The “paging a team with heart to reception, please…a team with heart” edition.
Banks – there was probably a 50/50 split when he hoisted that three late in the fourth as it relates to people hoping for the best and others wanting to throw him in a fire as soon as he released it. Forgive me, but I actually thought he was going to nail it. He was in a rhythm, his head was in the game, his stutter step was nice….then he hit the top of the backboard. Pretty much summed up the game.
Bargnani – Big Baby was throwing Andrea around like he was Realizar in a UFC fight. I was half expecting Bargs to yelp. As has happened more than a few times this season, though, AB heated up late in the first quarter, went to the bench, then played level headed the rest of the way. One sequence of an offensive rebound followed by a nice reverse in the second certainly stood out. Yes, Rasheed lit him up late in the fourth and it hurt (badly) but this crushing defeat can’t be laid at the feet of Andrea.
Belinelli – got a question for you. Did you see him defend Ray Allen down the stretch? Hounding defence, very active, stuck to him like glue. Can he not give us 10-12 minutes of that a night? He made Ray look like an average NBA player. Stuff like that should happen at all times when your shot isn’t falling.
Bosh – Baron Davis gave CB4 a pair of oven mitts for Christmas. Bosh must really like them because evidently he has decided to play basketball with them. Maddening to see catchable passes skim through/off his hands in the paint and result in turnovers. Hurtful to watch his effort defensively tonight, especially that blow-by by Tony Allen that was more embarrassing than ‘”that dunk”. He got his points, but we needed his hustle as well.
Calderon – he was probably at home playing NBA2k with Garnett on mute.
DeRozan – 3 fouls in the first 5 minutes. That’s not how you show you can hang with the big boys in this league. This is, though. Still, far from a great effort by someone we needed a good game from to negate one of the few Celtic stars playing tonight.
Evans – at this point you have to wonder if the foot injury has been aggravated by him kicking the coffee table at his place. I know mine has.
Jack – he had that look about him tonight. He just wasn’t in the game mentally. He spent the middle of the game looking like he’d rather be shopping at Sephora on boxing day than be in a basketball game. He re-appeared late (too late?) with some zest, but he should have been a catalyst with no Rondo in the lineup. Disappointing.
Johnson – came in and stopped Davis for the first couple of possessions. Then a couple of quick ticky-tack fouls lifted him from the game. Would have been a nice game for him to step up and prove the “freeamir” movement is legit.
Mensah-Bonsu – Jay tried to (achem) “shake things up” by inserting Bangers & Mash into the game in the second half. He did make one great defensive play, but unfortunately it was on Chris Bosh.
Nesterovic – actually saw the floor tonight. Here’s hoping the executives at Real Madrid were watching. Not sure why Jay wouldn’t use his mass more against Davis, especially given Rasho had a nice game against the Celtics the last time he was played.
O’Bryant – you know, if he played on the Wizards, he’d probably be apt to shoot himself in the foot.
Turkoglu- never let it be said he gave up. Posted a 12/7/7 but I think this was one of the nights we needed his shooting ability more than his creation ability. True, Jack wasn’t helping in that department either, but Hedo either needed to hoist more than his 9 shots or he needed to get to the foul line. He was a late addition to the line up, but if you play 40 minutes you must be healthy enough to take it inside.
Weems – not much of anything tonight, unless you count fouls and ill-advised shots.
Wright – speaking of missed opportunities, he was inserted for foul-happy DeMar and how did he re-pay Jay? No output in 5 minutes of play. He looked like a F1 driver in a car with no wheels.
Driving The Bus: Andrea Bargnani
Under The Bus: Antoine Wright
Game Theme:
75 Raps
A loss like this makes the five game winning streak a bit suspect. We beat weak teams, then the first good team (missing 3 starters – Garnett, Pierce and Rondo) that comes along, wins. Great roll-call, you hit the nail on the head.
The nail on the head. The lot of them should have been under the bus. THey each played like a wanker at different points in the game.
As for Bosh and his halftime piece on leadership, oh please, stick to intentional comedy.
Yes, but lets put it into perspective….the celtics were hungry…not just cause 3 of their starters were down…but because they’d lost 3 straight…..this wasnt going to be a cakewalk.
That puts nothing into perspective. What you’re basically saying is that they wanted it more, which makes it even more embarrassing. It shouldn’t have mattered if the Celtics had lost 10 straight before this, we SHOULD’ve WON THIS GAME. This was such a disheartening loss it’s unbelievable.
