Wow, Friday against the Grizz didn’t work out at all. The Raptors looked like…the Raptors. They were getting burned from the perimeter, interior defense was suspect, team rebounding was non-existent, they weren’t sharing the ball, and weren’t hitting their shots. Perfect storm. Today, the Magic roll into town, and the unspoken rivalry is born again.
The advantage the Raptors had on opening night, quickness and conditioning, was a non-factor against the Grizzlies who have a young, athletic team. Bargnani was able to take Shaq/Big Z off the hop, but Gasol and Z-Bo were able to counter, and in some instances, nullify the Raptors front court. As big a night as Bosh had (37pts 12rebs), Randolph countered with a 30pt 7reb monster of his own.
I think they just had a little bit better conditioning than the Cavaliers.They were coming up a lot harder, their fast-break. I don’t think Cleveland did a very good job at fastbreaking against us and that put a lot of pressure on us.
That doesn’t sit right with me. We beat an Eastern Elite, and fell asleep behind the wheel playing a young – up ‘n coming one? One that draftee Thabeet 2nd overall? We didn’t know that a young team with some of the best young wings (Gay, Mayo, Carroll) wasn’t going to push and attack?
Orlando has come out the gates like a team that belonged in the Finals; sans Rashard Lewis. They have convincingly won their first two against Philly and Jersey by an average of 12pts. Howard has been a monster, averaging 20.5pts 18.5rebs. Yea, he has grabbed 37 rebounds in the first two games of the year. That’s ridiculous.
I wandered over to Orlando Magic Daily to see what our TrueHoop brethren had to say about their recent game against the Nets:
It’s not a win the Magic will look back on — surely, it’s one of those wins where you forget about it on the plane ride home — but it’s the type of win an elite team is supposed to win. It was ugly, but it gives you confidence knowing the Magic can take care of a team when they didn’t shoot well and were missing two key starters.
The tone in the things being said is jarring for me. Against the Cavs, the Raptors were able to withstand a run by an elite team while they wore down. Against the Grizz, they couldn’t. Athleticism and conditioning seem to be an issue for our guys. The Magic on the other hand were able to win ugly while missing two starters. The Magic are an athletic team. With Carter expected to come off the bench, the starting 5 will be tough to deal with.
Match-ups
Calderon vs Nelson
All I can think about is Swirsky saying that Calderon will own Nelson in those playoffs, and that backfiring. Nelson straight up owns Calderon. He is a tough cover: strong, quick, a bulldog. He had an off-game against Harris, so I am sure he will rebound.
The Edge: Magic
DeRozan vs Reddick
With SVG saying he wont be surprised if JJ starts, chances are good VC is coming off the bench if at all. Reddick is Mr. Fundamental. Bit of a disappointment after a solid college career, but he is carving out a niche for himself. I can see it now: DeRozan will be sent to Howard in the low post; the ball gets kicked out to Reddick who nails an open trey or swing it around the perimeter for somebody to nail an open shot. Kid Dynamite has been playing great so far. He should give Reddick fits chasing him around the court, but I suspect being the one sent to double Howard wont bode well for the kid.
The Edge: Magic
Turkoglu vs Pietrus
It upsets me that the Magic got Pietrus so cheap (5yr/$25mill-ish). I was pleading for the Raptors to sign him, as he brought all the things we needed (at the time) need: defense, take his man off the bounce, slashes to the rim, rebounds and hit some shots, but alas, we got HO…Turkoglu has been playing pretty decently. Dropping 13 a game, grabbing 4.5, but not the playmaker we had hoped (2ast). I was ripped for saying his matchup with Gay would be even (a draw would be a generous assessment of what went down Friday), but I’m saying it will be a draw this time around. Pietrus will be the beneficiary of some open space created by Howard in the post, but will have a hard time covering Turk in the paint on offense. This will be an even match, book it.
