The ’shouldn’t we be beating teams like these’ edition.
Banks – as badly as we played, he is in midseason form: DNP-CD.
Bargnani - played well, not great. His long range game was off, but he looked like he was trying to concentrate on his spot on the floor a bit too much. But, better now than later. Highlight of the night for him was a trailing three and a buzzer beater at the end of the 1st.
Belinelli - at times you would need a spotlight to find him, but that’s his game. Took some guys off the dribble, flashed to the basket, looked for his teammates. This was an Anthony Parker performance if ever there was one.
Bosh - his first back-to-back, and it showed. Got to the line, but his shots from the field were off. He was getting beat by guys he should have owned and he didn’t talk almost the entire game. Not good.
Calderon - 3ast and 8pt from your starting PG who, six games into the preseason, should be starting to get into rhythm. Jose has about as much rhythm and balance right now as a 600lb unicycle rider.
DeRozan – 21 minutes that may have showed you the type of player he is: a mediocre rookie. No highflying, no defending to make you stand up and take notice, and he has yet to gain any respect from anybody that matters. Still, it’s preseason and as long as he learns from these challenges, he’ll be fine.
Douby - going to bed tonight wondering how he should spend his (not so) well earned money.
Evans - faker.
Jack – aggressive, a talker, great job getting in his players ear…you know, kinda like a point guard. Not a great performance shooting the ball, but creating and finding his teammates gave him 9 asts in 27min. He needs to rely even more on his drive and kicks…oh and watch the turnovers.
Johnson – fantastic hustle against a team he is well suited to play. Try this on for size: 18min, 4of6, 7rebs. Sure, 5 fouls, but he played with the intensity our starting five could learn from.
Nesterovic – shook the rust off around the basket offensively, but defensively he was about as useless as nipples on a kneecap.
O’Bryant – Dr.Hustle showing his stuff!!! MIP took a red-hot Pops and made him feel the pain. 9 points in 10 minutes and showing the passion that is NBA basketball.
Turkoglu- Wow. Either he has a mancrush on Battier and wanted to get lit up by him so Shane would leave him his hotel room key in the locker room, or his half closed eyes don’t have a great field of vision. You’re tired? From WHAT? If you can’t play 10min of NBA ball without getting lit up on every possession, you need more than rest. A completely pathetic performance and one that should be re-run all day tomorrow to motivate this team.
Weems – this guy reminds me of a chinese buffet: going in you don’t know what’s in store, but if you are lucky it knocks you on your ass. Weems is a find for this team and is deserving of every minute he gets.
Wright – his XBOX Live onscreen name is: PLSDNT4GETABOUTMEICANPLYD. We can only hope because, right now, this team can’t.
Driving The Bus: Andrea Bargnani
Under The Bus: Hedo Turkoglu
Game Theme:
58 Raps
This was really bad and I know it is preseason but still, We should never get scored on 120 by a Huston team that is missing 3 of its stars.
Where is the defense that Triano has been ranting about all training camp long !!!!
This team after tonight looks like a .500 team for the season. 41-42 wins is ideal and a first round exit.
wow… one game that they were awful and they are a .500 team? Be real man it’s only pre-season.
Very disapointed.
This game was in Toronto in front of a home crowd. Yet Huston still shot 560, and 565 from 3pt range. Our perimiter D, is no where to be seen. Last year, teams were killing us with 3pt’ers. This sadly reminds me of more of the same.
Now one could say: “How often will Battier go 8/9 from the arc?”, but than you have to notice that he wasn’t teh only one, Pops , an 800K player, went 8/9 from the floor with 5 blocks. A performance in 24 minutes that has not been matched by any of our bigs thus far in preseason, not even Bosh.
I am a little worried about our teams progress thus far. We played Rockets team without Yao, T-Mac and Scola.
Lets slow our collective rolls a little bit
Bosh looked raw and uncoordinated against Carl Landry who was got position on him too easily too many times. Belinelli is showing us the worst of his offense game, a couple nice slashes today but does that merit starting or even the 7th man off the bench? I don’t know.
