The little fella’s a handful.It’s hard to say much about a game where the base requirement of any competitive arrangement isn’t there – effort. The Raptors figured the ‘away’ part of the home-and-home set is supposed to be the tougher game and since they won that, the return matchup is theirs by right. Wrong. They won in New York because they brought the effort for two and a half quarters while the Knicks did so for about one and a half. The winning recipe for Sunday was going to be a bit more complicated since the Knicks had felt the sting of being eliminated from the playoffs and wanted to return the favor by playing their brand of basketball. They did just that. Every game has a theme and for this one it was all about the Knick guards playing streetball against our disjointed backcourt who were helpless against defending the three and the drive. When you do neither and don’t have the interior defense to back it up you end up dropping a stinker on your home floor and in the process start making your summertime plans since you’re not going to be playing any post-season ball.
Obviously the loss itself isn’t bugging me much, it’s just that I hate losing to a division rival and that too at home. The defensive effort and technique was sad throughout the game and only encouraged Nate Robinson, Chris Duhon and Quentin Richardson to go one-on-one and jack up those threes that Mike D’Antoni loves them for taking. Most of the Knick offense came because the Raptors kept getting beat in individual matchups, whether it be failing to contest perimeter shots or getting beat off the dribble. A highly vulnerable perimeter defense meant constantly trying to cover for the guards in the paint which invited the Knicks to kick it out to the 19-24 foot range for open jumpers all evening long. The close-out’s were rarely there but even when they were, Chandler, Hughes, Harrington, Jeffries, Robinson and Duhon are all skilled enough players to get their offense against a slow-shifting defense.
Neither team played any defense for most of the game and the first quarter was Exhibit A of two teams playing out the string. The Raptors shot 60% and the Knicks 58% which prompted Jack Armstrong to criticize how the Knicks weren’t playing any defense but giving the Raptors a free pass. We were up 34-33 mainly because of Bosh discovering a jump-hook that we hadn’t seen all season, 15 first quarter points where he abandoned his jumper and decided to test Lee’s defensive resolve in the paint. Bargnani picked up where he left off in New York with 8 first quarter points on 3-3 shooting. If we had actually decided to play with the effort we saw in the second and third quarter on Saturday this one could’ve gotten ugly for the Knicks. Our backcourt of Parker and Calderon did not show any resistance to Duhon and Chandler, Jose kept going under the screens and got punished for it by Duhon every time. Parker’s needlessly drifting defense meant open looks for Chandler and our terrible communication on the pick ‘n roll meant points for David Lee. Again, I really want to reiterate this: nobody was playing any defense. We’ve gotten away with not playing any pick ‘n roll defense last week or so but today it came back to bite us. If you don’t communicate on it you’ll end up with two guys overplaying the ball-handler in the paint and leaving everything exposed. That’s what happened on every third Knick possession.
Jose got hit in the nose and had to sit out close to an 8 minute stretch between the first and second quarter in which a two point Raptors lead had turned into a 7-point deficit. For the second game in a row Roko was exploited by Robinson as the second quarter began on a 12-4 Knick run. His offense was passable, he had a couple solid drives and recognized open shooters but he couldn’t stay with Robinson and it hurt us since it got our defense completely out of position. I don’t want to make it sound like Roko’s the man to blame, nobody, especially Parker and Calderon, could be bothered to play any defense. Bargnani was losing track of Jared Jeffries on the boards and in transition and Bosh’s help on the driving point-guard was two-minded thus ineffective. He doesn’t commit to contesting the drive and is often trailing the play which basically means not doing anything to help your beaten guard. The Knicks had proven that they could make the outside shot and we should’ve forced them to do something different, maybe channel them to drive against the baseline and have Bosh/Bargnani there, or even some trapping so they don’t casually walk into one-on-one situations which we can’t defend, or perhaps just a better effort in trying to contain your man.
The Knicks made four threes in the second quarter which is how many they made all of Saturday. Bosh only had 4 points in the quarter, Bargnani was held scoreless and other than a couple Calderon drives using the high-screen, our offense was all jumpers and turnovers. The Knicks won the quarter 32-20 and took an 11 point lead into the half. The message at halftime should’ve been very simple: Increase the defensive effort, communicate on defense and take away the three from the Knicks. I was hoping they’d respond in the same manner as they had the day before but it wasn’t to be.
