A good plan executed to perfection.Aah…it’s good to be on the right side of a blowout for a change and see Bosh and O’Neal smiling on the bench instead of looking like they’re searching for a cliff to throw themselves over. A solid defense-inspired win is exactly what this team needed, the players needed to see a return on investment of what Triano’s been preaching and although some good things happened over the last few games, the results weren’t great. Last night it all came together and we won an ugly basketball game where not a single Raptor’s effort or determination could be questioned. If there’s a recipe you’d want every Raptors game to follow, it would be this. The offense wasn’t operating close to peak efficiency but then again, it rarely does. The one thing every player can control even on an off night is their defensive commitment, we did that tonight and got rewarded with a big win. The naysayers can point to Carter’s 0-13 night and write the win off as a fluke but they’d be completely wrong. Two weeks after the Carter/Harris combo went off for 69, they were held for 17. The 60 points we gave up in the paint in that game were reduced down to 24 (10 in garbage time) and none of that is fluke, it is a testament to how we dug down and showed pride in our defense and helped each other.
Let’s talk about the defense which did its job at a few different levels. Firstly, Triano didn’t throw Calderon at the mercy of Harris like Mitchell had, he rotated the assignment between Calderon, Graham and Moon (getting the start for the injured Parker), each of those three gave Harris different looks and forced him to adjust his game. Joey bumped him on the perimeter, Moon conceded the jumper but challenged the shot and Jose forced him to where he knew the help would be. Secondly, the ball pressure on Harris and Carter was consistent enough to bother them and they weren’t able to get into their offense, execute a dribble-drive and kick out against a stagnant defense. Whenever they did drive the help was there and the kick-outs were forced through passing lanes that were not easy to pick out resulting in deflections and steals. Jamario Moon picking up five steals in the process, a couple coming through half-court pressure. Thirdly, we contested perimeter jumpers after helping on drives. Yes, Kapono got caught watching Bobby Simmons drain a few threes but aside from his slow recovery, most of our perimeter rotations were intact. The interior ones still need a lot of work but those are much tougher to master as it’s hard to communicate the rebound, box-out and rotation while the ball’s bouncing on the rim. We lost the rebounding battle 50-37 but the perimeter defense made up for it. Kapono talked about the plan for shutting down the paint:
Our defensive schemes were solid. We shut down the paint, closed the gaps. Vince missed a lot of shots but that was our game plan, to force guys to make shots from outside.
I really dig the use of the word “plan” when talking Raptors basketball. Haven’t had that for a while. The game started with Chris Bosh being assertive, he finished with 10 first quarter points and set the tone against Yi Jianlian by going in for a couple NBA facials. The Raptors ended the second quarter with a 10-0 run and at halftime Bosh confessed that he wasn’t being aggressive of late and needed to fix the issue:
I’m just trying to be aggressive, lately I haven’t been as aggressive as I was in the beginning of the season. I’m just trying to be really aggressive, take them off the dribble and be unselfish at the same time
At least he’s acknowledging that there was something wrong about his games of late. The matchup tonight was favorable and Bosh took advantage. Now Josh Boone and Yi aren’t close to being as good or physical as David West will be on Sunday and Bosh’s play against West will tell us more about him than tonight did. For now, he gets the credit for doing the right thing against players that he’s clearly better than.
We built an 8 point lead in the first quarter by playing good defense and going inside-out with Bosh, the Nets made a bit of a run to end the quarter and took the lead in the second but it wasn’t a concern because it wasn’t like our defense let up, they just made some contested shots. The offense picked up towards the end of the quarter as Jamario Moon scored off his own good defense, Chris Bosh buried one in Yi’s face and Graham was found neatly by Calderon in the lost-post for a score. A four point deficit had turned into a six point lead going into half. The third quarter began with Kapono losing Simmons for a couple threes but after that Jose executed the two-man game with Bosh to nail a three after his man left him to double, the misfiring Kapono started to fire and Moon continued his impressive defense on whoever he got on the switch, and the Raptors were switching a lot. Since Carter was struggling the constant switching worked in our favor because other than a big switching on Harris, there’s nobody on New Jersey that could take advantage of any 2/3/4 switch we made. Negating their pick ‘n roll was huge because it forced them to rely entirely on drive ‘n kick scores and we were up to the task. NBA.com has a good analysis of the defense.