It’s disappointing to see the defensive display because all Triano and anybody ever talks about in those post-practice interviews is defense and today we saw very little. A couple nice back-court traps in the first half led to turnovers (one of them a blown dunk Weems), two or three traps at the three-point line also did some good but overall the defense was bad.
Worst of all, I don’t think the effort was quite there. Maybe it’s a back-to-back thing but somebody tell these guys they have two games left in the pre-season and so far the progress meter isn’t showing much.
I think it’s funny that actual basketball fans know Hedo played bad.. Yet TSN posted a twitter link titled: Hedo impresses in home debut, but Rockets beat Raptors.
TSN is THE WORST.
Unless you love hockey, and no other sport…..
Pops looks like he dominated us tonight. It seems like that’s what ex-players always do in Toronto.
And people thought I was crazy for wanting him back. The Rockets got him for 800K, yes he’s inconsistent and there’s a redundancy factory with Reggie Evans and Amir Johnson, but is Rasho really better? I even suggested buying out Patrick O’Bryant just to give Pops a spot.
What we saw tonight was how good of a coach Adelman is. No stars, no problem. That team’s built nicely with smart players, a super-quick PG and tough inside presence (don’t forget Scola). Best thing about them is all their sets are going towards the basket and they played this game like it meant something to them.
I wanted him back too, if only so that we could have a guy named Pops on our team, but it’s a shame we had so much dead weight (have) that we couldn’t get him.
I think some people forget what Rasho can bring to the team. He knows his chances of winning it all with the Raps are slim, but he also knows that his presence might help influence that chance in the future. And he content with whatever minutes that will give him.
When Rasho ends his career, there’s the possibility that he will have impacted someone else’s career. That’s what he brings to the table.
Hopefully that career is one with a Raptor name as part.
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Rasho’s already got a ring, so he knows everything else is just gravy.
Because of one game you seem to be crowning Pops on the same level of – just say – DeJuan Blair (a steal)???? I can’t believe it.
Pops does not have an outside shot and a little old at 26. He played a lot more than O’Bryant but showed less…tsk tsk.
If we are talking of a Channing Frye at least, then I would agree.
Exactly. Pops had motivation last night. Read the papers today from Houston and you can tell he had yet to play like that in a Houston uniform and he will regress just like he did here last year.
I won’t dispute Adelman’s coaching acumen, but don’t use last night as a shining example. A tired, uninspired Raptors team shot 50% and dropped 112 points (62 of them in the paint) on Houston, a team that hangs their hat on defense. I’ll bet Rick Adelman didn’t think “they played this game like it meant something to them.”
And though I like Pops, I would bet we just saw his best game of the up-coming season last night.
Watching the replay now… Bargnani was moving the ball very well. I would like to see Jack stop Jacking. He’d be a much better PG if he eliminated a few shots a game – esp. the off-balance, early in the clock variety…
How do you not mention the missed breakaway dunk by Sonny Weems.
There was an interview with a pacer blogger here which he pointed to the same thing. It seems like it is part of Jack’s game to Jack up those questionable shots.
This is the same with Marco. I can now see what the warrior fans were complaining about.
As Arsenalist mentioned, I am not too upset about the offensive mistakes as to Defense of this team. Is this the best we could do ?
That Rocket team is a maximum 30 win team without Scola, McGrady and Yao. However, they are able to score 120 in our home ??!!! I just shocked and quite concern about this season.
All these teams. Denver, Houston, SA, Lakers, Boston, Cleveland, Orlando have all these athletic defensive, scoring, hustle guys that know how to win, someway somehow. Props to their ownership.
We shouldn’t be so hard and harsh on the New Raptors .. after all they are in the midst of a total rebuild with only 3 core players remaining after BC blowing up the entire team. The New Raptors are in a development phase and still under construction.
It’s tough to gel when there is so much uncertainty amongst the players … and only time will tell if this disparate group have the bball IQ to bond effectively during the regular season. After all, the New Raptors did trade away players they didn’t want for players other teams didn’t want.
JT in post-game presser didn’t sound all that encouraging and I sense he realizes the enormity of his task to field a team that will even survive the first 2 months of a brutal opening schedule.
