Potential Raptors winning streak stoppers loom and Biyombo’s future will be off-season story

The Raptors don’t really hate to make life easy on themselves, it just seems that way.
The players don’t fail to put away teams once a big lead has been earned on purpose, it just happens. NBA teams are going to fight and only a few squads put them out of their misery very early.
Detroit’s been chasing a playoff spot all year and wasn’t about to roll over on Saturday. Stan Van Gundy’s not going to let one of his teams settle for a humiliating blowout loss. Still, parts of that game were hard to watch from a Raptors perspective. The door kept being left open a crack for the Pistons to bust through and much of the issues came at the defensive end. Despite the gaudy winning streak, there is still a lot of work to be done defensively.
That said, Toronto continues to find a way to keep the streak going, even with Kyle Lowry clearly battered and bruised.
The elevation in Denver is going to be an interesting test, but not as much as it would have been had the Raptors arrived to complete a back-to-back, which would have meant less time to adapt.
Phoenix is a disaster, so that should be an easy one, but stranger things have happened … leaving a Portland squad punching far above its expected weight looming as a potential streak-ender on Thursday.
How Toronto handles the Damian Lillard-C.J. McCollum combination should be eye-opening.
Conversely, Lillard remains one of the league’s poorest defenders, so if Lowry can get healthy, that should be one entertaining matchup.
But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.
One game at a time, as they say.
WHAT’S BIYOMBO GOING TO BE WORTH?
Charlotte giving up on Bismack Biyombo was a little bit surprising. He wasn’t going to be owed a ton of money this season and they had invested in him pretty heavily, drafting him high and developing him in the years that followed. While he didn’t live up to expectations there, Biyombo was still young and stellar defensively and on the boards with room to improve.
Charlotte’s loss has been Toronto’s gain, with Masai Ujiri, who knew Biyombo well, snapping him up on the cheap. Biyombo’s been a huge addition, changing the flow of games with his defensive presence, intensity and driven play, a strong contrast and complement to Jonas Valanciunas. He was excellent in Saturday’s win over Detroit, one of the few NBAers with the athleticism and wingspan to make life difficult for Andre Drummond and will be relied on heavily as the season continues.
After that though, what happens?
Logic indicates Biyombo will decline the team option Ujiri gave him and hit the market in search of roughly $10 million a season (a guess from this corner), or, about five times his current deal.
With Valanciunas starting his hefty extension next season and Lucas Nogueira an intriguing potential backup still toiling on the cheap, this will be an interesting area to watch come July.
For now, this marriage will continue to be a great one both for the Raptors and for Biyombo.
AROUND THE RIM
Cory Joseph concluded January the way he played pretty much all month – with another excellent performance. It has been one of the best months of his career and an important turnaround from December, when Joseph struggled with a viral infection. He shot 49.5% from the field vs. 37.8% in December, handed out about 40% more assists per game and his defence was back to where it was in November, if not better.
The Pistons simply could not stop Joseph when he drove to the hoop. It was nearly comical at times how easily he sliced through … Did I jinx Valanciunas? No assists in four games since I wrote of his doubling his career assist rate … Second time ever Lowry didn’t record an assist as a Raptor, but he still easily led the team in passes, per nba.com/stats. Oddly DeMar DeRozan’s passing was way down, despite his four assists. Dimes don’t always tell the whole story (Joseph had four assists, plus three more leading to free throws) … Toronto’s rim defence was atrocious and that’s one of the aforementioned defensive areas that needs improvement.