New Jersey tried to rekindle their struggling offense and counter the aggressive Raptors perimeter defense by looking for Brook Lopez against Jermaine O’Neal, a matchup that’s gone in their favor in both games. Triano was smart enough to recognize this and provided immediate help testing the rookie’s ball-handling and passing ability, as suspected it wasn’t that great. The Raptors even tried a few defensive tricks tonight, they caused at least 3 turnovers by just backing out their weight against a driving guard causing them to stumble or lose control, the break started as soon as they recovered the turnover and the 16 fast break points were the highest since opening night. Vince Carter took 13 shots, 11 were jumpers and its not like that because he was lazy. We were aware of his drives and had a man ready to help as soon as he drove to the paint, Carter only found the helpers man a couple times all game thus making the strategy a success. We forced New Jersey to make plays, they were forced to shoot contested jumpers, had to finish between our trees, negotiate our tight-checking defense and be weary of protecting the ball. Once you have all these things going in your mind your offense is not going to functions smoothly and NJ shooting 31% sounds about right.
It’s become so obvious that all we needed to do with Joey Graham is to let him play. I was convinced that under Sam Mitchell he would amount to nothing because of the short leash combined with the mistakes he makes. As Joey himself admitted, he doesn’t have to look over his shoulders and can just play loose, free basketball. He’s our only wing player that has the ability to finish in the post and Triano is aggressively looking to get him there, he only finished a couple such moves but there is a play in the Raptors offense that slides Joey Graham into the paint from the weak side as we fake a Calderon-Bosh-Calderon handoff on the strong side. Jamario Moon did not have any plays run for him and nor should he, he just played good aggressive defense, didn’t take dumb shots and used his length in the passing lanes. I just hope Triano can permanently get through to him so that we don’t have to suffer through his lackadaisical play 80% of the time.
Roko Ukic is learning to play defense, he’s quicker than Calderon and it showed in the job he did against Harris in that second quarter spell. He’s got a good defensive balance and does a decent job of taking away the drive and contesting the jumper at the same time. His defense gets him in trouble when the ball is not in his man’s hand, Roko has a tendency to ball-watch and slowly drift towards the paint when on the weak side, he got burned more than once doing that but I’ll attribute that to the learning process. Let’s be thankful that he’s aware of his responsibility to provide help, he just needs to fine-tune his decision making of when to cheat. He played a 5:30 spell (9:00 1Q to 9:30 2Q) in that first/second quarter stretch which allowed Calderon to rest for a good 10-12 minutes or so. Valuable stuff.
Our wings played so well in the third quarter that we didn’t even need Bosh to do anything, his second half contribution was three FTs. Jason Kapono hoisted up 15 shots for 16 points, he started off 1-6 and ended going 6-15. Simple plan by Triano: shoot the ball. Well, it’s actually slightly more complicated than that, Kapono’s now running the high screen ‘n roll with Bosh almost as much as Calderon and it tends to work out well when his decision is on target. His defender rarely goes under the screen in fear of getting burned by the J (although I’d test him a few times shooting off the dribble) which allows Kapono to go one step towards the rim leaving the defender on his side or back forcing Bosh’s man to deal with the minor problem and thus leaving Bosh open for a jumper. Regardless of whether Bosh takes the jumper there’s enough going on for a cutter (Moon/Graham/O’Neal) to take advantage by getting to an open spot.
Bargnani struggled again, his offense is non-existent right now and he’s trying to shoot himself out of a slump. There’s no rhythm or lift in his jumper and he’s starting to look like the player of last year. His defense is still there, 4 blocks and 7 rebounds is nothing to be ashamed of especially since most of his damage came when the game was still somewhat in doubt. However, 2-10 FG is embarrassing. Will he ever find the offensive consistency to not be an X-Factor but a known quantity heading into a given game? It would be nice to count on Bargnani giving us 15/8/2 on a nightly basis and who knows, he might even do this season. It’s just hard for me (and everybody else) not to get out the #1 pick measuring stick when looking at the boxscore.