The first 33 games will take the Raps to the end of December, and if they come out 3-30 while attempting to gel, it won’t be a surprise. I can envisage this team tanking badly in one or more of the quarters getting into a hole from which they cannot emerge. In the first 2 months there are 5 back-to-back games with three of them from Dec. 1st to 9th. Brutal and scary ..!!!
JT did say after the game he still wanted the guys to pass the ball around a lot to get used to each other, and that’s what they tried to do. I hope JT has determined his 8-9 man rotation and can test it out against the Celtics on Sunday 3 PM. The fact that JT is looking for a large rotation confirms that the New Raptors are an uncertainty.
Commentary after today’s game from:
Leo Rautins …. 9 new guys … Iavaroni’s new defensive system will take time to learn well into the season … Raptors need “defensive cohesiveness” and that will come “well beyond preseason” …
JT …. Team was labouring at that level … lethargic ….
Fellas … this is the NBA and there are no miracles, particularly on a team with 9 new players of uncertain abilities and filled with uncertainty when playing together.
The New Raptors are a work in progress …..
Sarcasm or not, I liked your first 3 paragraphs, and the last. In the 3rd, you rationalized Jay as being discouraged, which being subjective, I can handle that. But then you throw out a 3-30 start, and you lose me.
Checking the fact that the Raptors went 12 & 20, in the 2008 portion of last season – a season which was grossly disappointing – only makes you lose me even more.
Yeah, it’s a tough schedule, but not EVERY team amongst the top opponents will have it’s superstars playing hard on a given night, or even at all. Injuries do happen.
By the way, the worst start last year was Washington – at 6 and 24 (2008 portion).
My point is … you make some valid points. But then you f#*k it up with a type of thought I sometimes get, after walking into a stop sign.
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RapthoseLeafs …… 9 new players … who don’t know how to play together and certainly don’t know what it takes to win when faced with regular season competition.
Jose, Bosh, Bargs … and then newbie Hedo and teenager Demar … and you call that a competitive starting 5 …??!!! Dream on …..
Then when you look at the bench, you’ve got a slew of strangers that the coaching staff are trying to train and educate to play a complex Iavaroni defensive system .. according to Rautins.
So go ahead and name the games the New Raps will win out of the 33 games in the first 2 months of regular season … go ahead … we’re waiting …
We got beat by the 3 tonight. That will happen less than 50% of the time if teams shoot from the outside that much because the lane is clogged.
I am optimistic about giving up a ton of threes because those shots wont be falling from starters late in the game when they start playing heavy minutes in the regular season.
Give up long threes or dunks and drives down the lane with half of those resulting in and ones.
Most teams wont shoot the three that well all night. I hope..
Well if you go by last years numbers we, got torched by the 3. Teams were killing us with it and sometimes shooting crazy precentages like today.
Look at these overall game averages (2008/2009):
2pt Made, Raptors 31.4, Opponents 31.0 ( Raptors +0.4 )
3pt Made, Raptors 5.8, Opponents 7.7 ( Opponents +1.9 )
FT Made, Raptors 18.7, Opponents 16.8 ( Raptors +1.9 )
This translates to: (0.4 x 2) – (1.9 x 3) + (1.9 x 1) = We got torched by the three. ( +3.0 for opponents )
…and if there is anyone that knows HOW BAD we were at defending the 3, it is Shane Batier.
One of the things that Triano said in the post presser was that not only had they played two games in a row but they had run a really hard practice the day before that. That’s three hard days in a row. They were in an exhausted fog.
How can we know anything, before this team plays one minute of meaningful ball? Our starting five just played their second game together. Ever. In all of time. Cut them some slack okay? The thing the Rockets do is play like a team because those players have been together for a couple of years.
Another thing that Triano said is that a lot of the things that they are running in practice they aren’t using in the preseason. They want to save that stuff to throw at teams when it matters. Right now, he said, he just wants them to go out there and get used to each other. He’s letting them ferret things out for themselves. Sometimes they’ll look good…and then there’s tonight.
I wonder how much it would cost the Raps to buy the entire GTA a Quaalude?
