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The Raptors' young bench could lead Toronto to the NBA Finals
Carlos Osorio/Getty Images

The Raptors' young bench could lead Toronto to the NBA Finals

It only took a mere four games for the Cleveland Cavaliers to eliminate the Toronto Raptors in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last year. Another season, another disappointing playoff exit, and Raptors president Masai Ujiri had enough.

"After that performance, we need a culture reset here," he said during his end-of-season exit interview. "We need to figure it out. Yeah, there's been some success, but at the end of the day, we're trying to win a championship here. To me, making the playoffs is nothing. That's back in the day. Now, we have to figure out how we can win in the playoffs. That's the goal."

A season later, the team is running away with the top seed in the Eastern Conference (up four games in the loss column over the Boston Celtics with 10 games left to play), and watching this year’s team, there has been a clear and present culture change in the organization — even though no one was fired, and there were no major roster changes.

So what’s the difference between these Raptors and those that faltered in the postseason? The answer is twofold. On one end, the team has a new offensive identity that involves much more off-ball movement and a rededication to the three-point shot, including a huge increase from the current king of the midrange, DeMar DeRozan. The more important change is how the youth off the bench led the shift in offensive culture and allowed the starting unit to follow.

Lead assistant coach Nick Nurse was brought in to help Dwane Casey in 2013 but really got to work on revamping the offense this summer. It began with the young guys during summer league. To change the mind-set of the team, Nurse started having the team play pickup games in which corner threes were worth four points, regular threes and layups were worth the same as usual, while anything in the midrange was a negative point. The Raptors shot 40 percent of their attempts from the midrange last season and essentially played an antiquated style in a league that has dedicated itself to analytical reasoning to dictate shot selection.

The results of those summer league games led guys like Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam, Norman Powell, OG Anunoby, Delon Wright and Fred VanVleet leading the way for the stars instead of the other way around. Nurse said this group picked up the offense quickly and set the tone once training camp started.

Casey said it was difficult to get DeRozan and Kyle Lowry on board with the new system because it meant fewer touches, but once they saw what it was doing for the whole team, the sell became easier as the season progressed. With the two All-Stars on board, it was just up to the reserves to continue the culture change that they essentially started, and the results have been absolutely devastating for the rest of the NBA.

Per Basketball-Reference, the Raptors' lineup featuring C.J. Miles, Poeltl, Siakam, VanVleet and Wright has the NBA’s fifth-best net rating among all possible five-man lineups (both starters and bench with at least 200 combined minutes), and this group has played at least more than 250 fewer total minutes than each of the four lineups above it — which includes the Raptors' starting lineup. If you adjust for time on court, this very lineup has the best net rating in the entirety of the NBA per 48 minutes.

All of the success comes from the revamped offense and the players' ability to thrive in it. VanVleet and Wright have been fantastic from deep, while Poeltl and Siakam have been among the league’s best at the rim. They move the ball incredibly well and move even better without it. They pass up good looks for great ones and, more often than not, extend leads that the starting group creates instead of maintain them, which most bench units are asked to do.

The beauty in the Toronto bench is the collective age. Aside from Miles, the lone veteran getting major run with this group, everyone is between 20 and 25 years old. Even Powell, whom we’ve failed to highlight up until this point, is 24 and has been playing extremely hard despite a dip in numbers.

Toronto has dropped recent games to the Cavaliers — a potential foe that will undoubtedly greet the Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals — and the Oklahoma City Thunder, both teams trying to figure things out before the postseason begins next month. The two losses shouldn’t be alarming considering they came at the hands of talented teams ostensibly already in do-or-die mode trying not to slip further in the standings.

But for the Toronto community, the losses could be concerning considering how the team has fared in recent years when thrown into the fire. This year has a feeling of optimism because of the culture change Ujiri spoke to about a year ago. That change — led by its youth — just might lead to an NBA Finals berth.

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