The Raptors complete a convincing revenge mission where a lot of the stuff Triano’s been emphasizing finally came to the surface. We got a great team coming to our house on Sunday, if we just replicate our defensive effort we’ll be in the game. No Roll Call today, AltRaps’ PVR pulled a Will Solomon.
38 Raps
“It’s become so obvious that all we needed to do with Joey Graham is to let him play.” Thank you. I always felt that way; he showed many good flashes over the years to NOT be a decent player, especially with his physique.
This is bullshit. The ONE time I’m forced to miss a game for work is the one where everything finally clicks IN a revenge game against F-bomb-ing Carter? Where he misses every SINGLE shot? I only have DREAMS that hold that kind of schaedenfreude. RGH!
Anyway, this one looks like pretty much pure gold, and I’m glad we got a dominating win. In other NBA related news, Orlando scares me. Why? Because they are a finely managed machine. More impressive than the box score where EVERYONE got PT against a newly revamped Phoenix – but all the starters were in double figures and ALL the bench players got roughly half the starter’s points AND their minutes in a tight one point loss? SVG is a monster of a coach.
As well, it seems the teams in the West have finally woken up while the East has revealed itself to be primarily a log-jam of mediocrity.
I love Jay’s approach to protecting the paint. The players also seem to have bought in to the scheme. I was watching the post game interviews & all I kept hearing was “No gaps”.
We neede a break like that. Nice seeing Bosh and Jose sit the 4th.
Sure looked like Jersey quit last night.
Bargnani’s defence is no longer a liability. 4 blocks last night. He missed some open shots but went 6 for 6 from the line. He had that lost expression on his face on the offensive end.
Anyone a little bit worried about Joey’s recent performances?
Since Graham has started to get consistent minutes, he’s responded by concentrating more on his scoring and shot attempts, and recently (last four games) he’s been forgetting about his rebounding duties.
Graham only has 10 rebounds in his last 100 minutes. That’s less than half his previous rate of rebounding from the first 15 games this season – 43 boards in 200 minutes.
Weird blip? Perhaps part of the transition from tiny minutes to consistent minutes? Something more serious? A role player trying to escape his role and sign his tune?
I lean towards a blip but it’s gone on for four straight games now and minutes wise that’s a third of his season. The rebounding help he provides is of great value, I hope the coaching staff are drilling that into his head.
….. On another rebounding note, it’s great to see Moon rebounding the ball again in the last two games. He’s been missing in action most of this season, it’d be great to get him back playing well again.
Dave,I think we can look at stats till the cows come home…I remember the 40 point games by CB4 that we ended up loosing.
Enjoy the W.
Solid win. Loved having Moon and Joey guard Harris.
This could free up BC to trade AP or play him less minutes now.
I love reading detailed analysis like this. Great work, Arsenalist.
I had my reservations about Triano and so far I *think* he’s proven me wrong. The problem that I had with Mitchell (like a lot of other Raptor fans) was that Mitchell was never an X’s and O’s guy. This despite playing under the likes of Larry Brown, Flip Saunders etc. You would think over the years of playing and coaching he could have taken bits of pieces of what he thought worked well and incorporated those concepts into his own. But all we saw every night was the PNR.
So back to Triano. It seems all those years on the bench behind Lenny, O’Neill and even Mitchell, Triano has been able to formulate his own concepts. His concepts may even be more influenced through his advanced scouting work on the opposing team. No matter what the source, it seems he does have strategies that are working – so far.
I’d still like to see him draw up some plays on the situational side. The Portland, game winning shot call, seemed to be taken out of Smitch’s playbook.
Sunday should be interested…
I also wonder whether all of this is kind of like a rookie whom does really well but once there is a scouting report, things start to change for the worse. I will be interested to see how Jay will combat this with a varied and creative offensive and defensive schemes. Its only a matter of time before other teams will figure out what to do against us to induce a hap-hazard performance. There is a reason we won six games less last year, raptors hadn’t changed their scheme in two years and became the most easily scouted team in the NBA. Sometimes i wonder how much a reason this was behind their 47 win season.