More of the same followed in the third quarter and like on Saturday, Triano resorted to Quincy Douby to provide the spark. Any time an NBA unit has to rely on a guy named Quincy to deliver you know it’s not a good situation. Douby, to his credit, did all the little things right and played better defense on Duhon than Ukic or Calderon. His only faux pas was looking off Bosh who had successfully fought for position in favor of shooting a three. Every Knick possession could be described as drive, kick, ball-fake, drive and pull-up which is way too many things for any defense, let alone the Raptors’, to counter. I’d like to fast-forward if you will to the 4:28 mark when Quentin Richardson came in to be checked by Joey Graham in a 12 point game. We needed to end the quarter strong so we would have a manageable deficit entering the fourth. Instead Joey got outright schooled by Richardson. He scored 10 points on him – two threes where Joey wasn’t in the same zip code, a driving layup caused by Joey’s defensive stance and footwork being wrong as per Basketball 101 and an uncontested pull-up jumper. The lead going into the fourth was 16.
The Raptors tend to forget what’s worked well for them and start deviating from their strengths, call it coaching or call it mental lapses, personally I don’t even care at this point. The Knicks weren’t playing any defense, all we needed to do was go to Bosh in the post against Lee, run some pick ‘n rolls and get Bargnani-on-small situations, have Jose use the high pick against Duhon and go from there. Nothing fancy, just simple ball. The Knicks got a great lift from their bench which outscored ours 41-14, as mentioned Richardson burned us in the third and Robinson in the second which were the two quarters the Knicks won. We called on Kapono off the bench and the best thing he gave us was an education of how not to throw an entry-pass – his second quarter attempt at an entry-pass to Bosh sailed out of bounds and I swear I heard Jack Armstrong mutter, “Whaaadaaafaaaak”.
Compare the Knick three-point shooters to ours: Robinson, Chandler, Duhon, Harrington to Parker, Kapono and Jose. The difference is that their guys can create their threes in one-on-one or screen situations whereas our guys need to be spoon-fed. They were 13-25 and we were 4-13, need I really say more about this game?
Anyway, the fourth quarter came and as every home team does, we made a run. A nice boost by Roko where he drove against Robinson on two straight possessions, once for a three-point play and then to set up Bosh cut the lead to 7. Douby then peeled off of Richardson just like Graham had and got burned for a three. Bosh and Bargnani weren’t heard from in the fourth, Bosh was 2-5 and Bargnani only 1-4, they both needed to do a much better job of getting position and demanding the ball, you can’t always rely on the PG finding you, sometimes you have to find the PG. I suppose watching the big guns struggle motivated Marion to finally assert himself and his active hands forced a couple turnovers which led to his first three as a Raptor cutting the lead to seven. Unfortunately his check, Al Harrington, countered him point-for-point and them some. Anthony Parker missed a massive potentially momentum-shifting three at 99-91 which would’ve cut the lead to five and injected some life into an otherwise dead crowd. On the next play Jose missed a chance to convert on the break and turned the ball over, two little plays that could’ve made a big difference. The backdrop to this entire quarter was of course the Knicks encountering zero-resistance in their one-on-one play, especially against our guards. Late on Anthony Parker was fouled on a three-pointer 110-100 with 28 seconds left and wouldn’t you know it, he drained all three pressure-free FTs. So Anthony.
Liners:
- If I had a nickel for every time Jose didn’t make the right pass on our pick ‘n rolls…..
- This loss is just as meaningless as the six wins.
- The Knicks are half a game “ahead” of us for the 8th pick.
- How many times have we seen a player have a great first quarter (Bosh with 15) and not have the same impact at any point later in the game?
- Everyone was equally terrible but Jose’s defense against Duhon and Joey’s against Richardson were the ones that hurt the most.
- The Knicks didn’t play any defense either, we just played much worse defense than the Knicks.
