It’s safe to say that the Toronto Raptors are struggling early this season. Despite being considered one of the top teams in the East before the season started, the Raptors have just one win and five losses, including a tough 126-114 defeat against the Boston Celtics on Monday night.
The Celtics played the Raptors after a back-to-back road series while also missing a number of their key players, including Kemba Walker and Marcus Smart. Still, that didn’t help The Raptors as they blew a 28-33 lead after the first quarter and then went on to trail by 15 at halftime. Boston continued to dominate in the second half and never looked in danger of losing the game.
Speaking with reporters after the gamer, All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry gave his opinion on his Raptors’ struggles and said that his team has “no swagger” at the moment.
“We just need to get a little bit grittier, get a little bit tougher and a little bit nastier, and have a little bit of a swagger to us,” said Lowry. “Right now, we have no swagger to us.“
Plenty of things went wrong for the Toronto Raptors this season, starting with the fact that they have to play their home games in Tampa Bay due to Canada’s coronavirus restrictions. Besides this, the Raptors are looking lost on the court and don’t have the same feel as the team that won the title in 2019.
The Raptors have been particularly poor on offense this year, being ranked 29th in the league in that department. This includes failing to get to the free-throw line, as they have the least free throw attempts per game so far in the season.
The defense is also problematic, considering that the team managed to blow double-digit leads in each of their five losses.
Raptors will have a chance to bounce back during their tour across the Western Conference this week. They are scheduled to play the Phoenix Suns on Wednesday and will also face the Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors, and Portland Trail Blazers.