Utah has had the same system for years with revolving personel. Boston, although they have their stars, are winning consistantly now because the players have bought into the system. They throw no surprises, they play their game.
Not wanting to sound pompous or condescending but its execution. Players have a system and execute.
Thank god a coach with a brain! Pretty simple, take Calderon off Harris and clog the paint so if he does come through, the bigs are right there. Bargnani got four swats! Perfect. Ocho isn’t a perfect player, but maybe all the Raps needed was a coach who isn’t half retarded. I’m expecting more of the same against CP3 and possibly more Ukic at the 1, while Calderon remains at the 2. Clearly Ukic’s lateral quickness is better suited to guard a premier point guard like Paul.
Great analysis. I’m newish to the site but it’s becoming a daily stop…
Tinman, i can agree with that. You are right, it is about execution. But I think that we have realized that there is a difference between a system and whatever Mitchell had in place. You also have to teach your players how to be the most effective at executing a system. The problem is that Mitchell either A) Didn’t create a system multi-dimensional enough avoid being completely shut down or B) He couldn’t teach his system C) He didn’t have the players to execute his system(which is dumb, because its his job to tailor it to his personnel) D) He created a system, realized that it didn’t work and ended up changing his philosophies so much game-to-game his personnel couldn’t learn end execute fast enough.(my personal view).
Triano is trying to set up a defensive scheme and an offense based on increased pace and movement to allow his players to win games for him rather then him trying to win games for his players.
Check out Moon’s veiled criticism of Sam. Surprising coming from Moon, who was Smitch’s golden boy for so long:
http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/teams/raptors/rweb-081212-moon.asx
Kapono is also a pretty funny guy:
http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/teams/raptors/rweb-081212-kapono.asx
Sam’s Subs when a player is…
- humilited over & over & over & over then subs! (No momenteum Left)
- laying dead on the floor OR Extremely tired (No momenteum Left)
- Giving Sam Dirty looks
***Sam need to be more aware of the Game Flow and not change line-up in big chunks killing the Flow & Rythym***
Jay Subs when…
- momenteum is shifting (Saving momenteum)
- He feels a matchup isn’t working. (Subs before Armageddon happens)
- a player is still feeling good about his game
***Jay make’s small changes at a time. He doesn’t disrupt the game as much & lets the players keep the rythym while bring in the bench***
I **NOT** a Sam hater. I think he’s a good coach… but Jay is **MUCH** better with managing subs. Jay gives our guys time to rest. PLUS Jay has gotten us Garbage Time to develop our bench player more. Sam would try and develop our bench when the game was one the line.
I don’t feel too bad for Sam…. like everyone says… got his chance to be a head coach, Coach of The Year. 2yrs pay on the golf course. He’ll be back in the NBA after his golfing game is tweaked!
Hard to figure out what Sam’s system was, cannot disagree. Not quite sure if our personel fit in with Sam. To me he would be a good fit with a team like the Pistons. Too early to say that Triano has one.
Victories over Indy at home and what appeared to be an unmotivated Nets on the road are baby steps in the right direction. Might well of won these games with Sam as the coach, who knows.
Our subs seem to be more at ease with Jay – Sam seemed to lack patience with players who need minutes to develope. I think since BC’s initial season, when all seemed to go right, the pressure was on to win now.
Much too early to anoint JT, but he starting to look good on the sidelines. As refreshing as it was seeing smiles on the bench last night, lets not forget the defeated looks Jay’s first few games.
Now if Triano could only get Will Solomon to not play like a jackass..
Tinman, why were the nets ‘unmotivated’? It was because the raptors played good defense, rebounded relatively well and got offense when they needed it. If you’re down twenty then you might get unmotivated, but the raptors got the nets to go down twenty in the first place and kept them there, and for that the raps should get credit.
Solid game all-round, our offense struggled for a bit early but we managed to fix that and continued to play good defense. I am particularly impressed with Graham as a low-post option, and when he went baseline for the dunk! That man is oozing confidence.