The Edge: Even
Bosh vs Anderson
Bosh has been a beast the first couple games. You have to figure that having him score 37 is bad for the team. 20-25 is the perfect range, where he is producing, but not at the expense of a fluid offense. Anderson, whom our very own PHD Steve said was NOT to be slept on this season, has been proving just that. He was a throw in as part of the Carter trade, but the kid can play, and is starting ahead of Brandon Bass, who was looked at as the starting PF when they snatched him from the Mavs in the summer. Just don’t see Bosh slowing down against this team, not even after a night of partying with Jay-Z.
The Edge: Raptors
Bargnani vs Howard
LOL, doesn’t look good for Bargnani at all. Forget the playing defense on Howard, but keeping him off the boards. Howard should have zero problems cleaning up the boards given VL’s lack of rebounding/boxing out grit. Seeing the trouble Andrea had with Gasol, I cringe to think about the possible 40/20 Howard can drop on our boy.
The Edge: Magic
Injury Report
Raptors
Reggie Evans
Sonny Weems
Magic
Rashard Lewis
Vince Carter*
Adonal Foyle
Simulation
Our boy Jeremy Visser from That’s What I’m Saying, Guy… checked in with his simulation. You can hit him up on twitter @jeremy_visser. We’re keeping track of the simulations here.
The Raptors couldn’t handle an Orlando team that was missing Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis, falling 96-91 Sunday at the ACC. Chris Bosh had 29 points and a career-high 23 boards, but had trouble handling Dwight Howard, who had 28 and 13 of his own.
Aside from Bosh, the only Raptor in double digits was Hedo Turkoglu, who had 17 in his first game against his former team. Like Bosh, Andrea Bargnani had his hands full with Howard and was limited to just 17 minutes, picking up five fouls and scoring just five points in the process. Jose Calderon had eight points and six assists.
Howard was one of five Orlando players in double digits — Matt Barnes, starting in place of Carter, had 16, while Jameer Nelson had 15 and Michael Pietrus and Brandon Bass added 10 apiece.
Surprisingly, Toronto out-rebounded Orlando and had almost three times as many trips to the free throw line, but it wasn’t enough to come out with a win.
Keys to Winning
- Keep Howard off the boards, both of them
- Don’t double Howard in the low post, let him score 40, but keep everyone else in check
- Bargnani should never rotate on defense, stay with Howard at all times
- Let Jason Williams shoot as many transition-pull-up threes as he wants, seriously
Prediction
This has the makings of a solid game: The Raptors are reeling from a tough loss on the road to a team they shouldn’t have lost too; The Magic are 2-0 to start the season, and looking to secure home-court throughout the playoffs aka they will be coming hard and fast. As much as I would like to think that the Raptors will avenge their Friday loss, they wont (unless Bargnani duplicates his effort form the home opener, which you will excuse me if I don’t hold my breath for). Magic by 6.
Catch us for live chat at 1pm here.
68 Raps
This is not looking good.
uhh….you mean bargnani vs howard right? not bargnani vs turkoglu…..
The Magic added five new rotation players but nobody told them it takes time to gel. 8-0 pre season and 2-0 to start. We’ll catch a break if Vince doesn’t play.
Everytime the Raps played a team without one of their stars last year we lost…hope its not the same old same old….I’ll be watching Barnes someone that was within our reach this past off season
WTF!!!!!!!!!
Vince, Pietrius, and Lewis were out and we still get abused by the Magic
this team is a fkn joke!!!!!!!
Yay, lets give up already, blow up the team and stockpile draft picks!
Seriously though, you think Vince would have had a better game than JJ, or Lewis better than Anderson? If Bosh hit a couple more free throws, and the Magic shot threes like normal people, then the outcome could have been different. Also, Dwight 14-16, WTF?
Thats why the game isnt played on paper…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/sports/basketball/26bucks.html?_r=2
Great article on a guy who’s going to haunt the Raptors franchise for passing on him in the draft for a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time.
