After two humiliating losses in a row to Charlotte and Boston, the Raptors host Phoenix in a game that is sure to be an exciting one. The Suns are an upgraded version of the Raptors: a high volume scoring team that wins games by out-scoring their opponent. Something of interest, the Suns have the fourth highest scoring differential in the league at +6.8, this is a testament to their offense as they concede 105.2 points a game.
I think we can all agree that the Raptors are a talented team. We have a bunch of finesse guys who when on, give folks fits on defense. When they are off, however, we get results like the Charlotte game. At this point, it comes down to what’s inside. Who you are. How you respond when the chips are down, and don’t fool yourselves, the chips are down.
There’s a lot of frustration in this locker room, and we have to say ‘enough is enough.’
- Antoine Wright
I’d like to see the team more passionate.
- Chris Bosh
As tough as the schedule has been so far, the Raptors are 7-10 and half a game out of the playoffs. Obviously we have issues that need to be resolved stat, but we can’t judge these guys, and say they don’t want to win. Any one of us who has ever played organized sports will tell you that everyone wants to win, some more than others. It becomes a matter of how much do you want it.
What Bosh and Wright have been saying since the Boston loss, and the tone being used, encourages me. Everything has been said. All the tape has been watched. All the drills in practice have been run. All the talk has been talked. It is time for these guys to step up and deliver. That’s it. Get pumped, get in there and do it:
The Point: You can’t say Calderon isn’t a competitor. If he is injured, he needs to rest and recover. If he’s healthy, he needs to be aggressive. Nash can’t stop our boy off the bounce, and will give him plenty of good looks from the perimeter. Calderon needs to stick that shot, and make Nash work very hard on both ends of the floor. Jack needs to never shoot the ball, and take it to the rack. Good things happen when he does that. Something out of their control is that they should not be played together much. The spectre of them guarding Nash and Richardson isn’t a pleasant one. Barbosa makes me nervous too with that lightning speed, but he’s gives that back on defense. Just make their guys work hard on the defensive end, and when they have to shoot, they will be tired.
The Wing: I like DeRozan, I really do, but he isn’t a starter just yet. His minutes will be limited, so he wont have much impact on this game. Wright needs to walk that walk now. He will see some time, and his time better be spent playing defense and grabbing rebounds. I hate Wright as a shooter and I hate when he puts the ball on the floor and attacks the paint. He needs to check Richardson, and not let him get off. Period. Belinelli needs to create for Amir, and hit his jumpers. He’s our offensive plug off the bench, and needs to act as such. Leo needs to stop verbally fellating him as we know why Golden State traded him: the guy disappears far too often. Turkoglu needs to NOT justify that contract, and just play. High pick and roll, drive, dish, create, shoot, rebound…grunt.
The Bigs: Bosh has been the lone consistent force on this team all season. Not sure what people expect of him, but when he isn’t scoring, he is grabbing rebounds, rotating on defense, and swatting guys. Can he do more? Yes. How much more? Not sure. What’s also unclear is where that line is of how much more he can do on his own. I personally think that we are at that line. His offense hasn’t come at anyones expense, not even Bargnani’s. He gets good post position, and attacks. That is what you want your big to do. He doesn’t kick it out as much as he could, sure, but I’d rather have Bosh take a 7ft hook in the block, then one of our guys shooting from behind the arc. Amare is going to score, there is nothing that can be done about that, but I’d rather see Amare shoot from 17ft then dunk in the lane. Make the guy work for it. Bargnani needs to score to be effective, we all should agree on this right now. When he isn’t scoring, the rest of his game suffers. For the most part, he has had a pretty good season so far (I’m much happier with his rebounding). He just needs to DEMAND the ball more. 12 shots a game is pretty low for a guy who can score as efficiently as he has been this year. Frye hurt us bad last time because he was left open time-after-time. There is no reason that Bargnani should leave Frye open on the perimeter, none. I can’t think of any circumstance where Bargnani would leave Frye to do anything other then rebound a missed shot, which wont be often, so yea, don’t leave him open….please.
