Playing ‘small’ — without a big body at centre who can both defend the rim on one end and be dominant enough to collapse defences at the other — has proven to be an effective way to compete in the NBA. When the Golden State Warriors started playing an undersized Draymond Green at centre, it proved to be the key that unlocked a dynasty.
It’s been an option that’s been around for ever. Teams have resorted to playing five slashing, scoring ball-handlers to upset the rhythm of games for years. Like the no-huddle offence in the NFL, it was situational tactic that has become nearly standard because when well-executed, it’s difficult to defend.
Small ball is a fixture.
And why not? It’s not like the NBA is loaded with big men that can punish smaller matchups. Nikola Jokic in Denver is one; Anthony Davis with the Los Angeles Lakers is another, Bam Adebayo in Miami – though he’s more of a hybrid big to begin with. Rudy Gobert with Utah, if his teammates can find him on the roll.
After that, the list gets pretty short.
But at the very the top of any list of bigs who can make lives miserable for smaller players – or almost any player – would be the Philadelphia 76ers Joel Embiid, who is big enough to hide smaller players behind him, has hands soft enough to make him a finisher and shot-maker from all angles and is an 85-per cent free-throw shooter this season on nearly 12 attempt a game. ‘Hack-a-Shaq’ – the tactic where teams would foul Shaquille O’Neal and take chances with his career 52.7 per cent free-throw shooting — is not an option.
After six years of promise interrupted by injuries, the seven-foot, 300-pounder is putting together the season of his career and potentially one of the best ever. He rolled into Sunday night’s match-up against the Toronto Raptors coming off a career-high 50 points against the Chicago Bulls and averaging 30.5 points and 11 rebounds a game while shooting 40 per cent from three.
The Raptors – you may have heard – are lacking when it comes to big bodies they can use to make life difficult for Embiid and, by extension, the 76ers. They’ve had to rely on the burly but otherwise limited Aron Baynes and Chris Boucher, who is long and fast and fearless, but weighs just 200 pounds. Even though they’ve found great success by playing small – with some combination of OG Anunoby and Pascal Siakam at centre — with Kyle Lowry missing his third straight game with a sprained thumb, the Raptors’ margin for error seemed razor thin.
But against all odds the Raptors were able cobble together enough good moments from enough different players – including Boucher and Baynes – to overcome Embiid in an impressive 110-103 win, the Raptors’ fourth straight, three of them without Lowry as Toronto improved to 16-15 with the win over the East-leading Sixers.
Embiid finished with 25 points and 17 rebounds, but he shot just 6-of-20 from the floor, although going 12-of-14 from the free throw line helped his cause. But the Raptors answered with Boucher, the rail-thin Montrealer who came off the bench to shoot 5-of-6 from deep and score 17 points off the bench – all in the second half and 11 in the fourth quarter. He also had three blocks, including one on Embiid late in the fourth when the Sixers were trying to claw back into the Raptors’ lead.
Baynes wasn’t too bad either, with eight points on nine shots in 28 minutes. Every little bit helped as the Raptors were led by VanVleet’s 23 points and nine assists and Siakam with 23 points and eight assists. The Sixers most effective player was Simmons, who put up 28 points on 9-of-11 shooting, but the Raptors’ team defence was the real star as they held Philadelphia to 38.8-per cent shooting and only really stayed in the game because they held a 35-18 advantage in free throw attempts.
All game long, the Raptors’ means to neutralize Embiid and the Sixers’ size advantage generally was to swarm defensively, push the ball in transition before Philadelphia could set up in the half court and to take – and ideally make — threes.
The strategy came together beautifully late in the third quarter. Trailing by 11 after Embiid had scored on a pair of post-ups with three minutes to play in the period, Toronto scored three quick triples – two by Boucher – on an 11-0 run sparked by a pair of Raptors steals, allowing Toronto to start the fourth quarter down 84-83.
There was some mystery before the game about whether the Raptors would try to match up with Embiid and start Aron Baynes – the closest player Toronto has in size and strength – or would the Raptors continue to play small against the Sixers, who not only feature Embiid but play six-foot-10 Simmons as their point guard?
Nurse suggested playing a group of guards and forwards against Embiid would be too much to ask. Or at least that was his position before the game anyway.
“We had our hands full with him last time (Embiid had 29 points and shot 14-of-16 at the line in the Sixers win back in December), I would imagine we will again today,” said Nurse. “Obviously, the way he’s playing right now is levels up from the way he’s ever played. We’re liking playing small right now, which has kind of been my thought of what are we gonna do here tonight? There’s not much chance of playing small against him. So, I think we’re gonna see what we can do.”
But when the ball went up Nurse decided to stick with his strengths and had six-foot-seven OG Anunoby take the jump against Embiid, with Siakam and DeAndre Bembry – starting in place of Lowry – joined by Fred VanVleet and Norm Powell as starters.
There were problems immediately. Embiid’s first bucket was a post-up against the six-foot-six Bembry, who he outweighs by 60 pounds. He picked up a pair of free throws when six-foot VanVleet tried to battle him for a loose ball. At the other end the sure-handed Powell suddenly couldn’t finish with Embiid looming in the paint, and when the chance presented, Simmons was galloping the floor as a one-man fastbreak. In a blink, the Sixers were up 22-8.
But the advantages of playing five players based on skills instead of positions or size is you end up with a lot of playmakers on the floor and after their initial stumbles, Toronto began to find their way back. Making bombs from three is always a great equalizer. The Raptors made four of them in the space of two minutes late in the first quarter that were the backbone of 20-2 run that Toronto used to end up leading 28-24 after one quarter.
At that point the big man the Raptors struggled to contain was Simmons, who put up 13 points in the second quarter, alternating between full-court attacks on the rim while helping generate the Sixers’ 19-4 edge in free throw attempts — which, along with the Sixers’ 8-2 edge in offensive rebounds, were a better indication of the true tilt of the first half than the Sixers’ 55-52 lead necessarily was.
But the Raptors seemed determined to prove this season that size is not destiny. There is no greater test of that than Embiid and the 76ers, and the Raptors passed it with relative ease.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
