The “the jumpstart my heart” edition.
Banks – my neighbours kid went out on Hallowe’en as a basketball player and wore a Banks jersey. He came back with a piece of double bubble, a vanilla tootsie roll and a bruised ego.
Bargnani – another double double. Did most of his heavy lifting in the first half where he followed his own shot a few times and pulled down his own misses. He’s had a quiet game lately but he has been producing.
Belinelli – had trouble defending Wade early (please, I hope you were sitting down) but he ran off screens in the second quarter for some great looks as payback. He also had a great over the shoulder pass to Amir for an easy layup. He may be one of the only Raptors I have seen in 2 years that actually runs into traffic as opposed to away from it….but it works.
Bosh – superb. superior. the best. All can be tagged under his facebook picture. If I had one criticism it’s that Beasley beat him fairly easily a few times tonight. Bosh seemed to have trouble moving his feet to stay in front of him. Bosh had to be put back in mid-4th with 4 fouls to try and keep the Heat tidal wave from getting worse and he played well.
Calderon – 10ast and 9pts. Did a nice job on the offensive side of the ball, but on defense it was coronary-inducing. Blow bys, pullbacks and crossovers were on the menu. It was like watching a Three Stooges movie where Jose was the victim on the eye poke and head slap on most every possession.
DeRozan – He’s had better games, but this may have been my favourite of his so far. Don’t know if it was playing against Wade, but DeMar reminded me of good MoPete tonight. Defended well, had 7 boards, 7 points and was all over the map in a good way. Hilight of the night was one possession he had a block and rebound on the same sequence. It impressed me more than that sweet alley-oop dunk he had in the first, which is saying something.
Evans - faker.
Jack – his assist number leaves a lot to be desired, but his 17pts tonight and one big rebound pretty much sealed the game for us. The Jose and Jarrett tandem has been dragged through the mud in these parts and we need to appreciate what we say (at least offensively) tonight. He still needs to attack more, but his outside shots fell when we needed them most, the smile is back and the swagger is coming along for the ride. Welcome to Toronto, Jarrett.
Johnson – he was the recipient of the Marco pass above, Jose found him with a bullet entry pass off a screen, and most of his buckets were easy chippies. His first half game was so solid he actually was the halftime interview. As he was answering questions he looked like a kid that just brought home a straight-A report card. Beauty of an effort
Mensah-Bonsu – saw the floor for 7 minutes that were actually quite good. He had a good swat and showed that intensity most of you seem to love. As he came on the floor, though, I wondered how he got to see minutes considering how it took guys an entire training camp to learn this “defensive scheme” that Jay has made…eerrrr…..drawn up.
Nesterovic – every game without Rasho means another angel gets her wings.
O’Bryant – anybody else see him crouch down at the half to check the scoreboard from the tunnel? I’m thinking he thought the game was over and he could head home to play some Call of Duty.
Turkoglu- nice neat game from our biggest investment. 19,8,5 and perfect from the line. I would take this every night but he needs to have 2 or 3 big games to keep the opposition honest. Bargs and Hedo have that lull-you-to-sleep style, and Hedo needs to take Bargs’ lead sometime and attack the bucket here and there.
Weems – I can’t be the only one that when I see him jump out of the gym early, you keep waiting to see the follow up….and wait…and wait. I still think he has more Sportscentre nights in him than DeMar.
Wright – took the night off but looked fine doing it. Some lucky Toronto woman is gonna get the Wright stuff tonight!
Driving The Bus: Chris Bosh
Under The Bus: Jose Calderon
Game Theme:
Switch to regular comments
81 Raps
Definately an awesome game filled with highlight plays, from both teams. Other than losing their momentum in the third the raptors should play like this night in night out. Next up is Orlando…… If we got killed without VC and Lewis what’s gonna happen on Sunday? Possibly the absence of jameer Nelson should help a little, though Williams is a capable back up.
Can you forget about Banks for at least once?
One can only hope…
Actually both the Banks and POB bashing is getting old !!!!
Yeah, it’s getting old for sure.
Sometimes I wonder how he comes up with new disses for POB and banks everynight… I think he actually thinks about it the whole day!
No, no, no, do not stop with the Banks and O’Bryant bashing. It’s funny and entertaining. One of the great things about fan driven blog sites – you can make those kind of comments because you are not paid journalists with editors. Have fun boys!
Thought Bargs deserved alot more love than he got in role call. Some solid D, hitting his shots, rebounding…. and who was it that hit the clutch 3 late in the game and gave the Raps momentum to finish of the game? Yeah that was Bargs.
