Originally Posted by
Pelicanidae
They were good together! Both of them have very positive on/off stats, and their two man combination raised the team's STL% by about 3.5% when on the floor. In fact, despite being a bad team overall, the Raptors had weirdly solid stats as a team this year in general: 15th in DRtg overall despite - as you say - playing two very small guards all the time.
What's the difference between a team like Toronto and a team like Portland, who also play two small guards together?
Well, one is the supporting cast. Toronto has surrounded their small guards with Chris Boucher, Pascal Siakam, OG Anunoby, and so on. Defense is a team thing, and you can afford one or two small guys if your team overall is good defensively: Portland doesn't have that. We, right now, also do not have that.
But most significantly, both VanVleet and Lowry are very good defenders who play hard on that end, play physically, and have very good feel. By contrast, both CJ and Lillard can't be bothered on the defensive end about 85% of the time, and whenever they do try they look kind of lost. Part of that lost-ness is, I think, because they don't do it very often: defense can be sort of ''use it or lose it'' and they never use it so it's... gone.