result of an injury or rest was at the wing position beside DeMar DeRozan (in Carroll's absence, James Johnson, Terrence Ross and Norman Powell all got their opportunities). Even with the majority of the Raptors' fan base screaming at Casey to allow Patterson to start, Scola started all 76 games he played, with Jason Thompson starting the other six.

In the playoffs, Casey has coached desperately, a natural response to a team that has looked like its regular-season self no more than two full games and a few spare quarters. Now, Casey has his biggest problem yet. In the first two rounds, Casey mostly had to adjust for a team, that without Kyle Lowry and DeRozan producing at their normal rates, was labouring on offence. Now, the team is a mess on both sides of the floor.

The Raptors' defensive sins, mostly absent in the first two series, have been a greatest hits collection of Casey's early years in Toronto. The Raptors have sent the Cavaliers to the line 70 times through two games, compared to shooting 38 free throws for themselves. Surely, a fraction—a tiny fraction—of that is a product of star calls going Cleveland's way. A lot of it is silly off-the-ball stuff. It is Patterson grabbing a jersey. It is Scola bumping Love 16 feet out with his back to the basket. It is not only the result of a wide talent gap, although it is mostly that; it is foolish stuff from players who should know better.

The rest of it is mostly just the Raptors not keeping their man in front of them. Even accounting for the fact that he is LeBron James, it is nearly impossible to make sense of the fact that James is shooting 18-for-26 in this series despite clanking every jumper that comes his way. He is getting to the rim at relative will, inexcusable for Carroll, unless the excuse is that his knee is still bothering him.

And then at point guard, we have seen a flashback to last year's brief playoff run (stumble?). Just like he was supposed to play John Wall to a draw last year, Lowry was at least supposed to cancel out Kyrie Irving. Instead, Lowry is missing shots and buckling under Cleveland's defensive pressuring, turning the ball over with frequency. And on the other end, Irving is simply roasting him.

"He's our guy," Casey told reporters after the game. "He's one of the examples (of offensive slumps affecting defensive performance). He's missed some great looks, and he's taken some of those looks down to the defensive end. He is an impactful player, but he can't let that (affect him). None of our guys can."

The irony is that if the Raptors set out to limit the Cavaliers' 3-point shooting, they have done just that. Cleveland is shooting 14-for-41 from deep so far against the Raptors, after connecting on 50.6 percent of its 152 attempts against the Hawks. In picking their poison, however, the Raptors have gone too far in the other direction.

It is hard to think of the adjustment Casey could make to help slow down James and his gunning teammates. More and more, this looks like the inevitable result of a massive talent gap, and addressing that is Masai Ujiri's job in offseasons to come.

Both the Pistons and Hawks, however, managed to make at least a few of their games against the Cavaliers close. The Raptors have yet to do that. More worrisomely, it appears as if the Raptors are acutely aware of the talent gap on the floor.

That is where Casey comes in. This postseason probably has not changed what you think of the coach—he is either a man getting the most of a roster that is not quite as good as its results or a man with not enough ingenuity in his offensive playbook. The Raptors are out-manned in this series, and they are surely suffering from an energy deficit caused by going the distance in the first two rounds while the Cavaliers played the minimum eight games.

Casey, however, is a coach who uses the word "disposition" a lot, as kind of a combination of effort and intensity. And what your disposition is when you are hopelessly, royally screwed is a lot more revealing than what you look like when things are going well. As this series shifts to Toronto, we are going to see the merits of the culture that Casey has been building over the last five years. With losing as with winning, the "how" is more important than the "what."