Sadly, I think it does put it into perspective. A bunch of rich guys getting paid guaranteed money that everyone here would take without blinking to play basketball, so much money they will never have to be hungry, and enjoying life whether they beat the Celtics or not. Maybe they actually don’t care.
01 / 02 / 22:37
For all those that jumped to the conclusion that calderone should be traded, that’s including the moron who ignorantly put it on espn’s page: fuck you! I mean that with all sincerety. Have some courtesy for those that care foe this orginization.
I am sure there will be much hysteria about this loss ….
To me the difference this game illustarted how subpar our 2’s are … especially when matched up against someone of the skill and talent of Ray Allen.
The Raptors would have been much better with Jose starting tonight. Being a Raptors fan means that you have to either dump on our players or refuse to give up our worst player for the best player on another team – our guys have amazing potential until they play! I guess this means it is time for everyone to dump on Jack.
This loss bugs me as much as any this year, and it’s the first time I will publicly put the blame on Triano. In this game there is no excuse for Bosh AND Bargnani ONLY getting 15 shots each. They should have had 20-25 shots each and played even more minutes. There is also no excuse for Bostons “extra” bench outscoring out actual bench by 20 pts!
In the 3rd when Allen went to the bench, why did we counter with our scrubs and Bargs?! That is the point when we were down by 5-6-7 points and SHOULD have had our best line-up out there to cut the score. Why did Banks get so much play in the 2nd half? Why was Pops on the floor to start the 4th? Why was there little inside play and trying to draw fouls on what remained of their bigs? Why why why?
PS…suspect reffing in the 2nd half.
Another why: Why did Weems get so much burn in the 3rd quarter while he was tossing up (and missing) ill advised jumpers and not contributing anything else? Why not throw in Belinelli and see if he can at the very least inject a spark. Horrible roster management all around this game.
Oh and when we were down by 8…then 10… I was literally yelling at the tv for Triano to call a timeout, and then it finally came when we were down by 12 – by Boston.
PUNJABI. Amen, brother. I thought that Triano would keep our starters during that stretch too. That would be enough to reverse the flow of the game. But, no – he put scrubs on the floor, and obviously their scrubs did better job than ours. That’s our Jay.
Was this jacks fault?
Calm down guy.
Calderon can help……
On the bench.
Where he would fit perfectly. Cause our bench was pretty bogus tonight.
Look when you are playing against a teams backup PG, you should be lighting them up or at least easily winning that matchup… Jack did nothing, missed a number of lay-ups and provided few easy baskets (forget the 7 assists)….
Jack is a fine player, not a difference maker, and yesterday was another example of that.
Definitely Bosh is not worth max money . Please BC offer him a few millions less , take it or leave it. If he stays look for someone with Davis character with the extra money.
I think Jay Triano deserves to be under the bus for this one.
He was outcoached abd outclassed by a team made up of spare parts and a prayer.
and instead of abd
Agreed!
Guess Jarrett Jack doesn’t agree with you or with RYE. He cites the “piss poor” effort by his teammates and claims they didn’t execute what the Coach told them to do. He also references loose balls and offensive rebounds that the Raptors didn’t get.
If your own players are going on record stating that there was a game plan but it wasn’t stuck to, it seems like they aren’t saying it’s the coaching.
So what? beacuse Jarret Jack said so then its the gospel?! Maybe JJ should point a finger on himself too for allowing Tony Allen to execute plays at will and having his best game in like 3 years.
The Raptors were not prepared to face a hobbled Celtic’s team that was missing 3 out of their top 4 players, all while acting scared as if the ghosts of KG, Pierce and Rondo were on the court.
All that confidence building during the 5 game winning streak is water under the bridge at this point.
Interesting
I’ve defended him before…but when the bunny raptors got the headlights in their eyes and just stayed their on the road waiting to get crushed, it was up to Triano to shake them up.
Putting Pops in their doesn’t do that. That’s not special or interesting. All of a sudden they were there with five minutes left and the game within reach…and finally they ratcheted up the intensity…and then the Celtics found another gear and the game was essentially over.
This is one of those games that could end up being a cancer. One they can’t get out of their heads. That all defining back breaker that sets the tone for the rest of the season.
It’s interesting how sports works. After this kind of sub-par effort in any real world job, the employees would be brought in to an office and severely reprimanded. They would be warned that if they don’t pick things up they will be fired or docked wages or something…
The problem if your young and rich is that you can compensate for being embarrassed…and apparently you can even get used to it.
