They started it…
Bosh: 7.5 Showed up, played hard. Did some damage. Actually, did a lot of damage 37/12 to be exact. Didn’t waste possessions, didn’t hesitate. BUT, Randolph had 30/7 too so I got to look at somebody for that and it’s Bosh. Still, the offensive game gets him a high grade, he shouldn’t have to do everything.
Bargnani: 4 The higher you are, the farther you fall. Scoreless first half, he gets points for not losing confidence and starting the second half on fire but how about netting some rebounds? He had 6 but tonight was about the rebounds he didn’t get. Couldn’t handle Gasol in the post and didn’t make him pay like he did Shaq, probably because Gasol can move laterally without breaking a hip bone. 36 minutes was way too many given his defensive performance.
Calderon: 5 Couldn’t create anything for anybody. 3 assists and got lit up by Conley and Mayo in the first half which gave Memphis belief. Jack Armstrong said it best, we need some offense from him and so far he’s firing blanks. Got a couple hoops late to make the line respectable but overall, a poor game.
DeRozan: 4 More anonymous than a Raptors fan in Memphis. Did he even play the first half? He did, he just didn’t do anything. The second was a bit better, got a tip-in, a block and showed some athleticism, tends to get lost in Triano’s excuse for an offense. See, you got to practice that in pre-season, can’t play everything by the ear.
Turkoglu: 5 Started off looking for his offense but then decided to take a break for something I can’t quite figure out. On a night where the offense struggled (44% shooting), we needed him to create something out of nothing and Triano’s offense right now is nothing. I expected him to have a big game after the start he had but drifted off to sleep like he had six pounds of Turkish delight at halftime.
Da Bench
Jack: 5 We can see what he can bring, it’s clear and obvious. So why doesn’t he do more of what we know he can do? It’s a mystery, I’m thinking he’s not talented enough to make reads on his own and needs some structure around him to succeed. Still, played some good defense in stretches and gave the choky offense some air in that third quarter but couldn’t stop Mayo’s penetration and impact which is what he was brought in for – defense.
Belinelli: 7 I’m giving him a high rating because he played with active hands, didn’t take bad shots and played sound defense. That’s all I ask.
Johnson: 1 This guy’s a poser. It took Triano all of two minutes to realize he’s worthless. In a game where we needed rebounding and defense (45-36 reb loss and MEM shooting 51%), we needed him to slow down Zach Randolph, a similar make and model. Couldn’t do jack sh*t. And you thought Reggie was worse…
Nesterovic: 7 The only guy who could slow down Gasol. Somewhat. 4-8 and for 8 points, no mistakes. He showed that he’s got something left in him for situational matchups, he probably deserved 20 of Bargnani’s minutes.
Wright: 6 Explain me again why our defensive specialist wasn’t on the floor at the end of the game? He tightened on Rudy, played hard, even had a nice drive for a bucket. So why misuse him when you need him the most? I’m looking at you Jay.
Collecting da cheque
Evans, Douby, O’Bryant, Weems, Banks
The Payout
Pimp: Chris Bosh.
Ho: Amir Johnson.
What we learned: We haven’t practiced a single offensive set.
The Verdict: We fell to a team that played hard and wanted to atone for its miserable effort on opening night.
46 Raps
This loss is going to come back and haunt us.
I enjoy the Halloween allusion.
I did not even watch the game as I am just came back from work.What really happened? This match was supposed to be a gimme(free games adder). This will come back to haunt s later in the season. The 42-40 stat at the end of the season looks right for this team if we keep losing gimmes to teams like Sacramento, Oklahoma City, Washington, Miami, Chicago and other weak teams. Looks like that is the difference between the Garbo team and this team, beating small teams.
What is wrong with you guys? We win one good game, you guys yeahhhhh we are gonna be 4th for sure. We lose one bad game, you are like uhhh man we can’t even make the playoffs. IT IS JUST ONE GAME! This season is 82 games long. It is a LONGGGG season, I actually don’t mind them losing this one, it will keep their head in the game. They got too excited for beating the cavs… like everyone else did.
Anyways, when i was watching the game I noticed something. Andrea’s performance, has a huge effect on us winning games. His is the ultimate X-factor. In the 3rd/beginning of the fourth, when barginani started scoring, we went up by 8. When he stopped, we went downhill. It is like that every game. It is like everyone else kind of has the same performance every night, but barginani is always inconsistent. Mark my words, if barginani becomes consistent, and bosh stays this season, a championship run will not be so far off. DD is going to become a start in this league. We will have 3.5 all-stars, DD Bosh AB and Calderon. But then again, it will all in the hands of Andrea Bargnani…
nailed it
calderon is not an all-star. if he is 100% healthy, it is not showing. i hope its the lack of practice of offensive sets rather than his game hitting the ceiling.
I didn’t call him an all-star. I said 3.5 all starts. Bosh AB and DD. Calderon is like have a star. He is between a all-star caliber guy and an average player.
Amen.
