The “where first round matchups come to die” edition.
Banks – call me crazy, but the guy could turn into an okay back up. He’ll never be flashy, he’ll never be consistent, he’ll make you want to throw stuff, he has that lost look in his eyes……and he is a perfect representation of this basketball club.
Bargnani – this game was somewhat a microcosm of what his season is like. Not enough rebounding, he seemed to have trouble staying in front of his man, he brought back that maddening step-in-dribble-on-the-side shot, YET he gave you just enough positives to make you believe the next game is going to be so much better.
Belinelli – I’m sure part of the plan is for him to shoot himself out of his slump. Going 2 for 9 shows that he can’t even do that right. Right now I would have more faith in me taking up archery and being good enough to make the next Olympics than for Marco to do something positive for this team for more than 10mins in a game.
Bosh – I’m still bemused by the return of his lobster claws. Same thing happened last year where he would go through a stretch of games where it seemed 3 or 4 catchable passes would go right through his hands or he’d lose a dribble, uncontested. His lack of rebounding (again) is starting to prove that teams know what to do with him, so he needs to adjust to fight through these box outs.
Calderon – anybody else envision this guy sitting at home clapping his way through every game?
DeRozan – Heir Canada continues to play like Wally Wannabe. Carter is a tough cover for anybody, granted, but someday soon we need to see the rook rise above the crowd, accept the challenge of his cover, and produce on both ends of the floor. Do that for 2 or 3 games straight and the league will take notice and some will stop second-guessing where you were picked.
Evans – I would pay money for Reggie to go on uStream during an away game. It would be cool to hear what he has to say, but it would be a BLAST to actually see what he wears around his house.
Jack – better than last night, but that isn’t a tough feat. Still, as a starter, he did pretty well in keeping J-Will from going off. As usual, would love to see him drive and kick more, but kind of hard to do when you have the equivalent of a mini-tank standing in the paint with the reach of a giraffe. As much as we haven’t been winning games without Jose, if we didn’t have Jack, we probably would be setting some horrible records.
Johnson – this is one of the few nights this year that I kind of lost him during the game. Maybe it was the 4 fouls in 14minutes. Just didn’t seem to have “it” tonight.
Mensah-Bonsu – speaking of fouls, 5 in 11 minutes and a play where he got tangled up and looked like he was doing the macarena. Raps only have a few more days to make a decision about him. Lets see what happens.
Nesterovic – I can just imagine what he must have thought when Triano pointed to him to go check-in. He probably looked at the Magic frontline and said “Are you kidding me? I’m a 62 year old man that wants to live to wrap Christmas gifts for his kids. You want me to go out there and defend THOSE guys?”. Shortly thereafter you could almost hear the squeals of pain.
O’Bryant – he suped up his car today. DNP-Pimpin His Ride. He even posted a video about it. Sadly, the video was longer than most of the games he played in and he made more noise in it.
Turkoglu- stood up pretty well against his old mates. Good first half, kept his emotions in check but certainly didn’t play as well as most do against their old mates. Certainly fought hard to get to the line and produced when he did. Oh, and going into the Magic end to do shootaround before the game started and chortling with your buddies? Not cool. Here’s hoping it gets addressed.
Weems – some bad defensive checks, but he at least tried to make up for them with his athleticism. Have to wonder if he doesn’t get showcased soon to be part of a package deal.
Wright – well, he could have been much worse…and he has. Granted, the game wasn’t exactly, um, gripping, but he did what he is supposed to do: make his shots and shut bloggers up. I give it 2 more games before he calls out Colangelo.
Driving The Bus: Hedo Turkoglu
Under The Bus: Marco Belinelli
Game Theme:
43 Raps
There were times during the game where I thought we could actually get back in it… but we end up taking fadeaway 3s (MARCO) instead of giving it to Bosh.
The Raps were in this until the subs came in at the end of the 1st quarter and the Magic went on an 11-5 run for an 11 pt lead that they coasted through the rest of the game with. Frustrating that the Raps couldn’t sustain a run.
Magic did a good job keeping Bosh and everyone else out of the paint. And after 14 blocks, Bosh was blocked 3 times – that might explain why Bosh wasn’t the go to guy on every trip.
And 2 of Howard’s blocks were obvious goal-tends – not that it seemed to matter in the end. Just more frustration.
Why does Triano insist on taking out pretty much our whole starting unit at once. This happens way too many games after a good start. Other teams do not sub like this. Orlando plays their first stringers a ton. They obviously want to win and Jay is managing players minutes like that will matter when we’re ten games out of a playoff position. Also this team has no sense of what works and what doesn’t. They seem to be brain dead about staying with what’s working and the coaching is absolutely a disaster. We started the game with a hot Bosh and Bargnani and then it just seemed like everyone else wanted / needed to get theirs so we went away from both. This is way too similar to all the other games and I blame it almost exclusively on coaching.
