First one to spot the defense wins a date with Galen WestonThe NBA’s a game of matchups. If you can consistently exploit them you’ll come out on top, if you get exploited, then you’ll suffer. We’ve been doing a lot of the latter this season but tonight was one of those extremely rare nights, you know, like when the sun aligns with Jupiter, Mercury is eclipsing Venus and the third moon of Saturn is straddling Neptune. In other words, our best player had the rare pleasure of going up against two rookies that were about as outmatched as Jamario Moon when watching Hamlet. Marc Gasol’s a nice physical player that runs hard but he has a long way to go before he can defend anyone with the lateral quickness of Chris Bosh. When he was matched up with Bosh today, either straight-up or through persistent switching initiated by the Raptors, Iavaroni had decided to concede the jumper rather than encourage Bosh to drive. Smart strategy on most nights but Bosh had his jumper working from the get-go and went a ridiculous 11-13 on the night. Facing rookies is fun. Memphis’ plan wasn’t to all-out double and they tried to only send a man when Bosh put it on the floor which he rarely did and who can blame him, when the jumper’s working that well there’s no reason to do anything else.
The Grizzlies did stick around for the first half by going to Rudy Gay who scored 14 of his 22 in the half as neither Jamario Moon or Anthony Parker had any answer for him. A couple of his drives were exquisite sweeping moves finished off with the off-hand against a challenging defense. The first half was a saddening display of basketball by the Raptors, they lacked energy on offense and went through the motions half-heartedly. We got off to our usual hot start and built an 18-5 lead through jumpers but that got us hooked on the outside shot. The inside game was non-existent, Bosh could be excused because of his hot shooting but Parker, Moon, Solomon and Bargnani were strictly perimeter as the Raptors attempted only 5 first half shots inside the paint. There weren’t any hard cuts to the basket by Graham or Bargnani, Kyle Lowry’s defense wasn’t being tested and we were playing down to the level of the opposition. The only one being assertive was Bosh since rookies Darrell Arthur and Marc Gasol were just too tempting not to abuse. Despite being up only three at the half, you still got the feeling that no matter what Mayo, Gasol and Gay were doing all the Raptors needed to do was shift the intensity to the next notch and the game would be ours.
The crowd didn’t care to wait that long, they let out a smattering of boos after Memphis came back to take the lead in the second quarter, I thought it was a bit early. I’m all for booing overpaid, underperforming athletes but this was the second quarter and we only had an 8 minute stretch of bad play. It’s not like the team tanked two quarters like they did against Dallas, we’ve been playing better in 2009 and the team’s shown some heart and determination in rebounding from their disastrous December. So what if we blew a 13 point lead and were suddenly down 1, that’s where you’re supposed to rally your team and not get on their ass for missing a couple shots. If this would’ve happened in December it might’ve been okay to lash out but not last night.
47-44 at halftime and the instructions were pretty obvious. A three point lead at home isn’t good enough, pick up the effort against a team that’s 14 games under. 500 and has lost 10 of their last 12. The simple message was received and Bargnani was the difference maker. With the game tied midway through the fourth the Raptors ran two pick ‘n rolls, one with Parker/Bargnani and the other with Solomon/Bargnani and on both plays the Memphis defense was terribly late in rotating back to Bargnani who knocked down two huge threes to open up a 6 point gap. Mayo (sore ribs) and Rudy tried to respond with threes but both went cold after those two Bargnani threes leaving Memphis without any legitimate scoring threat. Rudy only scored 2 points from that point on and Mayo only had 1 field goal. After that the lead went to 8 and then to 10, 14 and then it became silly. There’s not much analyzing to do here, Memphis is a young team that’s prone to being rattled and they got rattled as soon as the Raptors showed some intent in the third quarter. They needed a massive game from one of their young guns to keep pace and Rudy Gay looked like he was going to provide the punch early but he faded as the second half went along. Game over. Triano pointed Jamario Moon on the back:
In the second quarter Rudy Gay got it going and at the beginning of the third quarter … Jamario did a real nice job stepping up. When they took Gay out at the start of the fourth, that’s when Jamario got his rest. I thought he did a real good individual effort on him which you had to do.
