It would be sadly ironic if Jose Calderon misses tomorrow’s Heat game and we would start Will Solomon at the point. It would mark a complete 180 degree turn from the situation of only a year ago when the Raptors main advantage over any opponent in the league was the starting point guard situation. The good news is that the injury is described as a “mild strain of the hamstring” with Calderon listed as day-to-day and his status for tomorrow’s game being ‘questionable’. Sam Mitchell’s being as unecessarily vague and mysterious as ever when asked whether Solomon would start at the point if Jose is unavailable. The smartest coach in the NBA says:
“I’ll let you know in a timely fashion at my discretion”
Thank you your majesty. So kind of you. The practice on Friday went for two hours (without Calderon) leading some to believe that the team is preparing Solomon to handle the PG duties against the Heat. Cool, cool. In those two hours I hope they communicate to him that he shouldn’t be picking up his dribble 28 feet from the rim, nor should he stare in the direction he’s going to pass for five seconds before making the pass. See, that allows the defense to read your eyes and has probably a lot to do with all those turnovers he’s committing. If Solomon does start I’ll settle for successfully executed entry passes into the post. Rest is gravy. Here’s an article which has Sam Mitchell being all philosophical about the PG spot and saying Roko and Will have “improved a whole lot” since they got here. On a related note Jamaal Tinsley’s agent is seeking a buyout. There’s tons of video on the official dot com.
Chris Bosh is looking for Jose to play extended minutes:
Jose’s ready for it. You have to make adjustments, he’s got to be used to staying in the game for an extended amount of time. Sometimes not being able to come out of the game, if you’re on the road and the team is doing well…you just want to leave him out there and instead of subbing him out you call a timeout….but you can’t burn yourself out or you won’t be good in the fourth quarter.
It’s Game 8 and Jose’s injured. There were questions before the season whether the extended minutes would take a toll on him and whether he was ready for it. I think the hamstring injury is a fluke more than a result of playing too many minutes. According to Bosh, Mitchell and just about everyone else , Jose’s in top shape and should be able to bounce back from this minor setback quickly. Whether it’ll be against Miami might be asking too much but as long as he’s ready to exact some measure of revenge against Orlando I’m happy.
Lance Horby of the Sun is suggesting that Sam Mitchell is flirting with the idea of replacing Jamario Moon in the starting lineup with Jason Kapono, Joey Graham or even Andrea Bargnani. Now we’ve been speculating about this all summer and for all we know it might be true, but Hornby’s not offering any quotes from Mitchell or anyone else in the organization to suggest it’ll happen. Even if it does it would be a move designed to increase our offense, defensively it’s a lateral move since Moon’s not playing well anyway. The best we can hope from this SF bunch is that they play hard and motivated defense, none of them will ever be lock-down defenders that will anchor your defense or be named to the All-NBA first, second or third defensive team. On defense you’re often only as strong as your weakest link and with someone like Jose Calderon out there the other four Raptors will always need to be alert of any help that will need to be provided, that’s why alertness and effort are so important and both have been lacking thus far.
Jose Calderon’s wasn’t the only injury the Raptors suffered against Philly, our mascot was also injured while trying to jump off a trampoline. I was at the game and saw the poor guy limp off, it was quite funny and you could tell he was swearing a storm underneath that costume. This story was good enough to make SI who interviewed him and asked him about the injuries he’s suffered over the years, the man then poured his heart out:
“It’s a long list. A fractured tailbone. Cuts, scrapes and bruises, twisted ankles. I have one vertebrae that got twisted so I was getting pinched nerves in my back and neck. A few times I’ve dislocated a finger and popped it back in. I tore a hamstring trying to dunk over three ball racks stacked on top of each other. I had a concussion doing a backflip off something and hit a stanchion, or something, and ended up falling on my face, so when I got up I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know where I am,’ and they ended up escorting me out. I was in the old Skydome doing a dunk and I landed on top of the ball, I rolled my ankle on top of it. That’s no fun. I came back the next game in a wheelchair with a sign that said, ‘Say No To Trampoline Dunks.’…When I’m running around in that thing, it’s like a sauna, you’re breathing the same air inside of your head. Each night I’ll sweat anywhere from six to nine pounds in water. I’ll take my shirt off during timeouts and literally wring out the sweat.””
It sounds like a pretty crappy job but I’d do it in a heartbeat as long as I got to be close to the game and get to travel to the NBA All-Star game each year. He probably makes more than me anyway. There’s more of him in the link provided.
Denver beat Boston in Boston last night. Much like the Raptors, Denver got off to a big early lead and the Celtics chipped away towards the end of the second quarter and took the lead in the third before entering the fourth quarter down 1. Unlike the Raptors, Denver didn’t get rattled but relied on their defense and athleticism to get crucial stops in the fourth quarter. On the other end, JR Smith, Kleiza and KMart came up with big scores to pull the Nuggets through. The Nuggets were looking like they were going to fold just like the Raps but instead of starting the fourth quarter by giving up the lead they responded with hard-fought stops and clutch scores. Just thought I’d let you know how a real team handles big games on the road.
The Heat game is on TSN2 and if you can’t catch it, come on over to RaptorsRepublic.com where we’ll try to embed a stream on the front page of the site.
Another post later in the day….as always check the links on the front page..
