One Team, One Stat: Green becomes glue guy for Raptors

* Tonight on TNT: Bucks vs. Raptors, 8 ET

The Toronto Raptors are not performing as well as they did in the previous season. Their performance has regressed on both offense and defense, with a decrease of 0.5 points per 100 possessions and conceding an extra 2.4 points.

But the Raptors remain a top-10 team in both offensive and defensive efficiency. And they may have a higher ceiling than they ever have, with a Kia MVP candidate (depending on how voters take missed games into account) and a seemingly deep supporting cast that includes a couple of players that have taken big steps forward this season.

One reason why we probably haven’t seen the best of the Raptors yet is that their two best players — Kawhi Leonard and Kyle Lowry — have played just 27 games together. Leonard, with a couple of minor injuries and a “load management” program that has kept him from playing both games of back-to-backs, has missed 14 games. Lowry, with leg and back issues, has missed 11. The 825 total minutes that the pair have played ranks 10th on the Raptors and 153rd among two-man combinations league-wide.

Still, the Raptors have the league’s third best record (37-15) and can regain possession of first place in the Eastern Conference with a win against the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday (8 p.m. ET, TNT).

Here’s a significant number to understand about the 2018-19 Raptors as they participate in one of their most critical regular season games…

THE STAT

The Raptors have been 19.1 points per 100 possessions better with Danny Green on the floor than they’ve been with Green off the floor.

THE CONTEXT

Among 238 players who have played at least 750 minutes up until Wednesday, that is the second-largest on-off NetRtg differential.

The differential mainly highlights the Raptors’ excellent performance when Green is on the court, outdoing their opponents by 12.7 points per 100 possessions, rather than their poor performance when he’s off the court, trailing by 6.4 per 100. Among the 238 players, the on-court score is the third highest.

Green was much more than a throw-in in the trade that brought Leonard to Toronto. He’s been a critical part of the Raptors’ success, second on the team in minutes played and 12th in the league in 3-pointers.

The Raptors got a better Green than the one that played for the Spurs last season. He has an effective field goal percentage of 58.8 percent, a career-high mark and up from 49 percent last season. That’s the second-biggest jump (smaller than only that of the Spurs’ Davis Bertans) among 182 players with at least 250 field goal attempts both seasons.

Green’s bigger on-off differential has been on offense, where the Raptors have been 14.9 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor (scoring 116.6) than with him off the floor (scoring just 101.7). That’s the biggest on-off differential on offense among the 238 players that have played at least 750 minutes this season.

The defensive differential is smaller at 4.2 points per 100 possessions, but still important to note. This is particularly significant when you consider that Green primarily plays against the opposing team’s starters, while his replacements typically play against the second string players.

Essentially, Green’s off-court differential signifies that the Raptors’ bench performance has declined significantly compared to previous years. The Raptors’ bench was the best in the league last season with a leading aggregate bench NetRtg of plus-8.3. This marked their sixth consecutive season in the top six. However, they have slipped to 22nd place this season with a minus-4.0, the biggest drop-off witnessed by any team.

* Aggregate bench NetRtg = Point differential per 100 possessions with reserves on the floor. This number is based on an estimate for possessions, rather than true possessions from play-by-play data.

Continuity has been an issue with the bench. Last season, the Raptors had a bench unit — Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles, Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl — that played 340 minutes together and outscored its opponents by 19.2 points per 100 possessions, the sixth best mark among 48 lineups that played at least 200 minutes.

This season, the Raptors’ most-used lineup that doesn’t include at least four starters — VanVleet, Wright, Miles, OG Anunoby and Jonas Valanciunas — has played just 48 minutes together. Each of those guys has missed at least six games, with Valanciunas having missed the last 22 with a thumb injury.

Miles, the bench’s designated shooter, has shot just 30 percent from 3-point range, and the Raptors have been outscored by 10.4 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor. Norman Powell, a guy who can/has/will take Miles’ minutes, missed more than five weeks with a shoulder injury.

VanVleet is a plus-126 for the season, but that’s mostly about his minutes with the starters. In fact the five players that VanVleet has played the most minutes with are the five regular starters, and the Raptors have outscored their opponents by at least 4.5 points per 100 possessions with any of those five combinations (VanVleet plus a starter) on the floor. They’ve been outscored by at least 2.2 points per 100 possessions with any combination of VanVleet and another reserve on the floor.

So it’s been a very different starters/bench dynamic for the Raptors this season. For most of the last few years, they were at their best with reserves on the floor. This year, their starters have carried them, despite the lack of continuity with that group. Their most-used starting lineup has played in just 24 of their 52 games.

When at least four of the five regular starters are playing, the Raptors have scored 319 points more than their opponents in 1,135 minutes. However, they have been outscored by 38 points in 1,386 minutes when three or fewer starters are on the floor.

As long as they’ve had four of the five on the floor, they’ve been terrific. Well, unless the guy not on the floor is Green. In 73 minutes with the other four starters on the floor without Green, the Raptors have been outscored by 28 points.