Bosh had a nice game but it was against the two rookies, his stare-down into the camera at the end was perhaps the stupidest moment of the season. Let him come up big against Kevin Garnett in the next two games and then pull that kind of nonsense, I’ll even PVR it and play it back over and over again. Stupid. On that same note, we need to drop that Killer B’s nonsense right this moment, in fact, that’s the last time I’ll ever mention it in fear of encouraging it’s use. Hopefully Devlin and Co. can do the same. Bargnani. A solid offensive night against a team that lacks experience and doesn’t have an answer for his perimeter game, especially when they’re lazy in rotating. His confidence is somewhere between the stratosphere and the mesosphere which mean the jump shoot is flying in. He took every open shot he had and even got a friendly roll from the rim, and as we know that only happens to deserving folk. Perhaps the most telling of his threes was the one he took in transition in the fourth quarter, anyone who takes that shot is sure of himself and right now he’s playing with a plan in his mind which is completely different than how he was playing in 2008. He even took advantage of the couple post-up situations he had against Mayo by drawing the foul on one and dunking on the other. If 21 points on 8-14 shooting wasn’t good enough he threw in 8 rebounds and they weren’t Jamario Moon rebounds either, I remember a few contested ones where his feet needed to leave the ground. Chris Bosh dropped some simple but correct analysis:
We know one thing: Andrea will shoot it when he’s open. He made good shots, the defense didn’t rotate fast enough and he made them pay for it.
The Raptors are the second-worst rebounding team in the NBA, who’s the worst? Yup, the Grizzlies, so it’s no surprise that we won the boards 38-33 and the second-chance points 14-7. Our Achilles heel this season has been either rebounding or dribble-penetration and since rebounding got taken care of, the only thing left on the checklist was dribble penetration and once again we got to give credit to Will Solomon (4-8, 9 assists) for playing some good defense on Kyle Lowry and not allowing him to break us down and leave us scrambling. He did well against James in Washington and again tonight. Will’s grown on me the last few games and even though his ridiculous new haircut begs me to mock him further, his recent controlled play says otherwise. You can almost hear him thinking to himself while on the court: Don’t do something stupid, don’t do something stupid, no, no, no!! Don’t take this shot..pass it off..pass it off…eaasy..eaasy…aaaaah. I called up the Fan 590 again and dished out some praise for Will’s defense and pointed out how it’s better than Calderon’s as he’s not allowing penetration at the point-of-attack. Paul Jones became an apologist for Jose Calderon and gave me a lecture on how it’s really hard to contain dribble penetration and how only Rondo, Artest and a select few can do it. He never touched on Will’s play. Meh.
Parker came back down to earth with three points but that’s OK because he didn’t let his man have a career night, Mayo was 4-14 and Parker was his main checker. Up next for him is Ray Allen who’s going to be slightly tougher and more angrier as the Celtics continued their losing ways in Cleveland. A word on Mayo, Kevin McHale must be feeling like an idiot for letting this guy go, he had a couple of crossovers in this game which left Parker and Bargnani looking very ordinary. There’s talent on this Grizzlies team and if I’m a Memphis fan I’m thoroughly enjoying their exploits and growing pains. Memphis’ youth makes me a little jealous. Most well managed NBA teams are either contenders, on the cusp of contention or in the rebuilding phase, the Raptors are in none of those categories. We’re definitely not contenders, we don’t have the playoff history to say that we’re on the cusp of anything and we don’t have any certified young talent to develop.
Calderon tried to give it a go before the game but failed a fitness test and Jermaine O’Neal remains sidelined with a knee-flu which has shattered the surgically repaired part into a thousand pieces and they’re just not telling us. It’s a conspiracy. It’ll happen sooner or later and O’Neal will return and at that point asking Bargnani to go back to the bench would be ridiculous because we’ve finally managed to get this guy off his schnide and doing anything that might disrupt his flow would not be smart. Now, that leaves us with two options. Either we we bench O’Neal or shift Bargnani back to the SF, we know how well that worked out. Problem is that Jermaine O’Neal doesn’t strike me as a chap who’s willing to come off the bench, call it pride, ego, vanity or simply stupidity but he won’t. Maybe (and I’m speculating here) there’s even been discussion between him and Triano/Colangelo about his possible new role and he’s politely declined the offer and the club is trying to move him to avoid awkwardness. I mean, six games for a knee-brush? Either he’s made of glass or they’re not telling us something.
