Raptors’ losing streak no reason to panic

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In professional sports an extended losing streak almost inevitably brings out the worst in everyone.

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In-fighting, finger-pointing, selfish play — they show up with a losing skid about as quickly as the family dog arrives when food spills onto the floor.

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And as sure as the night follows the day, armchair critics and would-be general managers take to their social media accounts and determine who is at fault, who needs to go and basically what should be done to rectify the situation based on their keen insight from sitting on their couch and watching said team.

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It’s as predictable as it is laughable and this current Raptors’ nosedive is no different.

Well, almost no different.

Having lost 10 of their past 13, the fanbase, or the loudest part of it which resides on social media, would have Masai Ujiri and Bobby Webster send Fred VanVleet packing because he’s not making shots right now.

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Or barring that, move him to the bench and let Scottie Barnes run the point.

Let’s ignore the fact that VanVleet is a career 40% shooter from the field and 38% from behind the arc over 61/2 seasons and simply wash our hands of him. Get whatever you can for him on the trade market because we all know a guy’s value is never so high as when he’s struggling at his craft, right?

Again, laughable and predictable.

In that regard, the Raptors losing skid is no different than any other team’s.

Here is how it is different.

Through the better part of a forgettable December now pushing into January, the Raptors have maintained a togetherness often not found on winning teams let alone struggling ones.

Pascal Siakam said as much two days ago following a tough loss in Indy. VanVleet, still a leader on this team regardless of the drivel you are seeing on your social media platforms, said it again Wednesday night after that wild OT loss to Milwaukee.

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“With myself and Pascal, having been through a lot in a short amount of time in seven years, understanding the situation that we’re all in, it’s one of those things where it’s not really one person’s fault,” VanVleet said. “Sometimes you’re a casualty of war. It’s very situational. We certainly have all got to play better as a unit, as a team, try to find ways to do that. But there’s not much finger-pointing or blaming each other because we’re all out there together and fighting together, just trying to find ways to get it done. That’s probably the most I can say on that.”

And if you’re of the camp that believes words are very cheap in this type of scenario, consider what you saw in Wednesday’s game.

If ever there was a reason to just pack it in and take the rest of the night off, the Raptors’ shooting performance in that first quarter was it.

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They took 23 shots and made two.

But at the other end of the floor for that entire quarter and the rest of the game you saw one Raptor after another step in front of a giant with a full head of steam and stop him in his tracks either forcing him to give up the ball or turning it over which he did a career high 12 times in the game.

O.G. Anunoby, Scottie Barnes, Siakam and yes VanVleet, all 193 pounds of him, putting themselves in harm’s way to stop a stampeding bull from going where he wanted to go to keep the game within reach.

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Watch the fourth quarter, particularly that last minute and 50 seconds when they came back from 16 down to force overtime.

Teams that have quit on each other don’t do that. Hell, most teams on most nights can’t fathom coming back from 16 down in less than two minutes to extend a game let alone accomplish it.

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So, yes, as bad as this stretch of basketball has been, no one within the organization is giving any indication they are getting ready to blow it up, least of all the men on the court.

The rallying cry has been play to their identity.

Well, this team’s identity is hard, physical play relying heavily on its defence to keep it in games and give itself a chance to win.

If Wednesday’s game wasn’t the epitome of that, I’m not sure what is.

There are plenty of improvements that need to be made.

But we say with utter confidence that VanVleet will shoot better than the 31% from three he has been since the start of this 3-10 skid began.

The growing pains and learning Scottie Barnes is going through right now are only going to make him better going forward.

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The bench — from Precious Achiuwa to Chris Boucher and Thaddeus Young, not to mention Dalano Banton (who is with the 905, but not forgotten) finding his way, and getting the playing time he needs to help this team in the future — will all be better players for going through this.

“I think everybody’s well aware we’re going through a really difficult patch, maybe the most difficult patch we’ve been through,” head coach Nick Nurse said Wednesday night. “They’re fighting and trying; they’re trying to execute the game plan and they’re hanging in there. I think that the offensive woes (shooting just 8.7 in that first quarter) would have caught up with us maybe a few weeks ago or a month ago and got to our defence but it didn’t seem to tonight.”

That’s progress. That says all this talk about starting the tank or moving on from your leaders is both premature and ridiculous.