Look, you never want to get waxed by 37 points at home. It doesn’t feel good, no matter the quality of the opponent. And yet, on Fridays in this here newsletter, there’s no loss so lopsided as can’t be viewed through rose-tinted glasses. That’s the TPF Promise™.
OKC Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault offered some words before Thursday night’s game that should help soothe any Raptors fans still feeling the sting from that absolute walloping.
“Disappointment is part of competition. I mean, if you’re really truly competing on the highest level, you’re exposing yourself to disappointment and you’re exposing yourself to great competitive joy as well,” said Daigneault, getting philosophical in response to a question about Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Lu Dort crashing out of the Paris Games with Canada this summer. “And if you’re a true competitor, then you’re willing to thrust yourself into that vulnerable state.”
“You know, that’s part of competing is you’re putting yourself in a win-or-lose situation. And if you lose, you have to learn from it in pursuit of a win.”
That’s coach speak for “sometimes getting your skull caved in is good for learning.”
That’s the positive spin on Thursday’s laugher of a loss to the best in the west — Toronto’s first true blowout loss since opening night against the team still pacing the other conference. Losing to OKC so declaratively makes it clear just how much distance lies between the Raptors in their current form, and the final shape they hope to one day assume. To be the best you have to beat the best, but if you can’t beat ‘em, learning from them is a nice consolation.
The star of the show on Thursday wasn’t any one Thunder player (though SGA sure was rad); it was OKC’s oppressive, handsy, top-ranked defense. For the Raptors, a team steadily crafting an identity around being real annoying on the ball and connected on the back end, you couldn’t ask for a better example to follow than that of the team that plucked 15 steals from hopeless Raptor hands and snuffed just about every hopeful drive.
“They’re a really good team,” said Darko Rajaković after the game. “I think there is a lot for us to look at that team and learn about the physicality they play with, how they’re aggressive. They’re the number one team in forcing turnovers... There’s gonna be a lot of good film for us to learn from this.”
There’s some solace to be found in the only two true blowouts suffered by the Raptors coming against the top seed in each conference. There’s no shame in not being contender-ready when you’re this early on in the foundation-laying phase, as long as you don’t accept perpetual doormat status.
After a week where these young and spritely Raptors must have been feeling themselves just a little bit, ripping off wins against the always tough Heat and a Pacers team they seem to own, some grounding and reassessment can’t possibly hurt. They’ve shown the steadiness to weather ugly results, and ample capacity to punch back after taking a hit. This is the progression every wannabe great team has to navigate; skipping steps really ain’t part of the deal in the NBA, not even for the best teams to ever do it.
Toronto’s youths are from that, as the Thunder showed them in plain English on Thursday night, while also doing the Raptors the favour of defining the benchmark they’ll need to hit to enter those conversations some day.
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On today’s podcast, I rock solo to recap the loss to the Thunder, including why Jakob Poeltl was so dearly missed, Jonathan Mogbo’s big night and more. Enoy the show, and have a great weekend!