20.5 PPG 5.5 RPG 6.0 APG 51.5% FG 2.5 3PPG 1.5 SPG
But don’t worry raptor fans, Jose Calderon will someday find his all-star worthy game that may or may not have bee there in the first place. ;D
Nice article
I have never been a hoooser calderon fan and i think BC should have bitten the bullet and drafted a PG this draft(one of Flynn, Evans or Jennings) insted of DD who may or may not be a consistent baller in 3 years from now(cough #1 bust andrea)
those 3 pgs mentioned will be quality starters 2-3 years down the road while calderon is playing with seniors in some YMCA back in spain!!!! book it
But Jennings was a guy who was still on board when we were picking. Derozan’s alright but a team lacking the talent shouldn’t have drafted for position.
Interesting simulation. Every player that steps on the floor manages to score. Very believable, even banks and POB were lighting it up.
“Don’t double Howard in the low post, let him score 40, but keep everyone else in check”
I think this is key… and I would add don’t be afraid to play hack-a-Dwight. POB, Johnson, Rasho should all see serious play time due to foul trouble by… well.. all of them
Hack-a-dwight should be a good policy. His free-throw shooting is susect at best.
Not today it wasn’t.
Dwight spent the entire offseason working out on his shot. I think his FT% will be much improved this season.
But the previous two games he was awful. Against New Jersey I think he was 4-11. It was a bloody fluke
Defence, boards. Those are essential for any good basketball team.
Instead, our starting center can’t do either against good centers of opposing teams. And on offense, stands on the perimeter and looks for his jump shot.
And we have him for 5 more years…….
The Cavs live chat had them muttering how sick Bargs was throwing down dunks,nailing threes and keeping O’Neil to what, 12 points. I guess you’d trade Reggie Evans for Bargnani.
A little early to be ragging on Bargs, he has played great in 6 of 8 quarters. In the first half againt the Griz, it was the turnovers that were the problem, any shooter can have an 0fer half. All I hope for today is that he keeps his fouls down and stays on the floor, keeping Dwight out of the lane.
Unspoken rivalry? The magic are an elite team with a solid roster and coaching. They made the finals last year. Raptors reached the playoffs two seasons ago and were merely fodder for the magic. The matchup is hardly a rivalry; but just another measuring stick for the 2010 raps.
I feel that we lost this game because of THREE reasons:
- Somebody has gotta stop putting Calderon, Jack and Turkoglu on the floor at the same time in crunch time. It just doesn’t work and Turkoglu’s effectiveness is severely diminished when he has to share play-making responsibilities with 2 other people…Turkoglu makes his money by being a play-maker…otherwise he becomes a role player and nowhere near worth his contract. Triano has to figure this out sooner rather than later
- This has been said before, but this team DESTROYS its chances to win when BOSH becomes the focal point of the offense. In the stretch, he absolutely KILLED the flow of the game when he got the ball and Jack and/or Calderon AVOIDED feeding the hot hand that was scoring in MULTIPLE WAYS…yeah that’s right, that hot hand was BARGNANI…he drove and Ryan Anderson twice and got the Raptors back in the game with his 3-pointers. But then for about 3 or 4 plays in the fourth quarter, people decide to ignore him and then the next time he touches the ball he’s already cold. When Bosh has a big game, we know something went wrong.
- Offensive rebounding but this was expected because Howard is simply TOO strong for them.
jack wright hedo bosh bargs
Plain and simple, without 3 main players, Magic is still better than Raptors.
The Magic beating us without 3 starters tells us how far we are from being an elite in the east.
Raptors are not good in my opinon actually, they suck. No defence or offence what’s so ever. Come on now..let’s be real and reasonable do you ever think any Toronto team is going to make it either into the Stanely Cup playoffs (Toronto Maple Leafs) the world series (Toronto Blue Jays) the Grey Cup (Toronto Argonuts) or the Basketball playoffs (Toronto Raptors). The people of city of Toronto, we need to grow up!!.
