Pat Delaney on ‘disappointing’ Raptors effort vs. Cavaliers

Raptors coach Pat Delaney discusses what went wrong for the Raptors against the Cavaliers and what was said postgame.

Video Transcript

PAT DELANEY: --talked about for the last, I don't know, 36 hours, whatever it's been, you know, the physicality, the effort areas, the readiness to play, the level of competition. You know, and the detail stuff that we, you know, watch film on and spoke at length about wasn't there. And it's really disappointing. Our guys are aware. They know it. But those are just words. You know, their actions speak a lot much louder.

- How do you use a performance like that to motivate them for the next one?

PAT DELANEY: There's nothing that we're going to say, honestly, as coaches for where these guys are at in their careers that we're going to motivate them. But it's going to start with the individual who's going to be looking in the mirror, and then the collective part of it of their togetherness of like, hey, this is what it takes winning in this league. As we all know, it's super hard. Nothing is given. Everything is earned.

And unfortunately, we've learned that the hard way, you know, twice now, you know, sort of thing. We have a couple of days to regroup. But overall, just, you know, disappointed. But we'll have a game again on Wednesday. We'll watch the film. We'll go through it.

We'll get into the things that we need to do that emphasize the importance of winning and what it takes. And hopefully, we'll get, you know, more to the level that we need just to give ourselves a chance.

- I think Grady led the team in rebounds and assists. Now, that might not be the ideal result for you guys, but is he showing, like, obviously, he's a bit more than just a guy who can score?

PAT DELANEY: Yeah. You know, he's a smart player. You know, just like a lot of our guys, he's, you know, trying to figure it all out here on the fly and a short window. And, you know, he's doing different things, some good, some bad. We understand.

But the things that we're emphasizing, right, we're not going to get 100 of. We're not going to get 100 out of 100. But the things that we emphasized over the 36 hours as a group, you know, weren't at the level-- I think we gave up four offense rebounds and free throws. You know, it's going to be hard to win at any level of basketball when we don't do those things.

- Those hefty passes or something we saw a lot of in Kansas. How encouraging is it to see him make quite a few of those reads at this level?

PAT DELANEY: Yeah, you know, he's got an all-round game. I know he came in as a shooter. That's what he does. It's a strength of his. But I also think, too, there's other things that he does offensively as well, the passing, the cutting, the moving without the ball.

He's learning these teammates. His teammates are learning him and the group. So it's going to take some time. But obviously, we all-- as a group, collectively, we want to try to fast-track that process, you know, so when it gets to September and camp, stuff like that, we'll be a little ahead of the curve for him.

- Thanks, guys.

PAT DELANEY: Appreciate you guys. Thanks again. Sorry for the delay. I apologize.

- No problem.

- That's all right.