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Somehow 24.4% of Toronto’s season is over already. They aren’t where they want to be, but as quick as this stretch feels like it’s come and gone, there are three quarters left to play, if you will.
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The team has come home, gone away for a long time and is about to return to its not yet friendly confines for the next two-plus weeks.
A couple of things need to happen during this stretch: They need to figure out how to start winning at the building formerly known as the Hangar again and they have to find a way to stay healthy. Injuries have robbed Nick Nurse and his staff of a chance to generate cohesion at either end of the floor. It’s resulted in having to play the healthy top players way too many minutes and it’s left him with an underwhelming group.
“I mean we’re playing for our life bro. This is what we do. We can be tired after the game,” Fred VanVleet said after a practice on Saturday.
“I’m leading the league in minutes and miles ran per game and I’m OK. So anything under that, you should be OK.”
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And while OG Anunoby and Khem Birch should be back any day now, all of a sudden Gary Trent Jr. (calf, likely from the awkward fall in Indianapolis) is banged up and Scottie Barnes hurt his already sore thumb when he was hacked.
They just can’t seem to catch a break.
Some of this balances out sometimes — Boston will be without Dennis Schroder and Robert Williams Sunday and star guard Jaylen Brown might not be available either — but if they want to get into the play-in mix (Toronto was down to 12th in the East after Friday’s loss, but only three games behind defending champion Milwaukee and only 3.5 out of a home playoff slot) having a full lineup would help a ton.
As for the home struggles (2-6 record after dominating there for half a decade): “We don’t have many excuses to use, we just know it has to be better,” VanVleet said.
“I’m gonna take a lot of accountability on that as the leader of this team, having us more ready to play at home.”
They can start backing up the talk on Sunday against a Boston team they always seem to have good battles with.
It all begins with something both VanVleet and Pascal Siakam have talked about in recent days: Playing harder and playing smarter.
THREE STARS
1 Domantas Sabonis
2 Fred VanVleet
3 Scottie Barnes
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