The Line
The Suns are -2.5 on the road, with an over/under of 230, which means that this will be as shootout aka anyones game.
Simulation
Visser’s sims are 13-4 this year and this time the crystal ball is predicting a 120-113 Raptor win:
Chris Bosh and Hedo Turkoglu each had big games the Raptors got back on track with a 120-113 win over Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns at the ACC.
Bosh had game-highs of 37 points and 13 rebounds and Turkoglu had a season-high 28, adding eight boards in the process. Jose Calderon had 16 assists and Jarrett Jack had 12 points off the bench.
Nash was surprisingly quiet in his homeland, finishing with just 10 points on 3-of-13, though he added 11 assists. Amare Stoudemire was the most productive Sun, chalking up 29 points and 10 boards.
Prediction
I’m with Jeremy, the numbers are out of whack (especially for Bargnani), but I’m expecting big nights from Bosh, Bargnani and Turkoglu. Raptors win by 7.
29 Raps
A win today would be a God-send, make the Raps feel like there’s something between their legs again, especially since the schedule gets SLIGHTLY easier from this point forward.
I’m not holding my breath though – this team is bitch.
Rasho should continue to be the first big off of the bench and should get as many minutes as his old legs can carry him.
When Evans returns he should be the second big off of the bench.
Pops should be the third.
Johnson just plain fouls to much and his overall play has now sunk to that of a D-league reject. He should be bought out.
I know bosh has been a monster this year, but is no one else concerned that he’s been only taking jumpers again lately?Of course that looks really good when he’s makin em but hes gonna miss a lot of em to, and besides i thought his motto this year was to take the ball to the hoop no matter how open he was.Now he did that for pretty much all of the games to start off the year, and he was really impressing me and lately he’s gone back to the jumper a bit to much in my opinon.
Trying to remain optimistic but forgive me if I’m somewhat doubtful for today. :(
Only win I’m hoping for today are my Blues over Arse’s Gunners. :)
BTW guys, if there are some of you that like chatting during games but aren’t too keen to use the live chat here, please feel free to come over to our game thread over on the RR forums as another option.
Link: http://raptorsrepublic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235
Key to a win in my mind is Bargnani, Bosh, Turk, and Calderon all have to look to attack and score…balanced scoring…not just 4 people standing around while CB4 tries to score 1 on 3.
PEOPLE STAND AROUND BECAUSE THERE OFFENSIVE GAME CONSIST OF THREE POINT SHOOTING. AND IT STILL AMAZING HOW A TEAM THAT STANDS BEHIND THE THREE POINT LINE CAN’T GET BACK ON DEFENSE WHEN YOUR BASICALLY ALREADY AT HALFCOURT.. SLOW FOOTED, NO WILL, NO STRENGTH, NO PASSION. ALL OF THEE ABOVE
Jack
Wright
Hedo
Bosh
Bargnani
When the above line is on the floor, I think it may not be a bad idea for Wright to guard Nash, and Jack to guard Richardson, or whoever is the 2-guard on the floor. When the Spurs put Bowen on Nash, it seemed to get him out of his rhythm and also Bowen’e aggressive play made it easier for other players to play aggressive defence without being called for a foul.
When the Spurs did that Bell was the starting 2 guard for the Suns. J-rich would have had a field day against Parker just he will if we try leave Jack on him for any length of time.
well i think its safe to say this game is over toronto got merked in the third yet again , i think its time to start the trade rumors for jose or time to get a new coach.
Agreed, this team is officially sub-par. Jose is a huge liability.
Trade Jose.
agreed. LET’S GET MONTA ELLIS!!!
Bargnani and Calderon need to be out. We will never field a winning team with these two players as our starters.
Man, I am definitely losing interest, now in the third season of watching this gutless garbage.
yup trade em. shit package whatever if you have to. keep bosh jack and derozan. other than that. whatever. dunno why anyone would take either of them. but who knows.
why the hell isn’t he playing weems?
because the money is invested in Jack, Turk,Calderon and Derozen. Money talks, they gotta play there investments and go down with the ship. NOT THIS FAN!!!
