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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO – Like most fans, Fred VanVleet watched the short-handed Raptors try to scrap and claw their way to an unlikely win from the couch on Tuesday.

With a less than half capacity crowd in the stands at Scotiabank Arena, and less than half the team’s regular roster on the floor, they nearly pulled it off. It was a commendable effort under the circumstances. They fought hard until the bitter end, and VanVleet – who live tweeted the game from home – was impressed.

“He just texted me right now,” said Pascal Siakam, following Toronto’s 114-109 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers. “Obviously he wanted us to win, but I think he appreciated the effort and everyone playing hard and doing everything that we [could] to get a win.”

Siakam was one of five Raptors players to be cleared from the NBA’s health and safety protocols this week, and one of three who returned to action on Tuesday. VanVleet was one of five players who remained in the protocols.

After an organization-wide COVID outbreak ripped its way through the club, they’re gradually turning the corner. With players starting to trickle back, and others expected to join them over the coming days, the Raptors could be whole again soon.

As bad as things have felt, with 11 of their 14 regulars entering the protocols this month, cancelled practices, postponed games, and a 45-point loss in Cleveland over the weekend, it’s getting easier to find the silver linings.

For one, the team is hopeful that unlike last March, when they dealt with a similarly disruptive outbreak, the recovery period should be a lot smoother.

A year ago, the Raptors were playing their best basketball of an otherwise lost season before the virus hit. It ended up being a turning point. Several key players missed time, but even after they came back it took weeks for them to look and feel like themselves again, as many battled severe cases. Siakam lost 15 pounds while he was in quarantine, and VanVleet reported considerable body aches and fatigue.

“It was pretty rough a few of those days,” VanVleet said back in March. “It was a whirlwind, definitely an experience I won’t forget. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

As a team, the Raptors had won 10 of 15 games prior to that first positive test, fighting their way back to .500 after a 2-8 start to last season. They went 10-28 from there.

The biggest difference between now and then is the vaccine. Toronto’s players are all fully vaccinated. They’ve each gotten at least two doses, and many of them have received their booster shots.

Even as the Omicron variant spreads rapidly throughout the league, and around the globe, vaccinated and healthy individuals have generally been experiencing only mild symptoms, and that’s been the case with the Raptors players who have tested positive.

“I don’t think anybody was very sick,” Nick Nurse said ahead of Tuesday’s game.

“It’s been tough, but I think this time around it was a little lighter,” said Siakam, who was in the first wave of Raptors players to test positive and enter the protocols just before the December 18th game against Golden State. “I remember that first time it was a lot, just feeling really sick and my body losing a lot of weight. This time around it felt like a cold, to be honest. My body didn’t go through as much.”

Siakam certainly didn’t look like he missed a beat, scoring 28 points and dishing out eight assists against Philadelphia. Nurse had hoped to ease him back, but with VanVleet, OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes still in the protocols, and the recently cleared Khem Birch and Precious Achiuwa getting an extra day off for reconditioning, Siakam logged 42 minutes. It didn’t show, but the star forward admitted it afterwards; he was exhausted.

Even if his symptoms were mild, he was still away from the court for nearly two weeks. The team dropped some training equipment off at his house once he started to feel better, and they also put him and some of the others through workout sessions over Zoom, but it’s going to take some time for these guys to get their conditioning and rhythm back. The rust was far more visible on Gary Trent Jr. and Malachi Flynn, who combined to shoot 8-for-36 in their returns on Tuesday.

Still, with VanVleet and at least a few of the others expected back ahead their New Years Eve game against the Clippers, they hope that they’ll be able to pick up where they left off, having won four of five contests before the outbreak hit.

“It seems to me, around the league, you are not hearing the same things you were hearing a year ago,” Nurse said. “They are just not feeling as bad when they have it or as winded or whatever when they come out. So I’m confident once this thing passes here this week we should be okay and get up to speed pretty quickly.”

From a competitive standpoint, the Raptors are also fortunate that it hit them all at once, and over a softer stretch of their schedule. As long as the NBA insists on trudging forward, the virus will continue to spread throughout the league. There’s no escaping it. By the end of next month, every team will get hit, to one degree or another. Most of them already have. In some cases, teams have lost players in multiple waves over an extended period of time.

Consider two of the teams the Raptors are battling with in the Eastern Conference standings, the Celtics and Hawks. Boston lost three players, including a starter in Al Horford, a couple weeks ago. Since they’ve returned, six others have entered the protocols, including Jayson Tatum over the weekend. Atlanta lost Trae Young in the middle of the month, followed by Clint Capela and Danilo Gallinari soon after. Although they’ve started to get guys back, including Young, they’ve been hit with another wave. As of Tuesday night, the Hawks had a league-high 13 players in the protocols, including starters John Collins and Bogdan Bogdanovic, who were added over the weekend. The Celtics and Hawks are 2-4 and 1-3, respectively, since their first positive tests.

Since the Raptors were exposed and started to return positive tests, they had three games postponed, faced a Warriors team without most of its rotation players, and benefited from a three-day break over Christmas. With a makeshift roster made up of four regular reserves and four hardship signees, you can count Sunday’s blowout in Cleveland as a circumstantial loss. Tuesday’s may have been as well – despite the effort, they just didn’t have the bodies to bang with Joel Embiid, who scored a dominant 36 points on 11-of-16 shooting.

However, if those are the only two games they have to sacrifice, you can live with that. The Eastern Conference hasn’t run away from them. At 14-17, they’re still hovering around .500. They’re just 2.5 games back of sixth-place Philadelphia, and some of the teams ahead of them may soon go through what they already have.

“I guess so,” said Nurse, asked if they’re coming out of the outbreak in better condition than he expected. “There are still two losses here, [the] last two [games] that we're not going to get back… Although I would say this, it seems to me that everybody's reacting pretty well.”

“There’s no time to wait,” Siakam said. “We’re in a position where every game’s important… I know everyone cares about their health, but they’re anxious to get back on the floor and play.”