It’s easy to soak in the deepest pools of despair this Raptors team can conjure. They do it a lot, and when it’s bad, it’s about as miserable as watching pro basketball can get. See: the first half of their 98-91 loss to Memphis on Tuesday night.
Those first 24 minutes stand as the least cohesive offensive stretch this decidedly non-cohesive offensive team has played since opening night against the Wizards, when they managed just 37 points in the opening two frames; they posted just 39 against the Grizzlies.
Stretches where profound failure at one end of the floor or the other have done in the Raptors in most of their games; a quarter of defensive confusion here, a six minute 0-for-11 drought there — stretches that undercut all the good this team is capable of at its best.