I was wondering about that too. Yes its nice to have hustle guys in there to bring energy, but if your whole lineup is just hustle guys, you aint doing well for too long. I mean Banks-Belli-Weems-Johnson-Rasho lineup isnt really generating much on offense (even less now that Marco cant hit a shot). Why cant he get one of the bigs out earlier and then get him back in to replace the other one. And I dont mean you gotta take one out after 4mins. One of them should be able to play the whole quater and the other could sit 3-4 mins in the end and start the second. Also now that we dont have two PG’s, put Hedo on bench for a breather two minutes before subbing Jack out and then bring him back to bring some offense when Banks is in.
Are you serious about O’Bryant, cause I wanna see that vid!
Yeah, we need Jose and some D bad.
Change this coach, hell, bring back Sam Mitchell PLEASE! He’ll do better than Triano that’s for sure!
lets not get carried away here.. smitch is a bum. Him winning that award ruined us. Colangelo was def gonna let him go after that season, but he won the stupid coach of the year and I guess BryCo felt obligated to hook him up.
Even when we were only down 6, it feels like we were down 20. No defense, no offensive schemes, another blow out. Its like a broken record.
seriously am surprise we did not get beat by 30 points by the way Kobe hit another game winner with a broken finger unfuckinbelievable
I hope we do not make the playoffs with this particular team. We would lose our pick to Miami, and just get a quick 4-game exit, and Bosh would leave regardless.
I know there is value in not hitting the panic button, but best case scenario for this team is to play Atlanta in the playoffs. Come on. I know this was the swing for the fences year, but what can I say, BC struck out.
That’s what a max players does. Bosh wouldn’t even play let alone make a game-winner with a broken finger. As big a fan as I was of him, we need to use his value to start over. He doesn’t make the team better and though we’ll be worse off without him, we need to start from scratch. This team is a mess.
Ya there was no threat of us coming back into this game. Any time the magic wanted, they could just throw a skip pass to the opposite corner for a WIDE open 3, not deflating at all…
Good thing Bargnani blocked Howard’s dunk from hitting him in the face, after it whipped through the basket, that could have hurt Bargs’ neard.
The thing is that I can actually skip watching the game when I’m not doing the recap. AltRaps has no choice, the suffering must be too much at times.
I fell asleep during half time and awoke only to see the scrubs on the floor in the last quarter … then I went back to sleep … and now I’m rarin’ to go … believe it.
:(
Why so glum ???? I hear this was a playoff team .. a couple of months ago … the t.h. fans said it with much conviction and fanfare …
yeah, I heard that too, but being a silly Aussie I thought this was a Canadian cricket teams fan forum and those 130, 140, 150 point losses that I saw kept me confused because they are the norm in cricket. And I have just now realised they are actually a basketball team (supposedly) HOLY SHIT they suck!!!!!!!
What’s your take on the up coming cricket series between Pakistan and Australia. My friend just recently saw the matches between Pakistan and New Zealand and was impressed by a new batting sensation, Umar Akmal. Any chances you are going see any of the cricket matches?
Originally from England and a big supporter. Didn’t we win the Ashes last time….LOL
It is getting really hard to watch these guys.
shahinc is aroused by ‘these guys’ .. LOL
Very clever ….
Popping lil’ blue pills during the Raps game is not recommended … and if it lasts more than 3 hours go to your nearest hospital ER for relief … or call up your girlfriends as a last resort …LOL
Bosh’s defence was once again non-existant. I love his offensive game but the meat he put on this summer isn’t helping his defence. Just brutal, and until he steps up and starts protecting the paint like a big man should (instead of worrying about gettin hit or foul trouble) this team will have no consistent success. I counted 3 easy dunks from wade the other night where Bosh could of fouled him hard for attacking, but just stood and watched, then starred at Bargs for not rotating. It’s funny, cause we hold the Rockets to 88 points and people actually think we played good D. They just took jump shots FFS, instead of scouting us and running non-stop PnR and attacking the rim, which we have no chance of stopping with this group of lackluster slack-jawed gawkers.
I’m tired, change up this roster, I’d much rather see passion, D, and 20-62 record than this squad try to out-gun everyone.
and fuck you Hedo for smiling, joking and frolicking with your old teamates.
I agree with Lucamacus. I like Bosh. He puts up great offensive numbers and does a great job rebounding but he is not a factor in man to man defense. It seems Bargnani is the one who gets hammered but Bosh seems to get a free pass
Bosh is slowly sliding into a vince-like style of play… believe it
Would you blame him?
He may be doing it unintentionally … that’s the pity of it …!!!!