If I was Triano, at the end of this game the Raptors would have walked back in the dressing room and the lights would have been off…after they filed in they would have heard the door lock behind them…and then the light flicks on and in the middle of the room would be Oakley. And in his hand he’d be swinging a belt with a nasty belt buckle…
cue music and much screaming.
And that’s why I’m not Colangelo.
Absolutely agree! A head coach should have the basic leadership skills to slap and wake his team up during a game like this when the team is loosing to a completely depleted team. I think a big part of the softness of this team is because they have a VERY SOFT COACH! It is pretty obvious that this team is going nowhere this year again. There needs to be shake up and I think BC needs to start with his biggest mistake first – the rookie head coach!
Oh … and one more thing … stop starting DeRozan! The guy is nowhere near ready to play at this level. Recognize this, give him a few minutes off the bench and tell him to shoot 100 FG’s before he goes to bed every night!
It’s kinda funny how people think that if you change the coach all of the sudden the team will become tougher. Only if it were that simple…we’d still have Sam Mitchell coaching. Look around the league…there are players known for their toughness, such Gerald Wallace, Perkins, Kenyon Martin,Reggie Evans,KG, etc. and guys who are known to be soft. There ain’t a coach on this planet that’s going to change that.
Agreed on the Derozan comment.
Your point of tough players is correct. My point about the coach is not to say that JT is the only problem, but he is a BIG part of the problem for. You could keep JT and try to do another team overhaul to get multiple tough players. However, realistically you are going to have a couple of naturally tough players (e.g. Evans) in a team and then will need to get the most out of the skills you have on the team … and this Raptors team has quite a talented roster. JT just does not know how to be the bad guy at times in order to get his players to reach in and play beyond their comfort zone. He is assistant coach material, not head coach material!
The Raptors basically got their asses kicked by a D league team with one All Star (Allen) and one has been (Wallace).
What do you do with that? Who shows up tomorrow in San Antonio?
I’m smelling one of those twenty point prison shower scenes…
delivered by oakley…
I believe just the threat of one prison scene delivered by Oakley, and nobody in the Raptors organization will ever put half an effort in their life again…. If an Oakley shower is the eventual consequensce, everybody will be playing with tears in their eyes, and with an unbounded sense of urgency……
Nesterovic will transform himself into an above the rim player. Belinilli and Bargnani will score no less then 25 pts a game….Dam it – Maple Leafs Sports, you have to implement this…..
Evaluating their carrers Wallace and Allen are better than anyone on the Raptors.
combination of Weems, Wright, Belinelli, and DeRozan performed like a bunch of D leaguers – that’s why The Raps lost – stop/end.
This loss was primarily Triano’s fault. Notice how on every offensive possession we had, the Celtics were able to hedge aggressively or even double team. Whenever Bosh got the ball in his hands, he was doubled. Whenever we get some dribble penetration, we get 2-3 Celtics converging. When a team aggressively hedges and doubles like this, good ball movement is essential. I don’t know much of the blame belongs to the players, but for me 80%+ of this belongs to Triano.
On defense, there is no reason for Ray Allen to wind back the clock 8 years like that. Guarding him at this point is fairly simple. He isn’t agile enough to take you off the dribble, you just need someone who will chase him around and fight aggressively through screens. Yes Boston sets tons of illegal screens, but many other teams manage to get through them with success. This at its heart is why we lost the game.
I was really not happy with Bargnani’s second half defense. Celtics iso Perk against Bargs, Bargs fouls. They repeat this play, Barg’s grabs Perk’s left arm. Just really demoralizing stuff, especially that the Celtics felt comfortable isolating someone as atrocious on offense as Perk one-on-one against Bargnani. I hope Bargs spends some time watching video on how to guard offensively challenged big men like Perk.
I didn’t watch the first half, but I’m told Bosh was destroyed by Sheed in that half. Pretty crappy stuff..
I guess to keep from being flamed, I also need to mention some concrete defensive plays
^—eh, above makes more sense w/o the last line :/
“especially that the Celtics felt comfortable isolating someone as atrocious on offense as Perk one-on-one against Bargnani.” This so funny and so sad at the same time because it’s so true :(
perk leads the league in FG% and they’ve only played the raps once. Celtics know “the secret” that box score junkies don’t and that is basketball is not about individual stats. he might not meet the “criteria” for the all star game, but his team would not be as good, if he worried about his numbers or his stats. Perk plays hard, only a fool who doesn’t get it, imo, would say he’s a scrub. As a rook maybe, but not now.