It is becoming routine now that Bargs has a better +/- stat than Bosh , I believe it means he makes the players on the floor with him more productive. An example which I saw on the highlight videos is his pass to Jack in the corner . Bosh would have tried to go in and score himself . Other players may begin to feel really good when they are on the floor with Andrea.
Senseless comment, IMO. Without Bosh, teams would play Toronto a lot differently. Bosh’s aggressiveness opens up Bargnani’s game tremendously. You’d see a different Bargnani without Bosh on the roster, and I’d wager heavily it wouldn’t be “good Bargnani”.
/agree. Big Bargnani fan here, but without Bosh, Bargnani just wouldn’t be as effective. The +/- stat has a place, and it’s in hockey. Leave it there.
I think a lot of people tend to overlook the fact that Bosh draws the fouls. Nobody else on the team even comes close. Without Bosh, forget about opposing stars being sent to the bench early, or having the luxury of those penalty free throws.
True, but you know sometimes bosh forces shots for no reason! Did anyone notice that shot he attempted from the top of the free throw line, when jack when fully open? Bosh missed, and I think jack was kind of pissed!
Great point – I believe Bosh’s ability to draw fouls (I believe right now he’s #1 in the league!) is not fully appreciated. I’m a huge fan of pounding in inside early – why? Draw 2 fouls on their best big man and he’s sitting early. This creates nice opportunities for guys like Bargs, Beli, DD, Turk to drive more (your backup C/PF are likely to be quite weak – *likely* slow, poor help defender and not much of a shot blocker).
This is also why I’d like to see Bargs drive a bit more early in the game – or when his man is in foul trouble.
But the difference between Andrea +/- to date of 36 and Bosh +/- to date of 7 has been created when they are not on the floor together . When they are on the floor together their +/- go up and down together .
I remember a game last year against a big team from the West were Bosh did not play . The Raptors won and it was one of the highlights of the season for the Raptors.
So? How many games did they lose because Bosh wasn’t playing. The only reason why I wouldn’t give Bosh the max is that he is a little injury prone
Little injury prone? Not more than anyone else. Look at his draft class
Lebron 78.6 games/season
Milicic lots of DNP-CD
Melo 74.2 games/season
Bosh 73.2 games/season
Wade 65.6 games/season
Kaman 64.2 games/season
Hinrich 73.3 games/season
Ford 65.4 games/season
Sweetney lots of DNP-CD
Haynes 70.2 games/season
Bosh is actually more durable than the average.
And there are a few max players there.
may be s stupid question – who is haynes?
I thought Jose played pretty good tonight. Shot wasn’t falling but at least he didn’t force it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have your vast knowledge AltRaps to properly analyze Jose’s defensive play. The fact that we held the Heat to less than 40% shooting in the first half obviously had nothing to do with Jose. If it wasn’t for the stiff, we would had held them to 30%.
No way Calderon had a good game. He left Chalmers open for weakly contested jumpers on the perimeter and Jose didn’t even force him to play defense too many times by attacking on offense. Seems like his early turnovers caused him to have play it safe; merely distributing the ball.
Chalmers is a 37% career 3 point shooter who averages 9 points a game. Maybe Jose was told to let him shoot. How many blow-bys did Chalmers actually get, 2 or 3. By the way, it’s his job to distribute the ball.
Maybe I’m missing something? Didn’t 9-points-a-game-Chalmers have a career high 30 points? Maybe this is not all on Jose but a majority of the defensive assignment was clearly his. And by the way, if all Jose was meant to do was distribute the ball I guess there would be no need for Colangelo to look for players that break down offenses and create opportunities for teammates.
.
Chalmers is a 10 ppg guy.
His 2nd best game (point wise) produced 17 points.
.
Calderon keeps getting lit up by opposing PG’s, Tonight was Chambers turn, Calderons defence made him look like Chris Paul.
Paul would have had 12 assists and not just 3. Chalmers shot falling, the guy was hot. And by the way, Jose wasn’t guarding him on every shot.
Don’t you love how everytime someone looks at the boxscore and sees an opposing PG do well, it’s Calderon’s fault? Chalmers has always been hot and cold with the 3 point shot. Sometimes he blows; sometimes he lights it up. Big whoop.
Chalmers dropped 23 on Deron Williams, 17 on Derrick Rose, 21 on Mo Williams, 19 on Rajon Rondo, 18 on Jason Kidd, etc etc etc. They’re all above his career average of 9 PPGs, oh my! They must all suck!
Great point. Calderon definitely had some miscues tonight, and Chalmers was shooting fire, but didn’t think Jose deserved to be “under the bus”.
