‘Cobra mentality’: Origins and lessons of the Raptors’ defensive ethos
The NBA season has officially passed the halfway point, which means early impressions can start turning into outright identities.
Looking at the Toronto Raptors, for instance, they’ve now gone 42 games as a top 10 defence, peaking as high as top three and currently ranking fifth. It’s been unorthodox, greater than the sum of its parts, and, above all else, elite.
While much of that stems from the spearheading efforts of defensive stalwarts like Scottie Barnes and Collin Murray-Boyles, or Darko Rajakovic’s adjustments, some of it comes from a mentality that’s been instilled from humble beginnings stretching as far back as the end of the 2024-25 season, and was solidified during Summer League.
A “cobra mentality,” to be precise.
If we rewind to July, what I believed to be an unassuming gesture at the time — Jonathan Mogbo contorting his hands to mimic a snake posing upright before it strikes as he went through post-game handshakes — proved to be something far greater, a far more symbolic. Because this connection to serpents, albeit from a team that has a dinosaur mascot, periodically kept returning. First at Summer League, not just with the hand gestures but to the point that Mogbo was even saying “it’s like we’re the cobras” in reference to a squad that went 4-1 and was forcing nearly 30 turnovers per game.
While also not shying away from making what he thought were the sounds of a snake striking.
“Ung ung.” (Not sure if that’s scientifically accurate, but I’m with it!)
And for months, I thought nothing of it until the Raptors held an open coach’s clinic in October during pre-season and assistant coach Pat Delaney referenced “cobra mentality” when speaking about the team’s defensive style.
But it wasn’t until opening night, when — after pumping the Atlanta Hawks — Darko Rajakovic unveiled what appeared to be a 6-foot staff with a Cobra adorned on top, that I really started to get curious. According to the Raptors’ head coach, the post-game gesture was awarded to a player who “changed the game and brought energy on the defensive end of the floor.”
With the slithery serpents continually showing up, I decided to go right to the source that first piqued my intrigue.
“I feel like last year, toward the end of the season, we kind of picked out how we’re guarding on ball, and then we went more into it as we got steals … whether it was sneaking behind somebody or when they went for a lay up thinking it was wide open, we’d smack the ball out and get even more steals. So it kind of led over to Summer League,” Mogbo began to tell me when I asked him about the origins of cobra mentality.
“And I remember, Ja’Kobe (Walter, who Mogbo said has been dubbed “Ja-cobra” by his teammates) was getting a lot of those, we all were, and I was like ‘oh, this is like a cobra strike.’ So that’s where it started off … something that just came to the brain, and I continued with it.”
Was that really what helped inspire the ethos of a top-five defence? A one-off thought and a playful nickname?
If you ask Mogbo (which I did), he says “yeah.”
As for the aforementioned cobra staff, it turns out it lasted just the one game, leaving Ochai Agbaji as the lone recipient. And I’ve been told it went away for a variety of reasons. But if I had to speculate on one of those specifically, it’s that the Raptors swiftly decided not just to talk the talk but also to walk the walk.
And by that, I mean truly embodying the stylings of the fierce ophidian. I realize, to this point, I’ve yet to explain what exactly this serpent-inspired philosophy is all about, so here it is:
“(Cobra mentality) is just the mentality of being aggressive on the defensive end and looking for opportunities when the ball is exposed and how to attack the ball,” Rajakovic told me. “We spent a lot of time this summer analyzing that, working on that, trying to develop those habits with our players.”
OK, but why cobras specifically?
“If you look at cobras, they attack one time, and that one attack is deadly. And that’s how we want to be on the defensive end. When we’re attacking the ball, to go for the one opportunity that is there … not to be like a woodpecker going over and over and over … hectic over there. Being intentional with what we do.”
All of which is fine and dandy, but mentality is only as valuable as long as there are actions that follow suit. And the very early returns of all the pre-season humming and hawing about defence were less than promising.