- People say this Raptor team has finally found itself and if Jose hadn’t gotten injured everything would’ve been fine, who’s responsibility is it to have a backup plan for a player getting injured>
- Jared Jeffries was non-existent on Saturday but gave Bargnani a taste on Sunday: 14, 4, 4 on 5-10.
- The +/- stat is often misleading but sometimes it indicates player-impact, Nate Robinson’s +12 and Jeffries’ +11 are examples of that. They increased the tempo on us and we just weren’t interested in countering them.
- Kinda happy that we’re finally eliminated, time to shut down Bosh, Jose, Marion and recall Jawai? Starting lineup for Wednesday should be: Ukic, Douby, Jawai, Pops and Graham.
- Jack Nies is such a bitch.
Those of you had bought season tickets hoping to get first-shot at the playoff ones, sorry.
25 Raps
nice post. Even a game that has no impact deserves to be analyzed and broken down, especially by someone as astute as you. We need to build a better team over the next couple of seasons, and how we play now, how we respond to win streaks, how long we can sustain them etc. needs to be part of the calculations BC will be making.
I think this game exposed one of the glaring needs of this team, which is to have a solid bench. We can’t play our starters 41 mins per night, on back to backs and hope to win.
BC has his work cut out for him. I have earlier stated in the roll call what I think he needs to do.
Thanks once again for the write up…
Throwing in TuPac,to see what he can do,I dont know about you guys but I’ve seen enough.
During this winning streak the armchair coaches have been pretty quiet,including myself!!!!
One thing that I will mention is that our coaching staff is either blind or has blinders on.
Why is it that we(Arse) can see some alternatives to our defensive strategies or lack of,and nobody else can.
My suggestion,and I know it will be greeted with some aggresive discussion.
Eliminate all assistant coaches,including our pouting hall of famer,keep Jay as a first assistant to Messina,and also bring in Avoroni (spelling).
I hear that bringing in Messina might not be possible due to National team commitments….if there is a will there is a way !!!
how much can we steal from the bulls by gifting them our precious franchise (HA) player? a Bargnani-Marion-Deng frontline would be play-off good?
Not as good as An Allstar (Bosh) Soon To Be Allstar (Braganani) and a former Al star (Marion). The problem with this team is not its frontcourt its our depth. All we need is a 2 gaurd that can create of the dribble.
And a SF who can lockdown on the perimeter and rebound. That might be Marion.
Well, so much for that, or as you said Arsenalist, back to reality. A long-time bud of mine who lives out of town and generally seems to make his rent wagering via some off-shore site or other, called me yesterday afternoon to say that he was liking the Raps, giving up five or so points. As I’ve learned to resist offering comments on whatever leanings he might have when it comes to the Raptors, I stayed silent … but this time, he pressed. I told him ‘ya ya, they might be good for that’, still trying to stay out of it … but he wanted more, while promising he wouldn’t hold me to it. (We have history I won’t go into … but I’ve found gamblers can get weird.) So, I gently suggested that if it were my money, I might consider how the Knicks were feeling after being officially eliminated from the playoffs the day before … and that maybe, we’d see them come out with a combination of ‘loosey-goosey’ and also thinking it’d be extra fun for them to get a bit of their own payback on the Raps in THEIR building … and that I wouldn’t be all that surprised if we saw the Knicks hitting some of those shots that weren’t going in so easy, the day before. He said, “so you expect a high scoring game”, a statement more than a question. I told him I didn’t ‘expect’ anything necessarily (I’ve learned to be careful with this dude when it comes to his wagers … but he is a friend) … but that ‘possibly yes’ and repeated that it wouldn’t surprise me if the Knicks found a bit of their offensive groove.
Woke up this morning to a (somewhat) terse email from him that he sent last night, telling me that for once, I’d called it right on the Raptors. I won’t bother pointing out to him that I didn’t call anything and that I really thought the Raps would win regardless of what I’d said. But I got the impression that he gave the points.
Thanks for sharing. I don’t have any friends who are sports gambling addict, but I’ve been around enough drug addicts.
(I’m trying to come up with a joke to compare drug addicts to gambling addicts, but I don’t have a “sure bet” that’ll “guarantee” a LOL).