Still think bosh is not that comfortable with this new system. He got his, but it didnt really seem in the flow, at least to me. Bargnani is struggling a bit at the moment, but he’s doing the other things well, which is all you could ask for when you are having a off-night.
I can’t believe no one has mentioned THE BLOCK HASSAN ADAMS GOT. no question now, we know adams is a game-changer on the denfensive end. Thank god colangelo picked him up.
Time Intact,
BC was rumoured to make “small adjustments”, waiving Solomon’s ass seems like the small adjustment we need for now.
I’m didnt see the whole game, but must say that holding a player of Carter’s caliber to 3 points is no easy task. Maybe that perimeter defense will get better after all. Looking at the schedule it doesnt get any easier. We need a quality win over one these three solid opponents – Mavs, Spurs, Portland, Denver, If we can get one or two of those upcoming games we will maybe close out 08 at .500.
As I posted on the previous topic thread:
Triano is giving playing time to most everybody now .. to properly evaluate what talent he has on the Raptors. Perhaps BC wants Jay to work up and display the players he hopes to trade by making them look decent.
On the other hand, Triano may be just motivating the bench players to step up regardless of winning or losing the game. Sam was playing a short rotation in a futile effort to win with his best players. Unfortunately his ‘best’ players were too inconsistent and didn’t show up every night.
Triano is throwing everybody on the floor and giving them a chance to enhance their NBA careers and money-earning ability. We are getting some surprises which makes for entertaining bball.
OT: From Hoopshype Rumours….
I heard my first concrete rumblings this week that the Warriors are indeed prepared (yes, so soon) to part with their big free-agent signee, hard as it figures to be to move Corey Maggette in the first season of a five-year, $50 million contract. Maggette is one of the 90 guys who becomes eligible to be traded Monday. ESPN.com
………………….
Any fantasy trades like:
Bosh >>> Maggette + Azubuike + Belinelli …..?????
There is some reason to be optimistic with the way the Raptors have played lately. Looking at the schedule they have their customary Western 6 game road trip sandwiched around Christmas again this year. HOWEVER, the only sure loss on the trip seems to be San Antonio, with Portland in the toss up category (I had this as a sure loss until the game they played in Toronto). Those two games also happen to be the second nights of back to back, giving the Raptors rest before they play the notSonics, the Clippers, the Kings and the Warriors. Those 4 teams, along with the Grizzlies and Wolves are a combined 6-36 against the East this year. The home games for the rest of December are the Hornets, the Nets, the Mavs and the Nuggets. The Raptors should be expected to go 1-3 in those games. If they take care of business against the Western bottom feeders, they should close out the month 5-5. If they catch a better team by surprise (Portland or Dallas seem like the most likely candidates to me) they could end the calendar year at .500, putting them in good position to not only make the playoffs, but avoid Boston and Cleveland in the first round as well.
I really do not like Maggette, he has not shown enough defensibly and he is a black-hole on offense. Look at his assist numbers. yikes.
IMO he is not a winning player.
Sanders, that’s a good point. I talked to Matt Steinmetz of the SF Examiner earlier in the season and he kept on harping about that. He’s one of those players that is likely never to be on a championship team, just a stat-padder.
Oehm, we’ve beaten the Kings only once in Sacrarmento…EVER! And that was in 1997! Portland will be tough to beat on the road, Brandon Roy had a pretty bad game last time around and he’s not gong to repeat that. I’d say OKC and the Clips are the two winnable games there, winning at Golden State has also been a challenge for us, don’t remember the last time we pulled that off. I think the Nuggets home game could turn into a W, I’m counting on the team remembering the humiliation and doing something about it. I doubt Triano will let Billups and Nene get off the way they did earlier.
PapiJulio, totally agree.
Tinman, how can you say we would’ve beaten the Nets on the road with Sam when we lost to them at home? Not saying we couldn’t have but you have no basis of saying that.
Dave, one doesn’t always have to be stellar in every area of the game. We saw against Philly and Nets that getting outrebounded can be offset if other areas of your defensive game are good. I think you’re reading too much into Graham’s dip in rebounds, I’ll trade rebounds for post-up scores at the wing position any given day. I’d be more concerned if Graham’s man got offensive putbacks on him but that’s not the case, he’s guarding his position well.