The bench players seem to jell for some games and then unjell for others .. and tonight they looked like they weren’t in the game at all … can’t win games against top teams or top teams with three of their starters injured … and it was the Raptor bench that didn’t step up, particularly in their scoring. Oh well … the Raps are in 6th place in the Eastern Conference, but for how long because the January schedule is against some tough teams …..!!!!
I can’t believe that even though Belinelli was having a great night defensively, Triano put Banks in late. Belinelli on an off day is a better shooter than Banks. Now that Banks has shown that he can do something, Triano is trying to revive the combo guard thing that he tried with Jack/Calderon? When will he learn?
Bargs playing late really isn’t what we needed either. Not to knock on him or downplay his clutch 3 from the game before, but we needed some solid defense and rebounding. Rasho saw some time this game, and if he could grab some boards for us, it would have stolen a couple possessions from Boston.
Really, just terrible coaching from Triano all game. He couldn’t even get it going in the end.
The Celts had all of 8 offensive boards…. That is nothing exciting. The problem,was Boston made shots when they needed to and the Raps were lethargic….
As usual, someone wants to to take a pot shot at Bargnani…. He played a good (not great) game…..
I’m not taking a shot at Bargnani, he played well but he isn’t what we needed. If anything, I’m taking a shot at Triano.
Jarrett Jack is beginning to sound like a real fucking prick. Just shut up and play some ball you bitch.
I’m fully and always on board with the players just doing what they need to do to win the game, but this time I’m saying Triano didn’t have players on the floor that were capable of winning the game.
Huh? If you read all the pre-game comments, the Celts were all but conceding this one. Raps got pushed and shoved around by Perk, Big Baby and Sheed, of course and they promptly panicked and folded. Just like Shaq says – make ‘em quit.
I don’t care what players Triano put on the court. We had what we needed to win, and we got spanked by a bunch of bench warmers. I think that’s the bottom line. If I was a player on the Raptors or Triano I would cry.
.500 ball, that’s what this team is. The sooner we accept that and stop tearing our hair out after excruciating losses, the better. The effort in the first half was embarrassing, it was like they thought Boston would just concede this game. I don’t know who to blame for effort, probably players first and then coaches but then there’s the motivation factor and who’s job is that etc.
Still, not surprised by the loss because it fits this team perfectly, beat the bad ones, lose to the good ones and play .500 or so against ones on par. All this adds to .500. no surprises here.
I don’t like that explanation for this particular loss. If the coaching staffs were flipped (i.e., Celtics get Triano/Ivaroni, we get Rivers/Thibodeau), then it’d be an easy win.
There was plenty of effort on the part of the players, just poor offensive and defensive schemes. And no amount of effort will be enough unless you recognize aggressive doubling/hedges and *exploit* it. Figuring out a way to do this is the coach’s job.
And then Triano had the gall at the end to blame the refs for his lack of preparation.
Anyway, I hope he figures it out soon. Playoff basketball will also be full of tough defensive schemes. Perils of hiring a young coach, I guess..
Good call I totally agree.
If you think changing the f#cking coaches would making a difference, you are either dumb as shit or an eternal f#cking optimist. The Raptors suck…period. If they can’t beat the Celtics without 3 starters and Daniels, they are barely a playoff team. Blaiming Triano for defensive schemes and poor rotations is ridiculous. This game never should have been close. It was embarrassing. Bosh doesn’t deserve max money. If BC gives it to him, Raptors are screwed.
In my mind, it is not just about play making, a head coach also needs to be able to be a hard-ass leader when he sees his team doing a pathetic job on the court during a game like this. During half-time, Triano should have lit a fire under each player to wake them up. He is too much of a nice guy for this role. This team is soft, no doubt, and still has a huge hole in the starting 2 position, but I bet you this team would be performing very very differently under the coaching of someone like Doc Rivers! Hiring Triano was a mistake after such a roster overhaul when expectations were so high. Not every assistant coach is head coach material and Triano is a perfect example of that!