.
[" ... Chalmers dropped 23 on Deron Williams, 17 on Derrick Rose, 21 on Mo Williams, 19 on Rajon Rondo, 18 on Jason Kidd, etc etc etc. ..."]
Uhh … what year are you referring to?
Chalmers has scored double digits in only 8 of 19 games (including T.O.),and his HIGHEST point total in a game – before T.O.’s 30 pt — was 17.
Try to get those facts straight before you argue a point. And maybe read a box-score.
.
if bargani keep getting double doubles i will not talk shit about him for the rest of the year and if he keeps playing like he did tonight i might have to buy #7 jersey soon lol good game overall nice effort keep it up IIMAGO. By the way brandon jennings had 29 points and his team wins is this kid for real or am still dreaming
I don’t know man, although it is obvious that if I could redo the draft, I would have wish we took jennings, I still think that kind of players are not good for the team overall. He reminds of me of guys like AI, baron davis, or mike james. They might do well, but no one on the team is happy because they are a ball hug. We don’t need that on this team right now. And trust me, Bucks early success is a false alarm. Just look at the teams they have played against…
This is 100% false. They are winning because he’s a fantastic passer with great court vision. You have clearly not been watching him play, he’s electrifying, he can score in bunches, and it opens up the floor, for him to make incredible passes, which he clearly loves to do.
He’s been fantastic, the Bucks have been fantastic, and when he’s in the game, you can see everyone moving and hustling because they know as soon as they beat their man, their getting the ball in a great spot for a dunk.
Don’t just make stuff up. This is not AI.
Players who look to make electrifying passes do not always make the team play better. We’ve all played with someone who liked to make the fancy pass, but would not make a simple entry bounce pass. Its the playground mentality. I will admit that I haven’t really watched him play, so I don’t know about the AI comparison. What about Agent 0? Definately a great player, but needs a ton of shots and you wonder if a team can ever win with a player like that.
They aren’t just “behind the back passes” or “no look passes”. Electrifying passes are the ones where you are running the pick and roll, draw the double, and fit a beautiful pass in to Andrew Bogut for a massive dunk, which happens several times a game, gets the crowd on their feet, gives the team energy.
People who are criticizing Brandon Jennings without having watched him play are seriously doing themselves a disservice. He’s one of the most sound fundamental players, and one of the highest bball IQ players, to hit the league in years. His play has been incredible team oriented basketball, he’s lifted a terrible Bucks team onto his shoulders, by both effort, intensity, and the aforementioned electric plays, for himself and for others, and given them energy. His team is winning with Michael Redd out of the lineup.
He isn’t playing selfish me-first basketball in any way shape or form.
If you like basketball, you ought to like Brandon Jennings.
Touche. I should check out some Bucs games.
Have to agree. I PVR’d some Bucks games and this kid is anything but selfish. He creates so much space for people it’s scary. In one game I watched he made Delfino look like a legit NBA starter. Delfino for fuck sakes!
So I think it’s safe to say players don’t mind playing with him. Also, when’s the last time someone outside of Milwuakee had a desire to tape a Bucks game?
Thought Bargnani played a solid game. Heat cut biggest part of lead when he was on the bench.
I expect the Raptors to compete against the Magic. Home court? You can’t say it’s unwinnable. This team plays D for 4 quarters we can score with best of them.
If we have a solid 2, it would be doable.
But the Raptors haven’t played 4 straight quarters of defence this year.
You don’t have to play 4 quarters of all-out intensive D. You have to pick your spots or you’d be exhausted. And you need a coach to recognize key matchups.
OK, I missed the game tonight, but looking at the stats it looks like I was right about opposing PG’s (especially average ones) lighting up the score sheet on Jose. So for those that told me to check my stats from game past earlier today in Arse pre-game blog, I accept your apology. ;) Just kidding
Anyhow, happy to see the win and even happier to see the “Big 3″ all clicking at the same time and that Jack finally broke out of his funk. Hopefully this is a sign of what perhaps might come.
Read J’s comment about people deducing things by simply looking at a stat sheet.
I agree that Weems looks tantalizing. The team would be better if he started in place of Derozen, but I love the way they are bringing Demar along. That was a sick dunk.
Everyone really shoots the ball better at home.
I can’t wait till the last year of Hedo’s contract. When he is 34, he will be like a short thin Arvis Sabonis.
That’s Arvidis Sabonis. Just to be clear.
That’s Arvydas Sabonis, just to be clear.
Johnson played well for about 6 minutes in the first half.
When he can put together 20 + minutes like that I will get excited about his play.