So the season is now “officially unofficially officially” over!
I’m torn between shutting down our starters and continuing to play spoilers. If I was a casual fan and had game tickets (I actually gave away a pair to Tuesday’s game to my sister as a raffle gift at her stag party on Sat), I’d be pissed if I didn’t see Bosh & Co.
You don’t “shut down” healthy players who are paid millions of dollars to play basketball for people who pay (hundreds or thousands of dollars) to watch them just because they didn’t make the playoffs, you idiot….
You think they’re going to play Jawai and Voskuhl for 48 minutes??
Teams tank, just ask Doc Rivers.
Based on your use of the English vocabulary, I believe YOU are the idiot. Learn how to voice your opinion in an educated manner, and people will actually appreciate what you have to say. As you can see by his post, he said he was torn, hence, was not sure. You really need to try and understand what people are saying before you start dropping insults.
In the words of Bob Marley, “One Love”
Nunya, now your are a fucking idiot! Douche bag! I must admit you do seem good at what you do, check out cocksmoker.com to see nunya smoke some cock! Heyo
This just a theory:
BC sits down with Triano today and tells him we’re out of the playoffs. BC then tells Triano who he’d like to keep around and who is most likely leaving. Therefore, Triano will not be playing these bodies intensively since they aren’t returning. We’ll just have to wait and see if this is remotely true.
Wrong….management sits down with the coaching staff !!!and see, who do we keep or not.
Actually who sits with management ?
Dear Raptorsrepublic.com Admins,
PLEASE, I beg you to consider posting a “Public Service Announcement” to educate everyone on the realistic cap scenarios and available exceptions. Everyone knows that the NBA soft cap is confusing but we’re all rambling about FA spending that is WAY beyond realistic based on our cap situation this offseason.
Some things to be included –
1)Bird Rights – “This exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own unrestricted free agents, up to the player’s maximum salary. The player must have played for three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent” Bird rights stay with a contract through a trade. Also effects yearly increase rate (10.5% versus 8.0%).
Bird Rights apply to Shawn Marion and Anthony Parker as long as we have a “cap hold” (Not sure of the exact hold amount for Bird rights – restricted FA cap hold/qualifying offer is 125% of previous salary) – we can rescind bird rights and have the cap hold lifted.
2)Restricted Free Agents – Same as Bird Agents but the qualifying offer/cap hold is is 125% of previous salary or or the minimum salary plus $150,000 (whichever is higher). RFA’s are generally either 1st round picks or they are players with no more than 3 years NBA experience. We have the right for first refusal and considering the expected economic decline RFA’s are likely to get minimal interest in the offseason.
Our RFA’s are Joey Graham, Carlos Delfino, Pops Mensah Bonsu and possibly Quincy Douby (If we sign him for the remainder of the season).
Team Option – the only team option for the Raptors is on Patrick O’Bryant. It is quite simple – only a portion of his contract is guarenteed for next year (about $500,000 from what I’ve heard) and that amount would be on our salary cap if we waive him before Dec 15th (to my knowledge).
Draft Picks and minimum contracts – Drafted players salaries (to scale) and minimum salaries are always an exception to the soft cap. We can buy or trade for draft picks anytime up to and including draft night.
The other major thing to include in this is the obvious (yet often forgot) difference between the soft cap and the hard cap. The soft cap is the true cap – it can only be exceeded by exceptions and RFA and Bird right signings. Also we do NOT have any exceptions since we are starting the offseason below the cap! The soft cap is expected to drop a bit to about 57 million and the luxury tax level is expected to be about 69 million.
This whole equation means that we can either renounce the rights to some of our bird right UFAs and RFAs and have about 7 mill under the soft cap to spend on UFAs (according to Dave’s calculations) and lose the ability to use any Midlevel or Bi-annnual exceptions…
Or we can resign the majority of our own free agents and exceed the soft cap by re-signing our own FAs as well as using the mid-level and Bi-annual exceptions.
