It's easy to believe offense is what drove the Toronto Raptors to a blowout Game 2 victory over the Orlando Magic. After all, the Raptors put up a 119.2 offensive rating, Kawhi Leonard was close to unstoppable en route to 37 points, and Kyle Lowry shook off a scoreless series-opener to score 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting.
As Toronto coach Nick Nurse tells it, though, it's his team's performance on the other side of the ball that provided the most room for optimism going forward.
“Obviously I think our defence stood out last night,” he said on Wednesday, per The Athletic's Eric Koreen. “I think it was a total team effort. On the ball, off the ball, disruption on the ball, breakdowns were getting covered up quickly, transition defence was better. Somebody asked me the other day, ‘Who are you?‘ That’s who we need to be.”
The numbers certainly support Nurse's assessment.
The Magic posted an ugly 87.2 offensive rating, shot 37.0 percent from the field, and committed 17 turnovers – rare for a team that ranked sixth-best in turnover percentage during the regular season. Nikola Vucevic and Evan Fournier, Orlando's two biggest offensive threats, both took more shots than scored points, and point guard D.J. August, the unlikely star of Game 1, went just 1-of-6 from the field.
The Magic aren't as good offensively as they looked for stretches of Game 1, nor as bad they were for most of Game 2. But if there's one side of the floor where the Raptors can exploit Clifford's team most, it's definitely not on defense, where it ranked first in the NBA after the trade deadline – a reality of which Nurse and his staff are fully aware, and prioritizing as a result.
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