It's been a while since the Toronto Raptors felt good about themselves. They did so on Friday with a dominant 144-123 victory over the struggling Sacramento Kings. The Raps have had their struggles of their own, starting the young season 1-6 before Friday's win. With that, head coach Nick Nurse is looking into making adjustments with their starting lineup.
Per Josh Lewenberg of TSN, the 2019-20 NBA Coach of the Year could consider deploying a smaller lineup to start games, with Pascal Siakam and O.G. Anunoby starting at center and power forward, respectively.
Nurse said he still has some "investigating" to do regarding the starting C spot, but seems to be leaning towards going small to open games.
Would he consider starting Powell and moving Anunoby/Siakam to the 4/5? "Yeah, I would consider that at this point."
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) January 9, 2021
The Raptors have yet to find a viable solution for center since their two bigs, Serge Ibaka and Marc Gasol, went Hollywood. Their two free-agent signings, Aron Baynes and Alex Len, are certainly a downgrade from the two NBA champions.
Baynes started Toronto's first seven games of the season before getting a DNP-Coach's Decision against the Kings. They replaced him with Len, another big body, but he only played 5 minutes.
For most of the night against Sacramento, Nurse deployed a smaller lineup with Siakam, Anunoby, and Chris Boucher as his three-man rotation at the four and the five. This worked wonders for the Raptors as they finally found their rhythm and looked more like the team that won 53 games and finished with the no. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference last season.
Nurse isn't afraid to switch things up. In fact, he made this adjustment in their second-round series against the Boston Celtics in the 2020 playoffs. Nurse placed Anunoby at the five position and this worked in favor of Toronto. They may not have won the series, but it gave the Raptors a real chance of advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight year.
Nonetheless, nothing is set in stone just yet. Perhaps the 3rd year NBA head coach will just work his lineups game-by-game, depending on the match-up.
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