Here’s something new we might do every game:
Best 5-man unit: Bosh, Parker, Moon, Bargnani, Solomon. +7 to start the game
Worst 5-man unit: Kapono, Ukic Voskhuhl, Bosh, Moon. -3 to end the first quater.
Stat of the Game: Raptors shoot a season-high 55.6%
Some randomness: Last night Indiana took the Lakers down to the wire and down three with three seconds left had a complete malfunction where they couldn’t even get a shot off. That’s not the bad part, the sixth foul called on Danny Granger with less than a minute left had to be the weakest call an NBA official has made this year and it basically decided the outcome of the game since Granger wasn’t even there to attempt the final shot. I would’ve loved to see Granger pull a repeat of his Phoenix performance in LA but the official completely and unnecessarily ruined the drama. Sad.
The next two games will tell more about this team than what the last three have. Raps Fan was pinch-hitting for AltRaps in a Roll Call with an entirely new element.
36 Raps
great game, i really like this memphis team though.
Oh and i think you mean Kyle Lowry
Thanks man. Early morning posts do have side-effects.
Great site guys, keep up the good work.
One thing though, when I click on stats for the 08/09 raps they are all blank. Can anyone tell me when or if they will be available?
Cheers.
Soon man, soon. They keep bloody changing. All the previous 13 seasons are there though :)
…splitting against boston would suffice.taking 2 i’ll bust my load,losing 2 could be crushing….also,if it aint broke why break it?theres a good synergy right now with the boys and injecting jose may throw that shit off.should we go with the hot team and inject jose after these 2?because afterall,this 2 game set against boston is probably the defining moment of season.
Andrea’s recent play is giving me an erection that is lasting more than four hours.
Don’t blow your load yet, we have to see what he does for this home-and-home against the DICKS from New England.
How many decent games does Bargs have to have to get some love…I’m guilty,I threw him under the bus a while back,but lets give credit when credit is due.
Is there a glaring need for a strong wing player ? fuck ya !!!
I hate to say it,but Khandor makes sense,re. JO.
I’m sorry,I like JO,I even have his jersey…but where the fuck is he,show your face,show some support for your boys.Maybe Jawai could lend him some heart…speaking of Jawai ,buy a suit you cheap fuck.
I’ll take the win,I actually was thinking for a second,Thunder,now the Griz,suicide watch !!!
Two clips that all Raps players and fans MUST watch prior to tomorrow afternoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3Xl3dtI5F0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arh5bmAsWb0
d279 – have a look at VL’s game-to-game stats from last season. it’s not like he hasn’t had stretches before where he’s played well, only to revert to shitty form. at least this year he’s bringing the D & rebounding somewhat. he really can’t be described as one-dimensional anymore, which is probably the most satisfying thing. i mean, he got out & blocked a 3-pt attempt last night! might not seem like much, but he rotated at the right time, was decisive in his movement, closed out with perfect timing, and avoided fouling. unheard of until recently.
I was at the game last night and the crowd (myself included) wasn’t booing the team; we were booing Solomon for missing two straight open jumpers and then blowing the defensive assignment. Man I hate that guy.
ive opened up my relationship to IL MAGO. my girlfriend could fluff him before each game if it meant 21 and 8 every time.
i agree with adiamo. we should let jose sit out the next one. there’s something about the way that we’re plaaying that teams cant prepare for. i love jose but i also loving this fast moving offense where no one dominates the ball.
offers on the table bargs she’ll prep you…
The team should be running those youtube clips on the score board prior to the game…
You sure can write, Arsenalist. Been enjoying your take on things, lately.
Laughed OUT LOUD at the Jamario Moon watching Hamlet line.
I LIKED the stare-down into the camera at the end of the game. Thought it was fun and kinda cool.
Hate the VL (vegetable lasagna) crap.
Go Raps!
“In other words, our best player had the rare pleasure of going up against two rookies that were about as outmatched as Jamario Moon when watching Hamlet”
Nice one Arse!