24 Raps
regardless of whether jose plays or not, i’d feel a bit better about the raps chances if they had anyone who could even passably guard wade. that’s not even considering marion (who’s back) & beasley (who’s really playing well. with jose playing, the raps have an advantage at PG. w/o, as inconsistent/inexperienced as the heat PGs are, they’re still better than roko-solo. that’s saying something…
as with the philly game, raps will need big-time efforts out of their frontcourt, and hope the wings can contain wade reasonably well. haha.
Chalmers. Inconsistent. But better than anything we have at the moment.
9 games into his NBA career!!!??? Inconsistent?? WOW!
I agree that the inconsistant comment is a bit unwarrented considering this kid’s draft position. Hey atleast he’s got heart!
‘inconsistent.’
well, if any fanbase has experience noticing inconsistency…
I dont get the reasoning behind the majority of people saying Roko is not ready for backup minutes. IMO he’s more than met expectations in the regular season minutes he has recieved to date providing offensive spark and consistant penetration (hell he’s . I’m not a professional Smitch hater for him playing Soloman (I assume there is a valid reason/concern – defense?) but from a fan’s standpoint evidence there seems to be no reason he shouldn’t be able to run the offense adaquately…
Anyone have any leads on bars in Toronto that will be showing the game?
I know a lot of the bars in Little Italy/Portugal have grey market dishes, but they probably won’t get the FSN feed from Miami.
inconsistent – see: Calderon, Jose – playoffs. I know, I know – idiotic coach, playing behind TJ, was never “his” team..etc.
And the concern with Jose not playing vs. Miami – statistically he’s never played “great” against them.. so, I the fact he’s (maybe) not playing being blown out of proportion?
Random thought – Raptors have 13 early weekend games(12-1pm starts) plus 4 more 2pm – 3:30pm games. Thats 17 games way outside of primetime. And they wonder why the ratings are low haha
Time To Digg in Boyz!
Say Bosh got hurt… production drops off but we have other bigs ie. O’Neal & Bargnani to fill the role. BUT…. we are pretty thin 1 through 3. I not advocating for Staring Parker at Point Guard but what other options are there?? This injury exposes our weakness and *IF* Calderon don’t return soon our LITTLE momentun we have this season will be squished and we’ll have to start again, but with a “Rock Bottem Feeling”.
In my Fariy Tale dream we have a SF with the ability the play the SG spot. He has sound defence and ability to hit a 20′ jump shot.
*IF* we had that our team would become more diverse off the *Bench*. We could juggle our SG & SF spot depending:
Start:
PG-Calderon SG-Parker SF-**NEW D GUY** PF-Bosh C-O’Neil
Bench:
PG- Roko/Salmon
SG- Kapono/Moon/Salmon
SF- Moon/Kapono/**NEW D GUY**
PF- Humphries/Bargnani
C- Bosh/Bargnani
Our defence mybe a little shakey 1-3 off the bench but the bench becomes very interchangable allowing Sam to have some ‘D’ off the bench OR a little scoring. Instead of a gaping Hole at the SG OR SF spot.
I’ve been impressed with Joey Graham latey but unfortunitly he doesn’t fit with the team. Joey just needs a team where he is needed. Joey is more of a SF/Undersized PF and we need a SG/SF. Plus Joey’s the only guy of *any* value I’m willing to see go.
Oh, how I miss Morris Peterson at a time like this….
Good to hear that you guys will try to get a stream going for sunday.
yeah wouldnt that be pretty illegal? dont wanna see you guys get busted – better to show a link to some sketchy foreign site lol
we lost 4 of the last 5 … what momentum Papi?
I hear ya on MoPete.. be prepared to get destroyed for that comment tho. Something like: “that inconsistent lil b***h?”
FluxLand…
The cup is half Full… just a **LITTLE** momenteum… we still have a crack of momenteum from our start… it will be gone if we get blown out next game…
I’m not sayin’ get MoPete he’s more strickly a SG… I just want his D and odd jumper.
The kind of momentum we get with this raptors team means we’ll be down 5 in the first quarter and trail until the 3rd.
momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher.
… and, “it-takes-time-to-adjust” is the closer.
Any bets on the score tomorrow? I say 97-92 Miami.
Back up point guards….outside of TJ when he was healthy,do we all remember who was playing the point…yup Humpty Dumpty…I’ll take my chances with Mike James the 2nd and Rocky Balboa !!!!!
Props to the mascot. He tried to do the trampoline dunk even after he got hurt but failed again, thats when he limped off. Mad respect.
Watching that Boston/ Detroit game was particularly depressing when Van Gundy kept saying how thin the Nuggets roster is (all “the holes” they have)…jesus christ….the Raptors make the Nuggets (and frankly, pretty much every other team) look like the US Olympic team.
I feel bad for the Mascot. I REALLY like him a lot. He actually makes me laugh out loud when I’m at the games…
Holy crap, I just saw this link on the front page
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24656784-5001023,00.html
He could be done..what a waste of a pick. I think BC’s doctors spent the entire time studying JO’s knee and forgot to do a physical on him.
Mo Pete! Uh oh, you know the raps are in trouble when we want to bring back mediocre players! Pape Sow! He’ll save the day! I know, we need Hakeem the Dream to come out of retirement and play for the raps again! Wait a second, I know who we’re missing, Hoffa!
If you’re going to dream, why not wish for old raptor players that made a difference…