Opinion | Raptors coach Nick Nurse lowers the bar for his struggling reserves

As coach of the depth-challenged Raptors, Nick Nurse has spent a lot of the past few seasons adjusting and readjusting the message he sends to his oft-struggling bench.

He has always demanded the reserves bring energy. And this season the likes of Chris Boucher and Precious Achiuwa mostly have. He has asked repeatedly for better efforts on defence and on the boards. Considering offence-first guard Gary Trent Jr. is the leading reserve minute-getter of late, that has come with understandably spottier returns.

But with the bench in one of its worst slumps of the season, and the Raptors in the throes of a three-game losing streak as they attempt to cling to a spot in the play-in tournament, Nurse seems to have toned down his demands. Speaking with reporters after practice Monday, Nurse said he would be satisfied if his bench could provide more “average” or “treading-water-type performances” to complement his starters. Nurse seemed to be delivering a simple enough request to the reserves: Just don’t be terrible. Be average. Heck, be a little below average. Just stay afloat instead so consistently taking on water.

“There’s been a lot of times when (the starters) really have a great rhythm going at both ends, and even just one or two subs seems to change that pretty quickly,” Nurse said. “And that just shouldn’t be the case if you’re ready to go and you’re defending and rebounding.

“We just can’t have the dam break free (with reserves in the game) like it did in the last game.”

If it wasn’t exactly an inspiring moment of great expectations, it was understandable. Coming off Friday’s loss to the L.A. Lakers, in which the Raptors’ reserves were outscored by a shocking 61-12, it’s not a shock that Nurse found himself essentially begging publicly for marginally competent results from his backups. Friday’s game was perhaps the most extreme example of an all-too-common theme this season in which large swaths of excellent play from Toronto’s starting unit is promptly undone by the insertion of backups for even the shortest of time frames.

“We played great for long segments (against the Lakers). I mean great,” Nurse said.

Toronto’s starters outscored L.A.’s 100-61. Scottie Barnes and O.G. Anunoby combined for 63 points on 33 field-goal attempts. With even occasionally reliable help in relief, it should have been enough to beat the LeBron-less Lakers with ease. But the help in relief was anything but.

“It’s just too high and too low in the same game,” Nurse said. “Of course we want the great and there were lots of minutes of great — like incredible defence, great offence, like lots of stretches of that.”

Alas, Nurse said the flip side of that great work — Toronto’s worst minutes in any given game, which almost always involve some bench presence — “just can’t be so far below average.”

“If they are average, that’s probably good enough. If they are a little bit below, that’s still probably good enough,” Nurse said. “They just can’t be so far below average where all the hard work we did for 12 minutes, 15 minutes, 22 minutes, 28 minutes just disappears in three.”

Just don’t be terrible, indeed. Alas, Toronto’s reserves went 5-for-20 from the field against the Lakers to cap a road swing that saw them outscored 150-82 by their opposing counterparts in Toronto’s four most recent losses. It’s not a coincidence that Toronto’s only win of the trip saw the Raptors’ reserves outscore Washington’s 44-23.

With less than a month left in the season, and with the Raptors a game up on the 11th-place Pacers and 12th-place Wizards heading into Monday’s slate of games, patience in Raptorland is wearing awfully thin. So if it’s concerning that Pascal Siakam is leading the league in minutes per game for the second straight season, and that Siakam has struggled of late — he suggested Monday that, at times, he has lost his joy for the game this season — Nurse does not appear to have plans to lighten the load on his starters in the interest of letting the bench work through its struggles.

To the contrary, the coach appears to have all but given up on the likes of Malachi Flynn, who has not seen the floor since the Feb. 28 arrival of free-agent signee Will Barton, who Nurse labelled as the team’s backup point guard on Monday.

“It’s probably pretty difficult to let guys play through (issues) or a group to play through,” Nurse said. “This isn’t the first time we have been through this … We went through a really tough stretch and it got to be where the starters were pushing up towards 40 minutes a few nights there. We came back and tried an almost entirely new system with the second unit. We started playing zone and that kind of held water for four or five games. Then we hit the all-star break.”

The coach who came back from the all-star break musing about playing nine- or 10-man rotations made no such promises to his group on Monday. If there have been times this season when Nurse has been justifiably criticized for too often refusing to give Toronto’s depth players the kind of opportunity that is required to nurture development, on Monday he seemed to be making the case that the disappointing recent results were Exhibit A for why very few of them deserve more run than they’ve received. There figures to be even less room for off-the-bench error as Toronto attempts to make its final sprint to the post-season, beginning with Tuesday’s home game against the West-leading Denver Nuggets.

“If you come out there and perform off the bench, you can have as long as 15 straight minutes,” Nurse said. “If you don’t, you can have as short as four (minutes) and that may be it. I know that’s tough. But I think that’s where we are.”

Just don’t be terrible. Be average, or even a little below. Tread water. Just don’t drown. If that’s too tall an order for the Raptors’ bench, there’s no telling the depths to which this season might sink.

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