I agree – Miami’s comeback coincided with Amir being on the floor.
I thought Triano made a mistake when he had three non scorers on the floor – Weems, Derozan, and Johnson – this broke our momentum and allowed Maimi toi build theirs. A example of a coach getting cockyt i n my opinion – hopefully he doesn’t do it again unless the game is in garbage time.
3 things:
- Tonight’s game was a perfect example of why defensive teams win championships. There is no way a good defensive team like Boston would blow a 23 point lead. Even if they stop scoring, they’ll make sure the opposition stops scoring too.
- On the other hand, our offense, when its clicking, is a thing of beauty.
- Bosh is a beast. He single-handedly willed this team to a win tonight. Getting to the line when we needed to score and with a MONSTER rebound between 3 Heat players late in the 4th. If he keeps this up and the Raps finish with 45-48 wins, he has to be in any MVP conversation.
“If he keeps this up and the Raps finish with 45-48 wins, he has to be in any MVP conversation.”
Only in your dreams but I like the sentiment.
Where is the dislike button?
A disagree button would not be bad.
I might be wrong about how good New Jersey was defensively a couple years back, but there was a game where Jason Kidd and the championship contender Nets blew a 20+ point lead playing against a bad Antoine Walker/Paul Pierce Celtics team. I agree that good defensive teams are less likely to blow leads, but disagree with there being “no way” it could possibly happen.
Realistically ,they will have to finish third in the East for Bosh to be considered for MVP.
DeRozan got schooled by D-Wade.
everyone gets schooled by wade
What did you expect??
Okay we get it, you hate DD and think he’s a bust. Cool. You want to make your point a few times. Cool. But seriously its getting old and repetitive. After every single game it has to be about how Demarr sucks. Fine I accept it, you are 100% right, DeRozen is a bust. You happy now? Can you stop repeating the same thing over and over and over and over again?
hey lil…didn’t jennings follow-up his 55pt show w/ an 8-pt, 8 turnover display? so, how ’bout we stfu for a bit?
He followed it up with a 25 point, 8 assist, 2 turnover performance
Just for the sake of accuracy.
Actually he’s talking about the game right after the 55 point game against dallas where he had 8 turnovers, not yesterday’s game…. You know, just to be accurate
For the sake of accuracy:
DATE OPP RESULT MIN FG PCT 3P PCT FT PCT STL BLK TO PF OFF DEF TOT AST PTS
11/3 @Chi
L 83-81 38 10-23 .435 2-5
.400 3-4 .750 2 0 2 1 0 1 1 4 25
11/6 @Min
W 87-72 27 4-16 .250 1-4
.250 0-0 — 2 0 1 1 1 5 6 3 9
11/7 Nyk
W 102-87 26 7-16 .438 0-2
.000 3-3 1.000 1 0 5 2 0 4 4 3 17
11/11 Den
W 108-102 38 11-19 .579 2-2
1.000 8-8 1.000 0 0 4 2 0 4 4 9 32
11/14 Gsw
W 129-125 41 21-34 .618 7-8
.875 6-8 .750 0 0 4 1 1 4 5 5 55
11/16 Dal
L 115-113 39 8-22 .364 4-9
.444 5-8 .625 1 1 2 1 1 6 7 8 25
11/18 Njn
W 99-85 37 6-13 .462 3-4
.750 4-5 .800 1 1 8 2 2 2 4 8 19
11/20 Cha
W 95-88 40 12-23 .522 3-9
.333 2-5 .400 1 0 2 1 3 1 4 7 29
Numbers for November 35.8 79-166 .476 22-43 .512 31-41 .756 1.0 0.3 3.5 1.4 1.0 3.4 4.4 5.9 26.4
The Dallas game, as you’ll note, was a 25 pt, 8 assist 2 turnover effort.
The 8 Turnovers came 2 nights later, in New Jersey.
You know, just to be accurate.
Oops real sorry, I was one game off, I just remembered he shot horribly in the Dallas game and I only remembered the first half where he had 4 points
Good post Should have been called “There’s no place like home”
Bargnani made the 3 that decided the match.Stop. Toronto live or die with AB. He is the real deal
If he’s the real deal, then why have the Raptors lost 7 games, he’s failed to hit 15 points 4 times, has had 6 games of shooting 40% or under and failed to grab even 6 rebounds 6 times?
It’s true the Raptors live or die with him because he can hurt the team more than just about any other player when he doesn’t play well, which seems to be about half the time.
He played well tonight, but he’s still got a LOT of work to do. And one three didn’t decide the game.