Very pleased with the last two efforts from the Raptors. Triano is making a difference already.
Joey graham and Jason Kapono are the differences for this team right now, all they needed was a little burn! I still think we need a SG and we need to do something with Bargnani because he’s slowing this team down. But besides that, back to back blowouts are feeling pretty good right now!!
how good did last nights win feel in the face of the naysayers and dim witted doom and gloomers and bitchass miss cleo wannabees?….DAMN GOOD…..should we still forfeit the season?…..and wow.i guess you can teach d….this team is on the rise.
great writeup as usual arse.u rock dude.
we took our nuts back last night.
Joey’s rebounding was bugging quite a lot in the past two games. I thought there were a lot of different instances where Graham failed to go into the paint and compete for a rebound, and instead was hanging back and looking to go up the other end of the floor and play offense. His rebounding is so important to this team and his effectiveness.
The timing of the downturn is a bit odd too (the increased scoring/minutes). I was just wondering if it was bothering anyone else. It appears it hasn’t been.
There is a strange presence of silence with Khandor not here after two wins. He must be finishing up a golden statue of himself in light of his accurate analysis.
Raptors beat NO tomorrow. yup there i said it. take it for what its worth, write it down and put it in your purse or just tell me im retarded…i dont care:)
BC is in a weird position now. If we can get out of december a few games under .500. I wonder if he’d pull the trigger on Bargs or Parker. O’neal needs to get in a rhythm, alot of post players realize he goes to his right on his fadeaway all the time, making that shot really difficult.
That dunk by graham was nice. Good to see him getting consistent playing time. I was really hoping him, humphries or/and bargs would be come out and play well without smitch coaching.
Assist off the back of the boards.. had two tonight. Don’t see triano doing that.. soon as he can figure that stuff out he’ll be ok. Plus I smell like kipper. Try that on a train.
Arse-
You ask
“Tinman, how can you say we would’ve beaten the Nets on the road with Sam when we lost to them at home? Not saying we couldn’t have but you have no basis of saying that”
in response to me saying
“Victories over Indy at home and what appeared to be an unmotivated Nets on the road are baby steps in the right direction. Might well of won these games with Sam as the coach, who knows.”
I did not say we would’ve – I said we might well have. Which you seem to agree with when you state “not saying we couldn’t”
I, for one, had not given up on the Raps prior to Sam’s dismissal. They were in a slump, facing a tough schedule. Eventually, I thought, things would get back on track. They sure as hell weren’t going to lose all of their remaining games. A natural assumption to think the Raps might well win both of these games.
Arse when was the last time we beat GSW? Like one of the first games in this season? Clips are starting to pull together with Z-Bo and Davis working something out, so whereas they might have been a lock for a W before when they were in chaos, I think theyre starting to get it together. It will be harder than we think.
Dave,
re: Joey G’s decline in rebounding production
This is a function of:
1. Which teammates are on the court with him?
2. Which position is he playing? [SF or PF]
3. Who has what responsibility when a shot goes up? [either on O or D]
Calderon-Parker-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh … has been an effective combo
Calderon-Moon-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh … is becoming a solid combo and SHOULD BE their most effective if given enough chance to play together
Calderon-Kapono-Graham-Bargnani-Bosh … should also be effective
If Graham is on with Calderon-Moon-Bargnani-Bosh his individual rebounding numbers might go down … because Moon’s are going to skyrocket, as Jamario is a DOMINATING REBOUNDER when given the chance to play the #2-spot, as I’ve been suggesting now for a LONG time.
The two KEY REBOUNDERS within that specific Group-of-5 are Moon & Bosh.
Whereas Calderon-Bargnani-Graham NEED to keep their checks off the glass, Moon & Bosh then have the RESPONSIBILITY of going to GET THE BALL.
In contrast to that Group-of-5, for example, when Graham is on with Calderon-Kapono-Bargnani-Bosh it becomes much more important for Joey to be the one with Bosh whose job it is to go and GET THE BALL.
[if you want to truly understand what's happening with Graham's rebounding you will need to break down each of his possessions in this way]