Wizards defense isn’t close to being good enough to get them back in this series

The Toronto Raptors made a statement in the first half of Tuesday night’s Game 2 against the Washington Wizards, racing to a first-quarter score of 44-27 before putting up a franchise-high 76 points. Toronto set the franchise playoff record for most points in the first quarter (44), the first half (76) and the game (130). DeMar DeRozan ended the game with a career playoff-high 37 points, enabling the Raptors to take a 2-0 series lead for the first time in franchise history.

“They’re a No. 1 seed for a reason,” Wizards Coach Scott Brooks said of Toronto. “They play extremely well at home, and they did what they’re supposed to do.”

Now it is up to the Wizards to do what they are supposed to do at home, but if they don’t improve their defense — which has allowed 119.4 points per 100 possessions through the first two games in this series, second-highest after the San Antonio Spurs (119.6) — the Raptors will continue to manhandle Washington.

The biggest liabilities for Washington in the half court are Kelly Oubre Jr., Markieff Morris, Marcin Gortat and Bradley Beal. All four rank in the bottom 20 percent of NBA players in the postseason for points allowed per possessions and each is hurting the Wizards in different ways.

Oubre has been a victim of DeRozan and C.J. Miles, the two combining to score 26 points over 64 possessions in two games. They also combined to go 9 for 13 against Oubre from behind the three-point line. Morris is struggling to stop Serge Ibaka, one of the team’s spot-up shooters who has 19 points on 9-for-13 shooting (3 for 4 from three-point range) against the Wizards forward in the series. Gortat has been a liability defending the pick-and-roll, allowing 19 points as the big defender on these plays. Jonas Valanciunas has scored 20 of the team’s 55 points against Gortat. And Beal has allowed opponents to shoot 9 for 15 against him, including 5 for 9 from beyond the arc.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this defensive futility is Washington has been more aggressive on defense than they had been overall and in the two games against Toronto during the regular season. For example, the Wizards recovered eight loose balls per game during the regular season, 9.5 against Toronto and 12 per game in this playoff series. Deflections and contested two-point shots are also up.

Give some credit to Raptors Coach Dwane Casey, who has his team playing differently than we’ve seen in the past. During last year’s first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Raptors made 277 passes per game. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Round 2 that dropped to 259 per game. Toronto is averaging 290 passes per game in the series against Washington. The Raptors potential assists per game — those passes resulting in a shot attempt, regardless if successful or not — has also risen from 40.7 to 44 between 2017 and 2018.

This improved ball movement is creating quality looks behind the three-point line. The Raptors set the franchise playoff record for most three-point shots made in a half after going 11 for 22 behind the arc, and they have seen almost two-thirds (62 percent) of their catch-and-shoot opportunities unguarded. Washington’s defense allowed 54 percent of catch-and-shoot opportunities to be wide open during the regular season. So not only is Toronto making Washington’s defense look bad, it wasn’t great to begin with: The Wizards ranked 24th out of 30 teams for the rate of wide-open looks during the 2017-18 regular season.

Toronto’s spot-up shooters are also thriving. The team is 16 for 31 on these attempts with an effective field goal rate of 73 percent. Ibaka leads the team with 16 points on 10 spot-up possessions including 3 for 5 from behind the arc. On cuts to the basket, Toronto is scoring 1.4 points per possession with Valanciunas, OG Anuoby and Jakob Poeltl yet to miss an attempt.

And in transition, Toronto is scoring at least a point 63 percent of the time it finds itself on the break. Kyle Lowry (1.1 points per possession, 43 percent scoring rate), DeRozan (0.8, 50 percent) and Delon Wright (1.7, 83 percent) have handled the ball a majority of the time in transition for the Raptors, and each has burned Washington in some way. As a team, Toronto is averaging 14.1 points per 100 possessions on fast breaks, the sixth-best efficiency this postseason.

Needless to say, the Wizards find themselves in a must-win situation as they head back to Capital One Arena. The No. 8 seed has a 42-114 overall record in the first round in the three-point era and NBA teams enjoying both home-court advantage and a 3-0 series lead are 36-0. If the Wizards don’t get their defense on track, they will become just the latest team to fall to a No. 1 seed early in the playoffs.

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