I was trying to tell other Toronto fans the same thing. Toronto as a sports city sucks. Until MLSE hands off these franchises, we will be dealing with mediocrity for years to come. MLSE only cares about profits and not about their franchises winning.
Agree about the fact that we cannot win many games if all the offense goes through Bosh. I am afraid we’ll lose every time Bosh has 25+ game. There is (supposedly) enough offensive talent on this team to share the load. Isolation plays on Bosh got us nowhere last year – and this year will not be any different unless Triano changes something.
Was not that Iavaroni guy brought in to work on a defense? Losing to Orlando is OK – but not to Orlando missing 3 key players.
Disappointing so far. We’ll see what happens…
It’s not Bosh’s fault, he doesn’t demand any plays be run for him. He scored a whack of points on putbacks and broken plays today. It’s on the point guards and coaches to recognize where the best mismatch lays and not go away from it for no reason.
I’d rather continue the development of Bargnani with crunch time touches than keep feeding Bosh simply in the hopes he’ll stay happy and re-up here. Frankly, it’s much easier to replace Bosh’s role on this team than what AB is capable of, despite his mercurial nature.
The tone of my argument was probably too strong and you are right in the sense that he doesn’t demand plays be run for him…sometimes he will demand the ball though. I’m not BLAMING Bosh, I just want this team and coaches to realize that Bosh starts to detriment the offensive flow of the team whenever they start looking to him to bail them out. His offensive arsenal is too limited to be relied upon to that extent. Bargnani has a better arsenal and they should have went back to that mismatch with Anderson again.
Also…they should put replace either Jack or Calderon with a Wright or Bellinelli in crunch so as to have an offensive threat on the perimeter and/or defensive presence. Having 3 of the 5 players on the floor being play-makers put TOO much pressure on Bosh and Bargnani to put the ball in the hoop.
This was embaressing !!!! We lost to Magic team without Carter and Leiws. This is like we play them without AB and Turk.
Do not blame the players. Blame the coach.
Decisions on which players play with which players
have decided these losses.
Wright is a starter. Playing Calderon and Jack together
doesn’t work. Running the pick and roll from the top doesn’t
work. Choose a side.
Why doesn’t Toronto do what Orlando did last year.
Hedo pick and roll with Bosh and Bargnani playing the role of
Lewis.
How about Weems. Didn’t he prove in pre-season he deserves
a look. At least a chance. What kind of dumb a## coach doesn’t
give a player a chance when he preforms well.
Defense wins. Isn’t that true. But the coach is choosing to play
offensively over defensively.
How many times does this coach look at film. At the end of the game Bosh
isn’t the “get a basket player”. Unbelievable the Raptors are still
doing that.
These are coaching decisions not player decisions.
Weems is still injured…but pretty much agree with every thing else. Wonder why Bellinelli isn’t getting minutes.
Okay, First of all, Weems is injured, and just so you know, its hard to play when you are.
Second, Triano is not choosing to play offensively, pretty much all they did in camp was try to improve their defense.
Third, Bosh had 35 points, he may not be a ‘clutch player’ but he had it going so its not like it was a bad option. Turk will probably assume those duties once he gets into game shape.
I do agree Hedo should have more ball handling responsabilities at the end of games, and bellinelli should come in for Calderon to provide better shooting (Jack for Defense, or use Jose if he’s actually shooting well).
That fact Wright isn’t starting says Triano has chosen offense over defense.
The fact Wright was taken out in the four quarter with 5:11 left to play.
Who replaced him Caldron. What was the score 111 to 107. Toronto was
down by 4 points and you take out Wright and your telling me Triano believes
in defense. Triano lost this game just like he lost the last game.
I still can’t believe he took out Wright. That move ended any chance of Toronto
winning. To play Caldron and Jack together with the game on the line is
just plain dumb.
So your saying one substitution says everything about Triano’s coaching philosophy?