Yes I would blame him. The raptors are paying him 15.8 million this year. Most people don’t even earn 1/100th of that amount. I wish I could take days off from my work because I hate it.
It hurts even when you know before-hand that the Raps are going to lose by over 15 points!
But the Raps did maintain one important record. By giving up 118, they’ve maintained a perfect 0-11 record when surrendering 115 or more points.
Imagine what these could do if they played “bad defense”? lol
But where is FAQ???? Probably too painful even for him?
The Raps are about to face the SOFTEST Schedule of the year starting on Friday.
4 home games, 5 teams under .500, no back-to-backs, NJN on Friday to start!
There is a good chance the Raps finish 2009 on a 5 game winning streak! At 16-17 there would be reason to hope!
Of course if somehow the softest team in NBA manages to loss of few of these games can everyone just agree it will finally be time to Fire Triano and start with the serious trade speculation!
You are probably right – this is a make or break stretch. Part of me wants the Raps to lose though…I can’t take much more of this losing so badly to good teams. Who do you think we are going to face in the playoffs?
Looking at the boxscore data, you will notice that the starters are playing about 30 minutes per losing game … and getting rested up for the remainder of the “soft” schedule, no doubt …LOL
You might be right.
It’s just so much fun to watch Triano pull his starters with 6 minutes left in a 10 point game.
Trust Triano … he knows what he’s not doing … soooo obvious.
Cheers for Altraps….who manages to retain some humor while writing about the Titanic crashing into icebergs each night.
I did the math, this titanic only crashes 39% of the time. lol
28% of the time they make it to NYC unscathed, and a 1/3 of the time we don’t know until it’s over.
The Raps are starting to give me physical pain. For what? A shot at a first round exit? No, it is time to rebuild in the best way possible, because this is not a second round playoff team.
Raptor Rebuilding Schedule:
1. Trade Bosh forthwith …
2. Nobody plays more than 30 minutes …
3. Distribute PT for ‘development’…
4. Tank the season early for draft picks …
5. Get a shooting coach for Bellinelli ..
6. Fire Triano .. hire Rautins …
7. Fire Rautins .. hire Armstrong …
8. Fire Armstrong .. hire Messina …
9. Fire Messina .. rehire Smitch …
10.Move the franchise to Buffalo …
Why does derozen get no pt during a blowout?
I’m at the “show me you care, and then I’ll care” stage. I bet they’re all sleeping fine tonight, no pride, no shame.
I was watching the game on NBA league pass and im paraphrasing here but I remember the Orlando announcers state in back to back sequences on the raps defence (schemes)in the first half going something like this…….
announcer 1: “this is….ineresting defence, first with jack picking up the foul guarding the much larger howard and now with the rookie derozan”
announcer 2: “interesting, haha, thats a kind-hearted way at describing it, they’re just scrambling right now”
—>my question is, how do we let this mismatch occur?? i dont care man, run through the guy who sets the off the ball screen, hell even if it means u draw an offensive away from the ball foul, just as long as a) you dont end up in that lobsided mismatch and b) you show you give a damn.
and then on another paraphrased note-
announcer 1: “i just dont understand with someone like Bargnani’s skills, why he just doesnt drive to open up his shot”
—>well put…his game again miami–amazing till he fell off the face of this earth (partly because he became disinterested and partly because the offence forgot about him while he was hot, the question is which came first)…..as for this game, i got zero thoughts on that one.
and another statement I vaguely remember went something like this
announcer 1: ‘the raptors would be much better off in a set offence instead of this up-tempo they’re trying to create’
and one last question, how does antione wright go from a crucial part of the mavericks starting rotation and become their defensive stopper to de-evolving into his role now?????????? i know he talks too much and i know he his offence is $%&! but maybe we closed the book on him too soon?
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This Orlando team, definitely have the tools to take the big prize at season’s end. We are no where near that opportunity, so the loss isn’t too hard on the blood pressure.
When it comes to the play-offs (for Orlando – not delirious …yet), things look good. If Vince brings his A game, injuries remain normal, Howard continues being Howard, and those 3 point shooters continue to deflate the opposition, then the Magic have what it takes to make that final leap.
Which means of course … VC will have a prize to show to his fans – maybe on appreciation night.
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Gotta love Marco. He wears the number 0 to remind all the naysayers that he isn’t a basketball nobody. Working like a charm, Marco.
Oh I though the 0 was for the amount of shots he makes on average evening.
I miss Jose. Our offense has been pretty crappy lately. No ball movement at all. Its either Bosh or AB shooting a jumper or Hedo trying to force it. Jose might be bad defender, but our offense is struggling without him. And of course it would be nice to have those two PG’s that are worthy of minutes so you can play the one that is playing well.