Rap of the day and easily. I had bad feeling we going lay a giant shit egg in this game. We just had an emotional win at home and then after this game we have a even more emotional against the magic, this is a perfect example of a trap game. Triano really needs to have this team practice some set plays and not rely on Bargs & Bosh having a huge games for us to win. IMO Calderon played the worst on this team by far, he was invisible on the offense side, Conely & Williams were killing him on dribble penetration so Triano at the end of the game moved on mayo (where he iced game on easy mid-range shot over Calderon). Jack could at least keep his guy in front of him. I actually believe this could be a good loss for the raptors and Triano could use this game as an example as what happens when you don’t up in games against lesser opponents.
Im calling it now: the Raps win on Sunday. They get embarassed against Memphis and win a game many expect them to lose while playing Orlando.
seems like Vinny boy went down with ankle injury tonight !!!! How unpredictable !!!
I think we can win, even if Vince plays (he got injured tonight).
They HAVE to win on Sunday. Otherwise it’s the start of a long, cold losing streak. Here’s hoping they come out with something to prove – and at least Carter should be sitting out with his “broke” ankle.
The play that signifies how bad Jose is:
Around 2:10 left in the game, we are down 2 points, he brings the ball up the court, dribbles, gets a high screen from Bosh but can not beat his man, so he stops his drive, dribbles back out to the left, turns around and takes a jump shot and misses !!!!!! What the Hell was going on in his head by that play !!!
Also, AB got so spanked by Gasol that one would have though it was Pau and not the fat little younger brother !!!
ARGH
I have no clue what is Triano doing. It is only the second game and it is very early for any conclusions one way or another however tonight we saw the same team from last year’s Triano time albeit with a different roster.
Why are we keeping both Jose and Jack on the floor in the same time? Mayo shot over him all night long. At the end of games we needed our 3 point-shooters and Belli and Andrea were on the bench. Everybody except Belinelli played poor to awful however we clearly lack execution as a team. I hope with practice we’ll get better otherwise we won’t make the playoffs.
Bargnani *was* on the floor at the end of the game, at least until he fouled out.
I think that we are getting too carried away with the concept that Jack is really good and deserves to be given minutes. If he is going to hurt us, then he should not be on the floor (whether because he is playing poorly or because he is undersized is irrelevant).
We should focus on the Derozan/Belinelli/Wright group and only look beyond that group if we are desperate. If Jack really starts to earn SG minutes over those guys in practice, then fine.
Also, I don’t see the obsession with having 3 play-makers on the floor together: only one of them is going to have the ball on his hand. Two should do just fine.
You want Bargnani on the floor at the end? Did you watch him play? Did you watch him give up offensive rebound after offensive rebound?
And Jack, apart from a few mistakes, played well tonight. I had no problem with him being on the floor at the end. I like Wright’s defense, but Jack’s better at the offensive end.
Wow, that was humiliating…
Whether or not this loss haunts us, it was just embarrassing.
We are going to get DESTROYED by Orlando. We better hope that Carter is out with that rolled ankle, because with Carter and Lewis, the Magic would kill us.
Man, this is just so deflating (especially since we believed, for 2 days, that maybe we could play defence this year). This whole “protect our house” philosophy seems like it will work against slow teams, but not against quick teams with good shooters.
I hope you are wrong about the Orlando game. Maybe tonight’s not the right night to be calling out FAQ again.
Hey good news… Lewis is out cuz he was using banned substances (10 games). The whole “Protect the house” could work… but it requires our centers/forwards to get the damn rebounds.
As bad as Bargs was with some of those rebounding/box-out situations, I really think that our back-court needs to do a better job of securing rebounds. The minute a shot goes up they start running.
I’m not sure we secured a single long rebound all night (and you just can’t pin that on the bigs, because having the inside position in those situations is a disadvantage).
we actually had a long rebound last night, i remember it.
Once again as a faithful raptors fan… Im going to hope that the Raptors learn a lesson from losing to a team that they should beat. Yeah Ive been hoping for a long time now…
as much as i hate losing to memphis, we still came out 1-1, which was what we expected…and i much rather have beaten cleveland and then lost to memphis than the other way around. this way, at least it showed our guys how good we can be when we’re hustling and focused, and how bad we can be when we’re not.
memphis played really tough though. i thought triano should’ve put bosh in right when it was 88-80, but he left on the bench just a few minutes too long and i felt bosh lost his rhythm.
bargnani has to learn somehow how to play through a bad-shooting game…might as well be against memphis. got some good offensive rebounds.
it’s always disappointing losing, but memphis played really hard tonight, and zach randolph is really really good when he’s not being a nutcase….i like these first two games as a foreshadow to the season…
I thought Andrea rebounded nicely in the second half. He was an offensive presence in the third, but it was too little too late…and then the fouls caught up with him
On the downside, we lost to the only team in the league to win fewer playoff series’ than us over the past 15 years.
