Under former head coach Nick Nurse, the Toronto Raptors were a great defensive unit. In his five years as the team’s head coach, the Raptors consistently ranked in the top 15 or higher in defensive rating. The team’s worst defensive season under Nurse came in 2020-2021, better known as the Tampa year, where the Raptors blatantly tanked for a top pick. Even then, the team still had the 15th-best defensive rating. In the first year under head coach Darko Rajakovic, the Raptors had the 26th-ranked defense. Through the first nine games of this season, the Raptors are tied for the worst defense in the league. Of course, this isn’t all on coach Rajakovic, as Scottie Barnes‘ injury and the lack of defenders outside of him are also central to these defensive issues. Nevertheless, Rajakovic needs to address the Raptors’ glaring defensive issues.
The Raptors Glaring Defensive Issues
Too Many Open Threes
The three-point shot has become the primary building block for most modern NBA offenses. Teams hunt threes, particularly open threes. The Raptors have been serving these high-percentage shots up on a silver platter through nine games. Of the 299 threes teams have taken against the Raptors, 256 have been open or wide-open per NBA tracking. On average, the Raptors give up 13 open and 15.4 wide-open threes per game. Of the 33 threes opponents take a night, 28.4 are high-quality open looks that the Raptors are just giving up.
The Raptors’ porous off-ball defense is the primary reason teams can generate so many open looks. The Raptors have made it a point to collapse the paint when someone drives. The problem with this is that players who are collapsing the paint have to leave their man open behind the three-point line. Opposing teams see this and hit the open shooter once the help comes, and the rest of the team isn’t rotating fast enough or at all to cover for the helping defender. The Raptors are also struggling with off-ball switching and are not communicating who’s supposed to be guarding who, leading to easy looks from deep. The team is young, with a ton of minutes going to rookies who have to adjust to this new style of defense. However, the rotations off-ball have to be better, and the team needs to talk more when it comes to switching.
Stop Fouling
Toronto has been playing more aggressively on the defense end this year, really getting into ball handlers. The problem with this style of defense is you put yourself at risk of fouling. Due to how many young guys are on the team, the Raptors have really struggled with being aggressive without fouling. Through the first nine games, the Raptors are 30th in opponent free throw attempts and makes. Coach Rajakovic has spoken about how he wants the team to play this style of point-of-attack defense, so that’s not going to change. This means the players just have to get better at guarding without fouling. Once again, with a large share of the minutes currently going to rookies, you expect foul problems. Once the team is healthier, they should be able to clean up some of the foul problems.