Nice win. If we can split this back to back with Beantown i’ll be thrilled. I’d like to see JO come of the bench with Jake the Snake for some added toughness. I stll believe a 3 man rotation with Bargs, Bosh, and O’Neal can work. Screw trading Jermaine for Tmac or Marion. Tmac is DONE and Marion is a nutjob who’ll want more touches than Bosh and Bargs combined. That said I’m open to trading JO just not for those two.
WHERE did anyone reccommend trading for marion or TMAC? Why would houston want another c already have yao, and scola? Marion is just a bad player, he was just a good fit for the ssol. The best strategy is to wait it out and deal oneal to a team wanting to be under the cap at next year’s deadline.
I think that we should try this as an experiment for the first couple of games back:
Solomon starts and Jose comes off the bench. This is NOT to send Calderon a message, but to give him time to get his game legs back, and start to pick up some lateral movement when playing D. If he could only side step a little faster, I think his D would be very passable. I honestly, really do believe that his hammy has bothered him all season, and this could be the reason for some of his tentative play. As soon as he picked it up a notch, he reinjured it. So, limiting his minutes, I think is a good idea.
I agree with that. Doubt it’ll happen with the big deal most make about ‘who starts’, but the idea’s a good one. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, when the report came out of the Olympics saying that Jose had hurt his hamstring, who thought ‘aww, fer fcks sake!’ … cuz we all know how much of a nagging, pain-in-the-butt (no pun) injury that often turns out to be … but, when he comes back, if AT ALL possible, it should be slow and steady (tho I don’t know if that’s doable). It never really healed properly (as you mentioned and could be seen) so, if they could, let Will and Roko share the load enough for Jose to be as good as he can this year, for the last quarter or so of the season … and (if things go well) the playoffs.
Killer B’s is as stupid if not less than VL.
Raps need to jump on the Celtics early as they have been doing in the last 5 games. I want to see a Voskuhl smackdown of KG.
ppl, ppl, ppl, VL is flame that is lighting Bargnani’s ass so he cannot be called that if he performs well like last night…
I don’t think its a question anymore. O’Neal should come off the bench. And most definately will. Sincerely hope he buys into it and actually think he will adapt. I cannot explain why it hasn’t worked with him. He has been playing good ball, giving us the inside presence and rebounding as advertised. Rarely as the chemistry been there. It appears Khandor will be proven correct if Jay does indeed keep Bargnani in the starting lineup and this team continues to play better ball.
Triano is coaching for his future and will not screw around. The other day in an interview he danced around the question of Bargnani starting over JO. To me thats as good as saying yes Bargnani will start. Why not come out clearly and support the injured starter? Fact is this is probably the best chemistry Bosh and Bargnani have shown. Is that not the key to the Raptors future success?
Bargnani is finally playing to his potential and playing with more confidence than ever.(knock freaken wood) His defence has improved vastly and even the refs seem to be giving him more of the benefit of the doubt. There is no way the Raps dick around with his role now.
This is not an anti JO rant. I think he has played really well in his time here. I love his toughness, inside presence and even his offence. Don’t forget prior to his recent injury he was dropping 20 a game. BUT, we weren’t winning. We were actually losing pretty ugly.
While on the subject of JO, I cannot understand his absence at the game. Will assume it is explanable and won’t delve into conspiracies.
Voshkul,in his brief time here, has deservedly earned a spot in the game rotation. As popular as Humphries is, Voshkul’s contribution is more valuable than Hump’s. Triano must find a way to keep his minutes while he continues to contribute.
Can’t think of a better time to meet the defending champ Celtics. They are reeling and boy does it look good on them. Can we out tough them? Push them around? A really good test at a really good time.
Am hoping for a split but if we win first in Beantown, would not a sweep be sweet? Turn the corner for this team? Get us back in the playoff picture?
Here’s hoping Jose is healthy, the drop off between him and Will is to great.
if jose is back, i still would like to see him off the bench. i know he could handle it mentally, and i think starting would help solomon keep his confidence when jose returns, so he doesn’t revert to old solomon right away.
