Behind Enemy Lines: Toronto's improved defense

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BOSTON – The wins have increased each of the past four seasons for the Toronto Raptors. That's the kind of upward trend every team wants.

But they’re at a point where their coach believes their best shot at continuing to move forward will require a stronger defense, which may come at the expense of the team’s offense.

Toronto has made the postseason each of the past two seasons, only to have their postseason run end after one round.

In fact, the Raptors, who play the Celtics tonight at TD Garden, haven’t advanced past the first round since 2001.

Heading into this past offseason, Toronto made a conscious effort to add more talent with a defensive edge to it.

That’s why the signing of Carroll and Joseph was so vital to Toronto’s goals this summer. 

“DeMarre Carroll and Corey Joseph bring a defensive approach to our team,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “Their grittiness has kind of rubbed off on everyone else, which is great. I don’t know if we’ll be able to score the way we did last year. I think we’ll score different ways, but our defense is better.”

And that improvement starts with having more defensive-minded players on the roster.

Looking back briefly upon last season’s slippage defensively, Casey believes his team took upon the identity of their better scorers whose primary responsibility was to get baskets.

“Your team takes on the personality of certain players,” Casey said.

Casey believes one of those players for the Raptors last season was Lou Williams who was named the league’s Sixth Man of the Year (Boston’s Isaiah Thomas was runner-up for the award).

“It wasn’t a bad thing because we needed scoring,” Casey said. “We needed that. But I thought it tilted … it went too far the other way.”

 

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