At present Wright is one of your better defenders. Who in the starting lineup is strong on defense at
the positions Wright plays; none. How about the last five minutes of a winnable game. The coach
takes out his best defensive player. It’s not one substitution. It’s a substitution which replaces
defense with offense with the game on the line. Triano talks the talk but he doesn’t walk the talk.
Right, because Triano the puppet is coaching this team.
And Bosh will keep getting the ball to stroke his ego, no doubt about it.
These are all marketing decision, basketball and winning are secondary.
Umm… Bosh was more than happy to defer to Bargs in game 1 and do the dirty work under the boards. I’m sure if you ask, he’ll take his W against cleveland over his monster stats in games 2 and 3, which came with big Ls.
What would you expect him to say in public? “Yeah, I’d rather lose and get my stats.” Sure. I tell you this… with the minutes he’s playing, I see a 12-15 game vacation in his future.
Please spare me the “Greatest Win in Franchise History” vs Cleveland. Are we going to get over that anytime soon?
you sound like FAQ – are you him?
Damn, FAQ has reincarnated into another douchebag
The problem I am seeing on the offensive end is that we have NO plays. Now, I hope Triano is correcting this, but we will see. I am glad we face tough teams in the beginning, because maybe we would have lost these anyway, even if we were firing on all cylinders. Right now, Triano’s idea of how to create on offence is to put as many ball handlers on the floor as he can and see what gets created.
The Magic scorched us from beyond the arc. We did not close out on shooters. Anderson is the next Troy Murphy it seems. Need to do better. Why isn’t Antoine Wright getting Jack’s minutes at the 2? I do not mind DeRozan starting from a developmental standpoint, but there needs to be a recognition when he needs to come out.
Please Jay, get some offensive sets so we can move Jack off of the 2 spot. I am thinking that we should be splitting Calderon and Jack about 50/50 right now at the point. Calderon plays decently well for stretches, but after a while he simply looks gassed and can’e even get his hands high enough to clap.
We lost another one we could have won based on our opponent (Magic without three key players). These two losses, hopefully will not be major factors. But the Raps need to pick it up, and not hang their heads but come out with some more fluid offence, and keep up the defensive intensity.
The problem with this team is not the offense. But for elite teams in the NBA, when they have an off-night offensively(even the Celtics do), they play defense. Preventing the other team from walking all over you offensively improves the morale of the team and the team might be able to break out of the offensive rut.
Another thing is when another team shoots 17 threes in the game and role players like JJ Redick having career nights, then something is wrong. Reminds me of the Rockets game in the pre-season.
My point was that at least we are seeing a plan on defence. We have a system which was not implemented properly on this night. We did not recognize early enough that guarding the perimeter was more important than the paint, and that we needed to fight through screens instead of going under them. But we do have a defence in place.
Our offence, however, has no rhyme or reason. We just put playmakers on the floor and see what they can do through a series of pick and rolls. We need more than that.
Its good to have a plan, but you need to have flexibility. Against Orlando, ‘protecting the house doesn’t work, since everyone but Dwight, Marcin and Brandon Bass can hit threes.It should work against the pistons, providing that Wright plays Gordon for a significant portion of time
If we expect Bargnani to be a 20 point a game scorer he needs to get more shots/touches …. how often are you going to score 28 points on 15 shots and 26 points on 12 shots.
Couldnt agree more. I also hate when they ignore him after he sticks a series of shots in a row. They need to have more confidence in him instead of ignoring him if he starts the game 0-2.
But I thought we had one of the leagues premier playmakers in Jose Calderon…
The problem with Bargs is that when he has an offensive rut, he shows complete disinterest in the game like the Grizzlies match when he could not get it going.He hurts the team with that attitude of his.No wonder, Sam Mitchell benched his ass when Sam knew Bargs was having an off-night offensively.
Jack does look better when Calderon isn’t in. Can’t fathom what the coach is seeing. Help me.
I hope I am wrong, but does Triano ever dare to question or yell at Bosh? Regarding shot selection, passing, slowing down the flow, and not bringing it on D? Great he scored 35 points, but that’s not what it’s about.