May not have decided the game, but you cant deny that he has consistently stepped up in crunch time. That three, along with the three by Jack (set up by Bargs) were back breakers.
The three he hit was huge, and while Bargnani has been known to hit some big shots (I wouldn’t say he’s done ANYTHING consistently), it’s the other 40+ minutes of the game that Bargnani needs to work on.
I actually laughed pretty hard at the Obryant line. I was wondering what the heck he was doing when he bent down. It ALL makes sense now. Still though, felt sorry for the guy walking down by himself :P
Also, I’m liking Marco. Not for his shooting, but I love his play-making, Amir owes pretty much all his points to the guy. If he can keep this up and Jack comes around (hopefully this was his coming out party) we have a pretty solid bench that can be depended on. Now only if our defence can improve just a biiit.
Good game, good roll call.
Without Belinelli back out there in the second half, Jack got more minutes that for a while, seemed a bit squandered even though they were running plays (it sure looked like) for him … but to their credit, they kept going back to him anyway, and he started to click and hit shots. So it paid off very nicely and good to see. Like you said, AltRaps, ‘welcome to Toronto, Jarrett’.
Hedo really is a clutch big-dog shooter, isn’t he? Easy to figure that late (and later) in the season, it’ll be quite a good thing having him well-oiled, dishing and shooting, especially during fourth quarters.
When the Raps finally got serious about not letting the whole game fritter away, with only a few minutes or so left, they locked it back down in a no-nonsense (except the spot around the 45 second mark), convincing enough fashion for everybody to be able to go home happy.
Teams like the Heat will make runs like they did, even sometimes runs that bring ‘em back into the game from 23 down … and even (sometimes) against top teams, like the one mentioned above. For that stretch, the Heat showed us a little bit of why they’ve done as well as they have these first dozen or so games – but in the end (ya, the very end), the Raps settled in with just enough steady and sure-handed play to close the deal once and for all. We needed that. Both the team and the fans.
Go Raps!
I think the biggest change this year is that even when the raps (predictably) cough up the lead, I still have hope that they will come back. They’re slowly, but surely, maturing.
Yes im noticing that also. Last whenever this happened, i usually switched the channel, because i knew what was coming. But now I actually have hope!
Even though they have ended up winning, they are letting teams back in the game after amassing a big lead. If they played consistent defence, this wouldn’t happen, and eventually we will lose some of these games
whats up with reggie? when is he set to return?
Bargs made a huge block , a 3 and the assist for Jack’s 3.
he always play clutch.
in the last 6 minutes, Hedo becomes the point guard. Why wait for the 4th? let’s do this from the start.
It’a swap calderon-chalmers too much dreamnig? mario would be perfect for us: does all the things that josè doesn’t provide.
Bosh is having a career year because Bargs is playing really good and with Hedo on the ground too, he can’t be doubled.
I think calderon is actually one of the most underrated pgs ever… I just want him to get injured for 10 games, and you will see what happens to us…
Bite your tongue, hard. please.
That’s already happened – Calderon got injured last year and we witnessed what happened…let’s not actually hope for it..ever.
Good to see some love for Bargs. Over a pretty brutal schedule to start the season, if someone told me after 13 games he’d be averaging almost 19ppg, 6.5 boards, 1.3 blocks, and shooting high percentages from 2 and 3 I would have taken it. Games like tonight show he can play D and this skill will improve. While Jermaine ONeal put up some numbers, I thought Bargs played pretty solid man on man D on him all game…and despite what we think of JO, he can still score. Hopefully this performance (2nd straight double-double) saves Il Mago from being thrown under the bus each time he has an off-night.
The nights where he is thrown under the bus will become rarer and rarer.
Anyone who still thinks he hasn’t turned the corner is a small mind , not to bright . However Wilt Chamberlain rebounding records will remain safe , no competition from Andrea there.
Fuck Off!!! with the Bargs vs Bosh #’s
We won the game !!!
It was a team effort.
if the phx game was a moral victory, would this game be considered a moral loss?
clips beat denver. i dunno wtf that means. nothing makes sense anymore.
the jose/jack combo ended up working tonight…after pissing away most of the lead. by playing jack with the rest of the starters, what is basically being said is that jack is our best wing defender. which is bullshit.
The Calderon/Jack combo only works when the other team has a small shooting guard against Jack, but against guys like kobe and Ray Allen there is not way it will work, which is why we brought in wright.
The comment on Wright is uncalled for. It’s demeaning to the individual, an insult to women, entirely without merit or documentation. It promotes stereotypes about athletes, esp black players. Stick to what you think you know.
Frank B.
Switch to regular comments