Well they have no rights to Marion or AP so they cant renounce them, but
Joey’s Qualifying offer and declinging O’Bryant’s option would be a difference of 4.5 million or so. Even after doing this they would only have 12-14 million to outright spend on a Ben Gordon/Ariza/Hedo etc to fill the wing spots. Once they spend their way back to the cap they only have minimum contracts, Draft Picks, and the right to sign restricted free agents that they own rights to (most notably Delfino) and would not have the mid-level or bi-annual exceptions since they started the offseason below the cap. Either way its going to take some crafty moves and alot of money thrown at late 1st/early 2nd round draft picks to make anything more than a fringe playoff team next year (again)…
Feel free to add or correct me on any of these points.
Ignore the last paragraph – It was a copied post I forgot to remove
“Well they have no rights to Marion or AP…. anything more than a fringe playoff team next year (again)…
Edgar (or anyone else who knows such things/is more committed than me to looking them up),
There is a cap hold for Marion (and AP, Joey, Delfino, Pops and maybe Douby). Even though Marion was obtained this year (in the last year of his contract), he counts against the Raptors’ cap figure unless he (or any other FA/RFA) is renounced, correct? i.e., renouncing everyone gets the Raptors about $7 mil in (soft) cap space but denies them the $5.5 mil the mid-level figures to be, correct? Factor in the bi-annual exception and you have $7 mil. so renouncing may get the team nothing but heartache.
So it would be lunacy to renounce Marion (and probably AP) since that would give the Raptors a whopping $1.5 mil. more than the mid-level, correct?
So Marion is at least a sign-and-trade in the off-season, no?
You are 100% correct my friend except not all UFA’s have Full bird rights attached (but most major UFA’s do)-
“The player must have played for three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent”
Also their are also different levels of bird rights (even though it doesnt affect our offseason)
Full bird rights (3 seasons)- re-sign up to maximum contract
Early bird rights (2 seasons)- re-sign up to 175% of prior salary or mid-level (whichever is greater)
No bird rights (1 or less season)- re-sign up to 120% of previous salary or 120% of the league’s minimum salary
So it seems to me that unless Ariza just plain wants out of LA or Childress is willing to return to the NBA for a discount, the Raptors shouldn’t think twice about resigning Marion, even for (a bit) more than his market value (since it will make him happy) because, that actually gets them more value than going into the free agent market by staying under the soft cap.
2 years at $9-10 mil. or 3-4 years at $8 mil. strikes me as about right, and makes Banks and Kapono mildly more palatable.
But who can the Raptors get for the mid-level? (And there’s no way Iverson works on any version of this team people)
Though a Marion-for-Ariza sign-and-trade might (emphasize might) make sense for both the Lakers and Raptors.
I believe this is how Bryan Colangelo views the situation — and it’s certainly true if the goal is to win as many games as possible next season.
However, my views on the situation are — Short term gain, long term pain — I think locking up Marion and some combination of Parker, Graham, Delfino, plus the possibility of using the MLE …. I think that kills the Raptors cap flexibility for the next couple of years, and as a consequence, I expect it’ll create long term mediocrity.
Two Notes
First Note — The cap holds on a player finishing the fourth year of a rookie scale contract.
A player earning less than the league average salary will have a cap hold of 300% of his previous season’s pay (Joey Graham + Carlos Delfino). A player earning more than the league average salary ($5.5mil) will have a cap hold of 250% of his previous season’s pay (Bargnani in 2010).
The cap holds for these type of players is a different figure than the qualifying offer. The cap hold figure is only relevant until they sign a contract with the Raptors or some other team.
For example, Joey Graham’s cap hold is a little less than $7.5mil.
Second Note
Just in case anyone was wondering where that $7mil figure for cap space came from — When I was working out the Raptors salaries for next season I counted $50 million on the books. That includes the Raptors current salaries, the lottery pick (#8 pick), and a cap charge for open roster spots.
So, the Raptors have $7mil cap space if the cap is $57mil (figure in league memo at trading deadline) — or somewhere in that ball park depending on wherever the cap ends up this summer.
Dave’s the resident cap expert, he wrote a blog about it a while back. Maybe we should link to it permanently.
LOVING THE TITLE
Wow. I just noticed ‘Rap of the Day’. Is there a prize?
Nunyaed maybe?