Calderon can’t contest perimeter shots. It’s as if he just puts up a hand or claps, hoping the shot doesn’t go in. Well, Jameer torched you today.
I certainly would. I wont deny he had a great game, but for goodness sake could he pass out of the double team instead of turning the ball over or forcing a bad fadeaway shot?
Who was he gonna pass out to? The only person left open was Jose… and for good reason. I don’t know what’s up with him, but he’s visibly skinnier and doesn’t look like he has the strength to get the ball to the rim on threes… front iron on every shot, including a couple FTs this year…
If I’m CB and Jose is the open man. I’m jacking it up…
Yeah i understand that reasoning, which is why they should look at Belinelli late in games as he is a more deadly 3 pt shooter. However if CB passes the ball out of the double team early enough, then Jose can swing the ball around the perimeter, which will get the defence moving and likeley result in an open shot for someone.
I like Belinelli/Wright over Jack late in games because roles are more well defined and Beli b/c he’s a better shooter who can also make things happen on D.
Im not sure who else noticed this, but along with our crappy perimeter D that killed us, we also got killed by the fact that our PG`s cant hit a wide open 3. If I`m Triano i might experiment with a lineup that includes Belinelli as our PG to finish a game assuming our other PG`s are struggling with there long range shot.
I like it. Can’t miss any werse than a miss. Hedo can handle it up.
The Belinelli option looks nice. The guy even showed he is ready to play defense like in the end of the third quarter of the Cavs game. Another thing is that Triano may have to yank Derozan as an SG if he can not defend 3s and bring in Wright instead.This is where a veteran coach comes in. Triano is probably scared of Colangelo, because Colangelo is pushing for his draft pick to get minutes to the detriment of the team. How many Elite teams play rookies(except if the rookies are NBA ready) for more than 17 minutes per game like Triano does?
We aren’t an Elite team … so that is why we play him.
DeRozan is not the problem on this team. He’s not falling behind on anything for which he’s being counted on. His #s so far are not far off of Courtney Lee’s season #s for a contending team from last year.
Still, I don’t mind seeing what Jelly Beli can do in clutch situations.
We lost b/c D12 outdid CB4 at the free throw line. Based on their averages on 16 free throws Howard should have hit 8/9 (say 8) and on 19 FTs, Bosh should have hit 16. 3 more points for the Raps, 6 fewer for the Magic = tie game. That was the difference.
This does not take away from anything else that happened (shitty perimeter D, Calderon getting torched by Jameer, etc.), but it was played closer than it appeared, esp. as D12 was icing free throws in the 2nd half.
It might be time to get a veteran PG and draft a PG in next year’s draft ala Ty Lawson(the rookie PG) in Denver Nuggets. When your PG is getting burned and handed his ass out almost every game, you need to start looking for alternatives.
BRANDON JENNINGS!
There are a lot of negative comments here but there were some promising things to take from our play as well.
We came back from a deep deficit to make the game interesting and could have won if things were better at the FT line. They made more than usual [who expects Howard to be at 90%] and we missed a few more than usual.
Bosh and Bargnani had over 50 points again and Hedo is getting into form.
DeRosen isn’t embarrassing himself like many rooks are prone to do and I love the effort he’s making on putbacks.
I have to agree the experiment with Calderone and JJ together looks terrible. We got Jack to back up PG. We brought in some nice players at the 2 spot so give them some minutes.
Triano should have more plays for Andrea now that he has turned the corner. The other team will have to decide which one (CB4 or Andrea) will require double coverage . This I think would be the best option i.e high scoring games since our defense is so poor.
Could have ran plays for Demar. JJ is not the most athletic guard.
In case nobody has noticed, we haven’t “run plays” for anyone, including CB4, beyond the PNR, which we did run with Bargnani. Our main play, which seems eerily similar to Mitchell is to just a guy the ball in a spot where he can create, possibly with some PNR or PNP. The difference is now that player is not exclusively Bosh.