Based on the statistics, he’s the unifying factor.

RAPTORS BASICS

Pace: 100.3 (17)

OffRtg: 112.4 (7)

DefRtg: 107.5 (10)

NetRtg: +4.9 (5)

RAPTORS LINKS

Team: Game log | Traditional | Advanced splits | Lineups

Player Traditional | On-off court | Shot locations | Clutch

RAPTORS NOTES – GENERAL

1. The Raptors have a record of 19-8 in games where both Kyle Lowry and Kawhi Leonard participated. In games where only one of them played, their record is 18-7. This breaks down to 11-3 when only Lowry played and 7-4 when only Leonard played.
2. When playing against a team that had a game the previous night, they remain undefeated at 9-0, the only team in the league to do so. They still have five of these types of games left on their schedule. The next one is on Sunday when they welcome the Clippers, who will be coming off a game in Detroit the previous night.
3. They’ve only been behind by 10 points or more in 17 games, which is the lowest number in the league. They lost 13 and won 4 of those games. When they haven’t been behind by at least 10 points, they’ve won 33 games and lost only 2.

RAPTORS NOTES – OFFENSE

1. Among the eight teams that scored fewer points per 100 possessions than last season, despite the league average increasing from 107.7 to 109.1 points per 100 possessions.
2. The team has achieved the highest score in the league with 1.17 points per possession during transition, as tracked by Synergy. They also lead the league with a 64.8 percent effective field goal percentage in the first six seconds of the shot clock, according to Second Spectrum. Furthermore, they’ve seen the league’s largest decrease in effective field goal percentage after the first six seconds of the shot clock, which drops to 50.9 percent. Siakam is ranked seventh among individual players with 96 field goals and an effective field goal percentage of 73.0 percent in the initial six seconds of the shot clock.

RAPTORS NOTES – DEFENSE

1. Opponents have attempted 24.6 free throws per 100 shots from the field, that is the eighth lowest rate in the league and down from 27.7 (25th) last season. Only two teams have seen a bigger drop in opponent free throw rate.
2. Rank third with 15.3 deflections per game.

RAPTORS NOTES – LINEUPS

1. The Raptors have three of the top 10 lineups (lineups that have outscored their opponents by at least 16 points per 100 possessions) among 85 league-wide lineups that have played at least 100 minutes.
2. Best on-court OffRtg among two-man combinations (minimum 250 minutes together): Lowry and Green. The Raptors have scored 118.7 points per 100 possessions in 1,033 minutes with the pair on the floor together.
3. Best on-court DefRtg among two-man combinations (minimum 250 minutes together): Green and Valanciunas. The Raptors have allowed 93.9 points per 100 possessions in 270 minutes with the pair on the floor together.
4. 24 total minutes from rookies (all from Jordan Loyd) are the fewest in the league.

RAPTORS NOTES – INDIVIDUAL

1. Danny Green ranks second in the league with 51 corner 3-pointers, 20 fewer than the Rockets’ P.J. Tucker.
2. Serge Ibaka has taken 20 percent of his shots from 3-point range, down from 38 percent last season. That’s the biggest drop among 182 players with at least 250 field goal attempts both years.
3. Ibaka has shot 74.1 percent in the restricted area, the fourth best mark among 175 players with at least 100 restricted-area field goal attempts. Pascal Siakam has the seventh best mark (71.9 percent) among 55 players with at least 200 attempts.
4. Opponents have shot 52 percent at the rim when Ibaka has been there to protect it. That’s the third best rim protection mark among 19 players that have protected the rim at least five times per game in 25 games or more.
5. Kawhi Leonard ranks fourth in the league in scoring at 27.9 points per game. He also ranks fourth with 100 total points scored in the clutch (with the score within five points in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime).
6. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Leonard holds the record for the most free throw attempts per 100 touches, averaging 13.3. This is among players who have a minimum of 1,000 total touches.
7. Kyle Lowry ranks second in the league in both assists per game (9.4) and assist ratio, having recorded assists on 38 percent of his possessions. According to Second Spectrum tracking, he also ranks second with 11.9 assists per 100 touches.
8. Lowry has shot 8-for-36 (22 percent) with the score within five points in the last five minutes, the worst mark among 61 players who have attempted at least 25 clutch shots. Ibaka (57 percent) has the fourth best mark.
9. Siakam’s scoring has increased by 7.9 points per game compared to last season. This is the third largest increase among players who participated in at least 40 games last season and have already played a minimum of 25 games this season.
10. Siakam has been assisted on 56 percent of his field goals, down from 72 percent last season. That’s the biggest drop among 163 players with at least 200 field goals last season and at least 100 field goals this season.
11. Siakam has taken 65 percent of his 3-pointers from the corners, the second highest rate among 192 players with at least 100 total 3-point attempts. OG Anunoby has the fourth highest rate (53 percent).
12. Fred VanVleet has an assist-turnover ratio of 3.62, the sixth highest mark among 220 players who have averaged at least 20 minutes in 25 games or more.

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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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