Well stated Gman … and it’s evident that the New Raptors will not gel on defense possibly for several months according to Leo Rautins in his post-game comments. It’s even possible they may fail defensively, never being effective enough to compete.
Look at the Raps schedule for the first two months and guess what will be the outcome of those 33 games with only a developing defense … and besotted forum fans are talking about a 0.500 season .. ya think ??!!!
quoting leo???
Yes … quoting Leo … because Leo played in the NBA … and he coaches the Canadian National Team … and btw, Jay also coached that same team.
Leo has a hell of a lot more bball credentials than everybody put together on this fine forum … believe it..!!!
Leo is also a terrible announcer and analyst (as he proves on a nightly basis). Quoting Leo and suggesting a 3-30 start to the season make me wonder what kind of meds you’re on, particularly when about 70% of what you say actually makes sense.
I have never heard the “training camp wore us out” excuse before, cool.
Not only are the starters limited in the minutes they play, but guys are getting time that would never see time otherwise.
This is just an excuse in my book. There are limits to how hard Jay can run these guys due the players union. We have not even started the season yet. We have not even practiced complex plays. We have not even had a significant road trip.
If this team is too tired to get up for a game against a roster void of their best players… a team that is sleeping out of hotel rooms, on the road, in a cold cold city… than I can’t take them seriously.
The lame excuses are starting already. It could be an isolated outing, I don’t dispute taht, but I just don’t want to hear excuses! NOT THIS EARLY, anyway. I thought the culture on this team had changed. There is no reason to not call it what it is! A SAD EFFORT.
Consider this, with all the poor defense on closeouts the score was only 93-89 Houston after 3 qtrs, 4 points behind, a winnable game.
JT played Jack, Belinelli, Weems, Johnson, Nesterovic, O’Bryant, for the whole 4th, with no sign of Bosh, Calderon, or the Turk who only played 20 odd mins each for the game. JT was in an evaluation mode in preseason, winning was not as important, and they lost the 4th by 8 and the game by 12.
PRESEASON-Game results mean nothing, at this point evaluating new players is the priority.
Huston did not play Yao, Tmac an Scola… AT ALL.
That is 45 Million that did not dress.
Just listening to the post game now, and I just heard the comment by Jay about how it was positive that we made them shoot from the outside, and how the next step is to deny that.
It seems to me that Jay’s idea of defence is to force the other team to attack from the perimeter. The problem is that is exactly what we did last year. This is not the international league, this is the NBA, a guy with an open 3pt shot usually makes it.
Team Canada can play that way, but the Raptors got burnt by that very strategy all last year. It was happening game after game, and we could do little to prevent it. Our guys can not guard the perimeter that well, its difficult to prevent penetration and than run to close out the shooter that is trying to stretch you. This is usually when you see Jose running and clapping and never really getting on his man in time.
Sam never allowed this many 3ptrs. When Jay took over he promised to turn the Defence around. Instead teams started lighting us up from 3pt range.
When you look at our teams effectiveness on D (adjusted for pace) under Sam, we were:
12th in the league in 2007
13th in 2008
22nd in 2009, with Jay’s new defensive focus + MARION!
This tells me, that Jay does not know what he is doing when it comes to defense in the NBA. I am sure his strategies work great internationally, but his focus on Defense did not pay any statistical dividends for us, in fact we got worse employing his stategies, even with Marion.
Also, If Andrea is such a great defender, why are we not funneling the attack inside?
JT’s & Iavoroni’s theory is that the atleticism they have added this year will help on the closeouts once they get Wright back, and the teamwork on rotating in sync. Practice makes perfect ( with lots of it , and lots of patience) as Rome was’ent built in a day , as the saying goes.
I don`t know how much patiance is necessary to see that system is fundemtally flawed.
Again, let me remind you that statiscally we got worse on D with Triano as a coach. He is still using the same strategy.
You may be right, perhaps he can build ROME here this season… but I have doubts.
Two teams that took the night off from defense and played scrimmage – I guess their coaches couldn’t find their way out from the dressing rooms to scream at them?
I keep seeing a new name “Golden State North” – please make it go away!
