Toronto Raptors<\/a> head coach Darko Rajakovic is still trying to build out his NBA resume in his third season as head coach. This is the first time he\u2019s had a chance to compete for a playoff spot.\u00a0<\/p>\nIt\u2019s what makes this two-game series the Raptors have at home against Spoelstra and the Heat so compelling. The second game, especially.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Heat were beaten convincingly enough on Tuesday that they had a team meeting after the game. The Raptors are expecting a response on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey will be locked in, ready to throw the first punch, I\u2019m sure,\u201d said Raptors big man Sandro Mamukelashvili.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There aren\u2019t many moments in a regular season when things stay still long enough that you can get a snapshot of a coaching match like this, where two evenly matched, mostly healthy teams are playing important games on proper rest. This is one.<\/p>\n
Rajakovic deserves recognition for getting the Raptors this far: on the brink of securing Toronto\u2019s first playoff appearance since 2021-22. Two seasons ago, the Raptors won 25 games and were 25th\u00a0defensively. They won 30 games last season and were 17th\u00a0defensively.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Raptors won their 44th\u00a0game on Tuesday against Miami, are sixth\u00a0defensively and have held the Heat, the second-highest scoring team in the NBA, under 100 points in all three meetings this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The competition for coach of the year is very deep this season, with plenty of examples of teams exceeding expectations (Spurs, Hornets, Pistons, Suns) or meeting their own incredibly high standards (Thunder, Celtics, Nuggets).\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the Raptors and Rajakovic deserve consideration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The job isn\u2019t done, Rajakovic would be the first to tell you. But he\u2019s enjoying digging in with his staff, trying to figure out whatever wrinkles might be coming from Spoelstra and the Heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More pick-and-roll sets featuring Tyler Herro. Starting Norm Powell and Herro together to give the Heat more punch? Going with a double-big lineup, starting Kel\u2019 el Ware alongside Bam Adebayo?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what you sign up for,\u201d said Rajakovic. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very exciting \u2026 the path that we had the past two years and this in my third year of coaching here to be in a position to plan, to fight for something, to fight for the playoffs, to fight for seeding, it\u2019s all very, very meaningful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Remarkably, of the two coaches, it\u2019s likely Spoelstra who is under more pressure.<\/p>\n
The Heat will have to navigate the Play-In Tournament for the fourth straight season, regardless of whether they can scratch out a win Thursday night. Their loss to the Raptors on Tuesday guaranteed it. The Heat are now 0-3 against the Raptors, and have scored more than 20 points under their season average in all three of their losses to the Raptors.<\/p>\n
Defensively, the Heat have fallen apart over the past month, allowing 125.7 points per 100 possessions since a seven-game winning streak came to an end on March 12th. That puts them 27th\u00a0in the NBA over that stretch, ahead of only the Wizards, Grizzlies and Pacers and behind the Jazz and Kings, five teams whose mission is to tank their season and have the best draft lottery odds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A typical NBA head coach would be taking molten lava levels of heat \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 for that kind of disassembly in the final month of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Somehow, we suspect that Spoelstra will survive ok. A coach with a lesser track record might not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which is why this season and how the Raptors finish is almost disproportionally important for Rajakovic. Even three years in, he remains relatively unproven. Only consistent winning buys security for coaches in the NBA, but the hardest part is staying on the job long enough to build up a track record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the signs are there. How many coaches would build a top-10 defence from a lineup that has featured just one \u2018plus\u2019 defender (Scottie Barnes) for most of the season?<\/p>\n
Or a mid-pack offence with a lineup featuring neither a lob threat nor more than one proven high-volume three-point shooter after Immanuel Quickley?<\/p>\n
How teams perform out of timeouts can be a useful shorthand for coaching acumen. Does a coach have a ready bag of plays to go against a set defence that fits the personnel available?\u00a0<\/p>\n
For what it\u2019s worth, the Raptors have generated the second-best expected shot value out of time-outs this season. Their actual points per possession is 13th, which is still quite respectable for a team that intentionally uses their defence and transition game to generate so much of their scoring. Doing so since they lack the kind of game-changing offensive hub that some other coaches can rely on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And by all accounts, Rajakovic seems to have the people skills nailed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout this whole season, personally, there\u2019s been a lot,\u201d said Raptors big man Sando Mamukelashvili, who has had a career season under Rajakovic and had 11 points and was +23 off the bench on Tuesday. \u201cYou go through things mentally, physically \u2026 (and) his office is always open, so it\u2019s easy to step in there. A lot of head coaches are a little bit unapproachable, so just having the freedom to step in there and tell him what I feel and what I think I can do, where do I see myself, where does he see me? \u2026 I think that helps you through the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Livestream 40-plus regular season Toronto Raptors games, marquee matchups from around the association, select NBA Playoffs games, the NBA Draft and summer league action on Sportsnet+.<\/p>\n
Broadcast schedule<\/a><\/p>\nStill, properly evaluating coaches is really hard. There are so many elements they are tasked with overseeing that drawing firm conclusions from the outside looking in is almost a fool\u2019s errand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to say coaching should be measured by wins, but talent has a lot to do with how many wins a team has. Steve Kerr did remarkably well in Golden State when Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant were in their prime. What\u2019s remaining of the Warriors will scuffle to finish 10th\u00a0in the Western Conference this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different levels to it,\u201d said Spoelstra when I asked him what goes into evaluating an NBA coach. \u201cThere\u2019s communication, leadership, motivation, setting up a program, developing a culture, having consistency to standards every day, acumen, ability to relate, ability to push, to toe the line, like all of it. <\/p>\n
“And every single one of us, there\u2019s days when we\u2019re hitting the mark, and then there\u2019s days when we\u2019re missing the mark miserably. That\u2019s the life of a coach, and you\u2019re constantly searching and trying to develop your craft to be able to bring the most out of the locker room. Whatever that potential may be.\u201d<\/p>\n
With 79 games down and three to play, including one more against the Heat on Thursday, it\u2019s fair to say that Rajakovic has done an impressive job of getting his team this far \u2013 to 44 wins and the cusp of the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there are still those three games left to play.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erik Spoelstra is NBA royalty. Minted.\u00a0 He\u2019s got two rings to prove it, as he led the Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3770],"tags":[7,6,681,680,476,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-706111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-raptors","11":"tag-toronto","12":"tag-toronto-raptors","13":"tag-torontoraptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116371686334915859","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}