Stick a fork in it Guys, this team is Done !!!! another Blowout
Yes they got blown out again. But the last two have been against the celtics and the suns. Suns=best record in the NBA, and I’m pretty sure everyone will agree the celtics are a very good team.
Now to address the Bobcats game, I am personnally of the belief that that team (if they don’t implode) will be a playoff team this year. They have now won a couple in a row and ere pretty convincing angains the cavs. So While these are games we can win-we have the talent- it is not the end of the world. We’ve got some easier games coming up, so look for our guys to rebound. If we loose to the Wiz and the Timberwolves though….
*were
*against
They have the heart of a chipmunk. no warriors, no soliders. it’s all lip service, they show up pertend to play as a team, call it a day and go home and relax. As a fan, i feel ripped off. This is the perfect situation for the Raptor team to grab the city of Toronto by the horns and step up. but this isn’t even entertaining.
This is how I feel right now – blow the motherf**ker up. We can’t play a shred of defence with this team. We go through a cold spell at the beginning of the third, but then we can’t get stop of our own.
If BC made the following trade I would be happy:
Banks, Belinelli, Calderon, Evans, Weems for McGrady (and this trade works).
Houston wouldn’t do it I know, but right now I think we need capspace, because this team will not win anything as it is presently built. I gave the team time to see if they could work it out. Could Bosh and Bargs play solid team defence? No. Is Calderon the right pointguard for a team with weak interior defence? No. Blow it up.
Bah! I know I am being inconsistent, as in the past I have said that before BC makes changes Triano needs to shake up the lines. But right now, I feel so pessimistic – just blow it up. I hate to see Bosh go, because he is the best player on the team, hands down, but that seems to be inevitable.
I don’t know, verbatim, I think the Rockets would be heavily tempted to make that trade.
(1) Calderon would fill a big hole at the point + his shooting ability would be lethal alongside a post presence like Yao Ming. The Rockets need a better half court point guard with Scola + Yao.
(2) McGrady doesn’t look like he’s in the long term plans
(3) The Rockets don’t have enough cap space to add a max contract next summer. They’d have to move Ariza or Battier + let Scola leave in free agency. It will be difficult to improve the team with so much talent leaving. Plus, the Rockets offseason decisions/spending indicates that they’re not planning on being major players in free agency anyway.
Evans and Banks is a high cost for Calderon though. Maybe though. Hmmm … One of them + Amir (another makeweight needed?) makes it a much better package for Houston. It would be hard for them to turn that down.
————————————————————
Personally, I wouldn’t be concerned about moving Banks or Evans. Their contracts expire in a year and a half anyway.
I’d rather plan for 2011 than try to force something in 2010 — moving those contracts will cost you too many assets and take too many options off the table. I think it’s better to concentrate on the contracts that stretch beyond 2011 (Bargnani, Jose, Hedo, Jack) and decide what combination of them you want to keep or send away.
big hole at the point…already you prove yourself to be a dumass
If they actually would pull that trade, then I say go for it. Free up the capspace, and see who they can acquire if Bosh does not re-sign with all of that space opened up. And if Bosh does re-sign, we still have about 15 mil capspace.
And we have McGrady and Bosh both on contract years. Start Jack, and maybe we put in a respectable effort. We won’t have any depth, but we are blowing up the team anyway, so a deep playoff run isn’t in the cards.
I just don’t see the Rockets making this trade though.
I’d rather keep Johnson personally.
Do you think there’s any chance that Amir Johnson is re-signed next summer?
I’m not optimistic about it. I think the odds are pretty low that Amir is back in Toronto next season. Moreover, even if Amir returns, I think he’ll be once again confined to a relatively small role in the rotation like he has been this season.
I wouldn’t squash a trade with significant medium + long term benefits over someone who is (1) a rental who’s only here for a few months (2) a bit part player.
if reggie comes back i would play bosh n amir and bargnani n reggie
starting line
jack/ jose
derozen/marco
hedo/wright
bosh/bargnani
amir/reggie
the reason y i start amir is he rebounds with bosh.n when bargnani comes then reggie will rebound