After one week, the then 1-5 Raptors were the second-worst defence in the NBA. Which seemed odd, considering they were forcing the second-most turnovers (18.6) and the second-highest opponent turnover rate (17.6 per cent).
The problem was, they were very much playing like woodpeckers instead of cobras. The chaos wasn’t controlled; it was, well, chaotic and led to an abundance of miscues.
During that stretch, Toronto was committing the third most fouls and allowing so many blow-bys they were bottom third of the league in opponent shooting in just about every area of the floor — dead last in opponent field goal percentage (53.5). Little to no method to the madness.
So how did that group go from the 29th-ranked defence after a week to middle of the pack after a month, all the way to fifth by the end of December?
There are a lot of reasons, but in some part, I think it came from understanding what it really meant to play like cobras.
For a quick zoology lesson, cobras, while highly dangerous, are typically reclusive but are very territorial and will fiercely defend their space. And although they’re highly capable at attacking (a bite can be fatal within 30 minutes), cobras are often considered more cautious than smaller snakes, known for their intelligence as they’re described as problem solvers and calculated hunters — commonly referred to as the “thinking snake.”
Once the Raptors understood and adjusted to playing with the spirit of what they had chosen as their symbol, success followed.
After that rough early stretch, Toronto dialled back the haphazard pressure and instead shifted to protecting its own space rather than trying to engulf every inch of the court.
By the end of November — after a 13-1 stretch — the Raptors had logged the fifth-most possessions in a “compact defensive shell,” per Synergy (h/t to Es Baraheni), and were fifth in efficiency, allowing just 0.98 points per possession in that scheme — i.e., packing the paint, pinching in on drives and cutting off lanes to higher-percentage looks inside.
So while the Raptors had dropped to 10th in opponent turnovers in that span (15.7) with less pressure, the cascading effects of a more measured approach — focusing more on being opportunistic than aggressive, striking once and not often — were immediately positive. Trends that have continued since.
The Raptors dropped from committing the third-most fouls to now the sixth-fewest and are now limiting opponents to the sixth-lowest field goal percentage (46.0).
Some of that, at least early on, was attributed to a bit of luck with shot variance, as the Raptors’ opponents were shooting 32.2 per cent from distance (second-lowest in the NBA) by the end of November. According to Cleaning the Glass, based on the shots the Raptors were giving up, they had the third-highest opponent location effective field goal percentage (55.9) compared to an actual opponent EFG of 52.5 (sixth in the NBA).
In the time since, however, the Raptors have maintained a top 10 opponent EFG (53.7 per cent) for the season, even as opponent shooting has improved. Toronto’s opponents are converting at a 34.8 per cent from deep on the year, but that uptick in outside production has hardly impacted what the team has been able to accomplish defensively inside the arc.
Since the start of December, the Raptors have held opponents to 64.2 per cent shooting at the rim (eighth in the NBA) — three per cent decrease from the first two months of the season — all without a true starting centre with Jakob Poeltl sidelined. In that same span, the Raptors have given up just 15.9 paint attempts per game (tied-third fewest) and went from allowing 30 shots a night in the restricted area to start the season (fifth most) to a much more reasonable 23.7 (12th).
The Raptors have started to play like cobras and have subsequently done one helluva job defensively. They’re still aggressive, but it’s with intention now. And they work their tails (snakes do have tails!) off to help each other cover gaps and blow-bys with plenty of switching tactics.
And while that may be somewhat contradictory to the whole snake philosophy — generally solitary — these are Raptors after all, and hunting in packs is what they do (according to the movies that is. Scientific research disputes that, but for the purpose of my point, just go with it!).
Or to really simplify the point, as Kobe “Black Mamba” Bryant would put it, the Raptors have been “a different animal, but the same beast.”
From biting without cause early in the year, to now baring their fangs more routinely and striking only when the time is right. The cobra mentality has helped shape much of what the Raptors have aimed to accomplish on the defensive end, and now they’ve got another half-season to keep it going.
“Rest at the end, not in the middle. Get to work.” — Kobe Bryant
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