Hold up there! Did I actually just hear that Kill Will should be starting over Jose??? I have now heard it all. Do not get fooled by the Raps recent run of success against a bunch of shitty teams. The Raptors are a superior squad with Jose running the show.
I guess I can see some wanting to ease Jose back into the lineup … But I think once Jose is back, he is back. Solo-man should and will immediately go back to the backup role.
Solomon is allowing the BB to function properly. Caldy will either hinder or facilitate, but if he can’t D, it won’t matter in the long run. It’s all about the BB now. The stage is set.
Hey arse, I just heard you on the Fan590 recap. Loved the energy level, please do podcast versions of your articles so we can enjoy the rants :D :D :D
Ha..Jones never answered my question. I pointed out Mark Jackson’s comments about Jose Calderon and he started to rip Mark Jackson…WTF?
wsg – just to clarify, and this has been pointed out before, jose hurt his groing during the olympics. the hamstring is a reoccurence of an injury from earlier this year.
Oh. So, no way at all that they’re related? (I don’t know. It always sort of feels like the same area, to me.)
Wooaaahhh! Let’s not go nuts, Solomon starting?? Can’t have the prize summer signing who you gave a big deal to come off the bench, what does that say about his quality? We may give it the label of “recuperating from injury” but fact is he’d be getting benched because he can’t play D.
Will’s done a decent enough job but the guy folds under ball-pressure and in late-game situations I’d always have Calderon in there over Will. On offense, Will’s done nothing spectacular, he’s just not done anything stupid and the standards for measuring his performance are so low that mediocre play is starting to look good. Defensively, he no doubt digs in better than Calderon but that can’t be THE reason for him to start, you have to stick with your man through thick and thin if for nothing else than to keep up appearances.
I hear the “let’s not disrupt the way the team is playing” argument but you can’t convert that to a Jose benching, all we can hope for is Jose’s learned something by watching Will on the defensive end and that Triano’s gained a better idea of how to use the players at his disposal.
From Charley Rosen’s blog:
“The latest rumor out of Philadelphia is that Samuel Dalembert is about to be traded to a semi-pro team in Canada.”
http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/9050788/LeBron-better-than-Boston%27s-Big-3?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=73
Fox sucks.
Semi Pro?
I was going to comment but didn’t want sign up for an account.
whoa whoa. When I said I wanted Jose to come in off the bench, I tried to make it clear it WAS NOT about making a statement to Jose. I just want him to get his game legs back, and not reinjure that hamstring. In time he will take the starting role again – I am under no delusions that Solomon is a starting calibre point for the whole season. This is not like when TJ went down, and he lost his spot to Jose: there is no sign that Solomon is capable of starting PG duties for the whole season as was the case with Jose last year. I think maybe Jose is a little too eager to see his minutes back on the floor, and this could be detrimental to him and the team right now.
What I am saying is that coming off the bench for a few games at most, would allow him to get back up to the speed that the Raps are playing now, and get familiar with the low-post plays that are being run. Furthermore, it will help along his lateral movement, which seems to me to have been suffering all year. It is my firm belief that Calderon has had limited lateral movement due to injuries that have not actually healed. He was never a defensive ace (ala Moon lol) but in the past I have certainly seen him sidestep with opponents.
This has everything to do with Calderon not reinjuring his hammy, and nothing to do with lack of confidence in him. I believe that the team can run, in the interim of course, with him playing in a limited capacity, as long as we continue to see production from Il Mago and CB4. I want him to take a page out of HO’s book: if you hamstring even feels funny in the slightest, just sit’er down.
I’m enjoying the Andrea Bargnani era but let’s not start sucking each other’s dicks just yet over it. If he figures out a way to perform in a few games where his shot is not falling like it is right now then I wanna drive the bandwagon. Until then, enjoy
But if he dunks on KG like he dunked on Mayo . . .
Lets see how they do vs Boston, anything but 2 losses is good, Celtics gonna come out hard, lost crazy games in a row.
No better time to win than tomorrow tho.
And then …practice golf swings.
Can people really be serious about winning one of these games, and at the same time say Solomon can’t start long term? Or is it because Solomon has dug a hole for himself which takes time to reverse as in Bargs. Solomon is better D, better passing, and now playibg under control as in fewer turnovers than before are you even watching the games?