On the plus side, we’re exactly where most NBA observers thought we’d be at this point in the season, 1-1. That game against the Cavs was a real godsend; this game is probably a mulligan. The true test will come soon enough against Orlando. I only hope Vince didn’t hurt his ankle badly enough tonight to keep him out of Sunday’s action. (Honestly, he’s getting worse in his old age. Limping to the locker room in only the second game of the season. A “Sprained ankle” is the official word. The Nets fans, who have seen this one before, didn’t boo him though. Probably glad just to be rid of the guy).
I just don’t get it why Triano didn’t let him play much instead of sucky Calderon.
Belli played really well. He shot the ball fairly well, slashed the basket and talking trash to GAY. He was the reason why were up by 8 at the 2nd half. He has some swagger.
All Calderon can do is ballhandling, Well godammit Belli can play point too goshh!!!
End of rant
I’d give Bargnani an extra point simply for all those rebounds on the offensive glass. He gave Memphis several extra possessions, but got several back that he normally wouldn’t.
Agreed. Bargs stepped up on the O boards for sure. I also wasn’t impressed by the refs this game.
I’ve never played basketball, so I throw out a question to those who have. Watching Randolph vs Bargs under the net tonight led me to suspect that there must be some kind of “instinct” for rebounding. An ability to “see” where the ball will/might be, and a sense of timing to jump up for it.
My overall impression was a bit of a downer… I read all the time that defense/rebounding is all about effort. From what I observe – Bargnani is putting in the effort. Problem is… well, my theory is that he just doesn’t have an “instinct” for rebounding. What do you think?
Khandor? Is that you?
I have to agree with that. Bosh gets rebounds because he seems to be in the right place at the right time to collect them, but Bargs doesn’t find himself it great position often enough. Also, he doesn’t react quickly enough after the ball bounces back off the ring.
I agree with your analysis about Andrea. But as a 7-footer, if you can’t rebound the ball, you should be able to box-out to get the rebound to your team mates.
Raps sucked tonight, and those kind of games will happen during the season, so i’m not too down. But I only wish we wouldnt play down to the level of the the competition so much. Stronger play from Jose, Hedo and Bargs is necessary if we want to start racking up the wins. Until then, patience is a virtue.
Hedo looks invisible out there.
I vomited a little in my mouth when I saw how Bosh and Bargnani reverted to last year’s inability to keep big men off the blocks. A little better with the help on drives, but not enough boxing out.
Memphis outrebounded the Raptors 45-36, including 18 off the offensive glass that led to 26 second-chance points.
That is the Raptors I remember. Come on, break the cycle guys!
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
WTH was that last night….
how is it possible to hold cleveland to 35% and then allow flippin memphis to score 39 damn points in the 4th Q?!?!?!?
and are we paying Calderon 10 mill to miss WIDE OOOPEN shots and drop 3 assists a night!?!?!
Clearly, no doubt, and I am sure Triano will catch up soon too, the caldy keeps getting too many minutes. I mean, we want to win right?
@Arsenalist
Chill the Heck out re Amir Johnson
this is the second game where you have him declared as the HO
umm what do you except out of the guy exactly?!?!? he isnt Chris Bosh’s replacement u know…we got him in a minor trade and he is a solid bench PF/C
OR would you rather have undersized/unskilled forwards like Chris Humphries and Pops Mensa-Bansu Back on the roster….. those worthless guys had o b-bal IQ and couldn’t even prove their worth during team practices
given his offensive game inst quite polished, Johnson is a big force around the basket and can do the dirty work with tip ins and putbacks if he plays 15-20 mins a night which he wont with Evans and Rahso ahead of him
but His D is solid ….. guarding the paint.. he can rebound and gives us 3-5 blocks without even breaking a sweat!!!! if there is an injury to our rotational bigs during the season, he will get the nod with more playtime and you will eat crow then pal!!!!!!!!!!
> umm what do you except out of the guy exactly?!?!?
I expect him to stay on the floor longer than two minutes without looking like a fool. Is that too much to ask? I’m sure he’ll turn it around, he has to, it’s impossible to play any worse than he has so far. He was terrible against Randolph, I’m not asking to shut him down, but how about beating him back up the court on defense. Triano saw that and said the hell with it.
When they were up 88-80 with some 9 minutes left, I told my wife that a win was a lock. Ah well! At least she didn’t rub it in.
O.J. Mayo played very well down the stretch. It’s a shame Iverson wasn’t playing, he probably would have dominated the ball.
I would have thought Triano would have remembered how Nesterovic plays. Gasol is his best matchup. 8 points, 6 boards in 8 minutes = what was Triano thinking?
The 2 minutes wasted on Johnson should have been Nesterovic’s plus another 5 each from Bosh and Bargs. Especially minutes in the first quarter when the Raps couldn’t stop the Griz inside.
I’m hating that Calderon Jack line-up at the end of games more each time I see it. It’s fine if the other team puts out 2 point guards and presses but otherwise it’s keeping better shooting guards for the Raptors nailed to the bench in crunch time!