Its only preseason, Jay will fix this by Sunday… just keep saying this, it feels better.
the golden north suns
Maybe all the beloved players are okay .. and it’s the coach that should be replaced … ya think ???!!!!
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["... the comment by Jay about how it was positive that we made them shoot from the outside, and how the next step is to deny that. ..."]
Last year we complained that teams scored too easily in the paint. Yet the manner in which the latest game is being reviewed, the emphasis has swung the other way. Apparently the Nuggets scored too much from beyond the perimeter.
In checking Raptor stats, the OPP % for 3 pointers is, or was, at .289. On this given night, Houston was popping them in at a 56.5 % clip. An unattainable average — at least season wide. As George Bush would say … not gonna happen.
And Hedo … 1st game. Bosh 3rd game, but 2nd in a row — with increased time from his first game. 11 min – 19 min – 28 min … the latter being the second night of a back-to-back.
I think we forget what pre-season is all about. PRACTICE. MAKE MISTAKES. NO BIG DEAL. And, as FAQ pushes, it`s a lot of new guys.
But, think of a baseball player not trying a new pitch, cause … well … it`s a game. And if we don`t win them, people will think bad things – pre-season be damned.
I`m liking these exhibition games, not for resolving the gelling issue – that will take some of the regular season period – but to see guys like Weems, and Amir. Guys who might be that guy off the bench, when a specific position suffers an injury. I`d like to know we have adequate reserves, no matter how deep the pool.
Calderon, Hedo, Bosh, Andrea, and whoever, will find their way. At times I think we`re tainted by last year`s experiment, when we picked up another big. It was a position that wasn`t that weak — not by the standards of our wings, that is. And we got excited. I know I got excited, not for JO coming, but because it offered Andrea a break. Or a chance to regroup. Possibly, so did BC.
We know we`re not going to the big game, so why act like we should. I want to do well this year, but if advancing the troops means taking some risks, and playing the newer guys, then so be it. Long term can be hard to swallow — unless you`re a Leaf fan — but the truth is, getting there, watching the younger guys gain their ability, is what makes winning that much more pleasurable.
The real games are coming. That`s when I`ll get hostile. And probably break my covenant, not to get po`d at one of the new guys when he does something stupid.
As for Jay, blame him for this year. Not last.
RapthoseLeafs (for suffering this long)
P.S.
And by the look of this year … a real long suffering.
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For me, THAT was the Rap of the Day.
Everyone means well I’m sure, but far too much hand-wringing at this point. We’re gonna be fine. And how can you not see that FAQ is just having fun with you all? (FAQ – you are kind of hilarious!)
Leo Rautin did say after the game that Iavaroni’s new defensive system will take time to learn well into the season and that the Raptors need to find a “defensive cohesiveness” and that too will come “well beyond preseason”.
This is credible analysis from somebody who has bball credentials … not the love-struck fans who believe if they are positive everything will turn out for the best.
What you and everybody else must realize is that “fans” actually consider themselves to be part of the team, and if they are not “positive” their beloved team will most certainly lose. So you see non-athletic crud in the stands wearing their favourite player’s jersey, stoking up on energy food and yelling their lungs out .. all in futility …LOL
Forum “fans” cannot stand forum “analysts” … like khandor(ex), Arse and me … because brutal analysis based on logic destroys their fantasy life … soooo obvious.
“… non-athletic crud in the stands …”. hahaha. how do really feel, FAQ? Non-athletic crud. You slay me, man.
Actually FAQ, I respect about 70% of what you write. It’s just that your condescending tone combined with some of the ridiculously stupid and inflammatory comments that you add in to your analysis make it difficult to digest some of the smart things that you write.
You have to understand, that it is not about what % they are shooting it at, but how many they are making.
The whole point of perimeter defence is to TAKE that shot away.
As I have pointed out. Last year, on average, the opponent made 2 extra 3 pointers. THAT IS HUGE.
Who care is they shot a few percentages below us. I will take -.010% on the overall average if I get 2 extra makes over my opponent.
Of Course it makes sense that we shot it better, we had the 3pt shooting specialists, but we could not get those looks and other teams got plenty of them.
