The Raptors are the NBA’s biggest pain in the ass

The Toronto Raptors’ dream of repeating as NBA champions was supposed to have died the day Kawhi Leonard departed for Los Angeles. That line of thinking wasn’t a slight to the Raptors as much as it was a resignation to common sense. History shows the arrow only points one way for teams that lose arguably the best player alive, a title Leonard made a convincing case for as he carried Toronto throughout last season’s charmed playoff run.

So much has happened both inside and outside of basketball since the day the Raptors clinched the NBA championship that it can sometimes be hard to remember Toronto still holds the title until the day someone takes it away from them. That scenario doesn’t feel so preordained anymore. The beginning of the NBA’s restart at the Disney bubble is reinforcing just how difficult it’s going to be to take the crown away from the Raptors.

The Raptors offered a warning shot to the rest of the league in their first game in the bubble against the team that’s favored to assume their title, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers were coming off a thrilling win over Leonard and the arch-rival Clippers when Toronto stopped them cold in their very next game. The Lakers were held to just 92 points on 35 percent shooting from the floor in a decisive 15-point win for the Raps.

On Monday, the Toronto defense held down the Miami Heat — a team that had dropped 125 points on the Denver Nuggets in their first game — to secure a 107-103 victory. This time the hero was Fred VanVleet, who went off for a game-high 36 points on 7-of-12 shooting from three-point range.

The Raptors aren’t exactly coming out of nowhere. They went into the hiatus second in the Eastern Conference behind the league-best Milwaukee Bucks while winning at just about the same clip they were last year with Leonard. Still, it’s hard to find someone outside of the hyper-passionate Toronto fanbase willing to say the Raptors can repeat. The Lakers, Clippers, and Bucks remain the heavy favorites.

Even if the Raptors aren’t the NBA’s best team right now, they certainly feel like the biggest pain in the ass. Here’s why Toronto is the team no one wants to face in the NBA bubble.

Kawhi Leonard might be the best defensive wing of his generation. So how exactly did the Raptors defense get better without him?

Last year’s Raps ended with the league’s fifth-best defensive rating at 106.8. This season, Toronto is No. 2 in the NBA with a 104.7 defensive rating, trailing only the Bucks.

Having a healthy OG Anunoby and a full season of Marc Gasol has certainly helped. Even still, much of the credit rightfully goes to the coaching staff. Head coach Nick Nurse and his assistants have devised a dynamic defense that that can throw endless looks at the opposition: hybrid zones, half-court traps, full court pressing, and that infamous box-and-one are all part of the mix and deployed by players with length, intelligence, and discipline.

Mike Prada wrote the definitive piece on the Raptors’ defense back in February. Essentially, Toronto is willing to concede three-point shots but only after furious closeouts that plant a seed of doubt in any would-be shooter’s mind. To quote Prada, that constant pressure makes opponents see ghosts.

A few notable stats:

In an unprecedented and bizarre setting within the bubble, Toronto knows it can always fall back on its defense. It’s going to keep opposing coaches up all night as the seeding games give way to the playoffs.

The Raptors had plenty of experience playing without Leonard coming into the season. As the star committed to a schedule of regular rest before the playoffs, the Raptors went 17-5 without him in the lineup last season. Leonard’s absences groomed his supporting cast to step into the spotlight, and they haven’t missed a beat doing it full-tie this season.

Kyle Lowry has long been one of the most underrated players of his generation. Somehow, he only seems to be getting better. At age 33, Lowry was turning in one of the best seasons of his career before the hiatus. Now he’s picking up where he left off. Lowry was tremendous against the Lakers, finishing with 33 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, and numerous ‘winning plays’ that don’t show up in the box score. In many ways, it was a microcosm of his entire career.

While the Raptors knew what they had in Lowry, Pascal Siakam has become everything the franchise hoped he’d be. Always a stalwart on defense, Siakam continued the massive strides he showed offensively last season by significantly raising his usage rate and doubling his volume as a three-point shooter. He was named an All-Star for the first time in his career and has now established himself as one of the league’s premier two-way forwards.

If Lowry and Siakam aren’t beating you, the Raptors have a few other players who can. VanVleet showed how explosive he can be against Miami on Monday afternoon, bombing three after three, finishing with creativity around the rim, and getting to the line at will — where he hit 13-of-13 shots from the charity stripe.

The Raptors’ newest emerging piece is OG Anunoby. After missing all of the playoffs last season following an emergency appendectomy in April, Anunoby has made major strides on offense while continuing to be a strong defender.

He gives Toronto another player with both length and strength that is starting to flush out his skill set as a shooter and scorer. Anunoby hit 39 percent of his threes this season and has a true shooting percentage above 60 percent. Just wait until his ball handling ability continues to come into focus.

There’s also Gasol and Serge Ibaka, plus Norman Powell and Terence Davis. Any of them can get hot and play the hero for a night. The Raptors offense doesn’t flow through just one player on most nights anymore, and in some ways that variance makes them just as difficult to defend.

As the Bucks remain the favorites in the East, Toronto is viewed as part of the conference’s second tier alongside the Heat and Boston Celtics. While each of those teams has moments where it feels like they can pull an upset over Milwaukee and reach the NBA Finals, Toronto is the squad that already has championship experience and beat the Bucks in a series last year.

It’s supposed to be impossible to win deep in the playoffs without a definitive superstar. The Raptors don’t have that anymore. Instead, Toronto has responded by becoming perhaps the most annoying team to face in the league. The coaching staff is brilliant, the defense is elite, and the offense has multiple weapons that can takeover a game.

Through it all, the Raptors’ title defense is still going strong. Another team may end up taking that championship belt, but Toronto is making certain it sure as hell won’t be easy.