Its the old debate, who would you rather have Kapono, or Regie Miller. You can’t just look at the %, you have to look at the makes.
The stategy against us was to shoot from the perimiter, and it worked too well.
Even though our team was made for shooting the 3pter, other teams denied us those looks.
You can move the problem around ALL you want. We suck in the paint, so lets move everything to the perimiter. This stategy will not get us anywere. Teams will find our weakness and exploit it.
Perhaps, what we should address is why we suck in the paint… instead of giving up easy looks from the perimiter in the hope that a team has an off shooting night.
On a percentage basis it is much tougher to hit a 3pt shot 40% for the best teams than a lay up 60/70% for the best bigs/guards, in the NBA.
Pretty obvious reason for JT’s strategy. Would you like to bet on the likelyhood of Battier hitting 8/9 of his next 9 3’s.
Look at this way. Opponents shot .367 from 3pt range agaisnt us, and .498 from the two.
.367 x 3/2 = 0.551
The math does not lie. The stategy is working against us.
we lost a preseason game
lets hit the panic button !
seriously ….
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
I don’t know if I can call Toronto fans passionate or insane, but one thing is for sure I cannot call Toronto sports fans rational, reasonable, or realistic. From PRE-SEASON game to PRE-SEASON game fans go through ridiculous emotional swings. Let’s be serious these pre-season games are meaningless the only thing they do is raise or lower expectations, and in the case of Toronto fans in general, lowering expectations may not be the worst thing to happen.
I think maybe when the season starts I should just refrain from reading the comments section on this blog.
People are just discussing what they see. That is the whole point of this GAME. Don’t take other peoples opinions so personally.
There are pleanty of Torontonian’s who couldn’t even care a lick.
I’m not taking them personally at all. If I had I would have commented directly to them I’m just speaking to the overall tone, and not just in regards to the Raptors but all Toronto teams in general.
But some of the conclusions people come to in the comments section of sports blogs have less to do with one particular game, and more to do with their overall opinions of the team and/or its individual players.
As I said the best thing about the Raptors losing these pre-season games is that it lowers expectations (possibly to reality or to a point where some are surprised during the regular season).
Biff, you have to understand that fans follow the sport to various degrees, all of them are correct.
Some think preseason is an important indication of what we have, other do not. There some casual fans that will only tune in to a game vs the Lakers and judge the team based on that.
Basically, people will get out of this what they put in. I’ll be honest, my blood was pumping for the preseason game against Boston and I knew it was preseason.
My casual raptor fan buddy, did not even know there was a game, he saw the highlights and did not flinch.
Sites like this are usually frequented by the hardcore fans, the ones that lose sleep over the simple things like “wHoreford lying about a tipped ball”.
We all know its a game. It’s just that some get more attached to the team than others. Is it a bad thing, it can be, I hope no one is being foreclosed upon because they are spending an inordinate amount of time on this, but otherwise its all about using your time commenting on something that interests you.
I consider myself a “hardcore” Raptors fan (I watched the game streaming on the net), and I come to this site and read the commentary by the bloggers. My point in all of this is just that SOME fans are getting overworked by some meaningless games in pre-season. I can remember last year in the pre-season (which our record was 4-4) that people where quiet positive in that situation.
I see what you’re saying in that there are a small percentage who go crazy and over-analyze these games, but when I start freaking out over Battier hitting open 3’s I just say to myself “good thing it’s not the regular season” and move on. I just try to stay positive and think when the real games are on the line we’ll play better, or we’ll have our starters in there playing heavy minutes not “OH NOOO JOSE IS CRAP PUT IN JACK NOW!!!!!!11111!!one! LOLLlOLOLoL”
Great roll call jokes!
Altraps is also already in “mid-season form”: He and Banks both hung out at the Rail after the game!
Eh.. just look forward to the next game. Embarrasing? you could say so, some things just have to be forgotten.
Triano spent all summer long talking about how excited he would be to implement Turkoglu’s bread & butter play with the Orlando Magic. It was called the Thumb Down 35 Special – high screen and roll with Howard, surround the perimeter with 3pt shooters, and allow Turkoglu to create. Since D isn’t working, maybe we can start implementing the offense?