Agreed that Triano is not head coach material. But what I finally realized in last night’s debacle is that the Raptors really aren’t that good…barely a playoff team at best. Sure they have some talent, but look around the league and there are plenty of bad teams with talent. If we replaced Triano with a tough minded coach who has had success in the league, would things be different. Maybe Larry Brown…oh wait, Charlotte is worse than the Raptors. Maybe Flip Saunders…oh wait, the Wizards suck. What about former COY Byron Scott…oh wait, he got fired because his team sucked. What about another former COY Sam Mitchell…oh wait, we already fired him.
Our memories fail us – everyone ripped Doc Rivers and called for his head the year before he received the gift of Kevin Garnett. Garnett is the reason why these Celtics put the effort in game in and game out – whether he’s in the lineup or not. He’s the one that was on Big Baby to the point of making him cry. Doc’s an okay coach.
I think you should read Jack’s comments as well.
“And no amount of effort will be enough unless you recognize aggressive doubling/hedges and *exploit* it.”
You cannot “exploit” much if the effort isn’t there. Disagree with you here. Since you were not in the huddle, you do not understand what was asked. It’s clear – regardless of the game plan – the player’s lost this one.
We’re wrong. He got Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. So the argument doesn’t work.
Without Ray Allen Boston doesn’t have the same success.
Raptors are a good team and coaching decisions do affect the outcome of a game.
Johnson played 11 minutes even thu he was affecting Davis’s play. He got two
fouls big deal. Three other Raptors had four fouls. He had 4 foul shots. He made
3. The only other Raptor with more foul shots was Turkoglu. All this means is you
have an energy guy who was causing Boston problems sitting on the bench. That
is a coaching decision. How about the combination of Jack and Banks playing together
for 5:30 mins. in the 4th quarter. Was Banks lighting up the world with his shot.
No. 1 out 4. 25%. That is a coaching decision. Nesterovic played 1 to 2 mins.
That doesn’t even give a player a chance to warmup. That is a coaching decision.
The lineup of Jack, Belinelli, Turkoglu, Johnson, and Bargnani wasn’t tried last night.
Again that is a coaching decision. Arm chair coaching is easy but their has to come
a point where the coach sits down and asks himself where did I go wrong in my
decisions last game. That’s what is necessary for coach’s to learn. The fact that
Jack and Banks played over 5 mins in the 4th quarter tells me, Triano doesn’t.
Apparently Colangelo thinks the loss was due to not enough offense form the Raptors. Didn’t mention a thing about defense/rebounding.
What do you expect from someone who has never picked up a basketball in there life? Never even played the game, never been in a real fight probably, but instead got a Job for life from Daddy even though he wasn’t qualified for it.
We hire this idiot to run an NBA franchise?
Our starting 5 are all mentally fragile, frightened players who are afraid to play any defense, rebound a basketball, take any hard fouls, give a hard foul, don’t take any charges, and don’t know how to win a basketball game or don’t know how to encourage each other.
Bosh the the most overrated player in the NBA today. I said this in 2004 and I was right on. Keep putting up your points buddy, your team fucking sucks and you are a loser and have 0 respect from any player, coach, GM in the entire Association. Give me someone who plays with heart and balls. Perkins owned you, as usual.
A Franchise player doesn’t allow his team to loose 10 straight games to Boston BTW.
And there was a quote, I can’t find it now but it was on Blake Griffin on Chris Bosh. Blake said he would shut him down easily and would love to play him.
I’m looking forward to this game, when it happens.
I hate it when people blame motivation on the coach. Really, it’s pretty stupid to expect a coach to have to motivate guys that are making millions of dollars to play hard. I believe it was Pat Quinn who once asked, “How do you motivate millionaires?”. I think the motivation has to happen on two levels, a) individually and b) from teammates (leaders). Teams that typically finish in the top 5 range often have a couple of guys on their teams that are great leaders who can motivate the other players (think Kobe, KG, Lebron, etc.). I think our guys are lacking someone who really demands the most from our guys. As much as Bosh wants to be a leader, he’s just not that kind of guy. As much as BC thought Hedo was a leader, he’s not, he jokes around a lot and doesn’t really hone in on the game as much as he could.
That being said, the coach needs to find a way to get the most out of their players, in terms of how to use them properly, and how to poke and prod them in the right way. It seems to me like Triano needs to find a better way to motivate Bosh, because when Bosh starts the game poorly defensively, it hardly ever picks up. Triano seems scared to pull Bosh even when he’s blowing it for us.
All this pschology bullshit. I guess New Jersey just needs a good coach and a strong leader in the dressing room, then they will turn things around and challenge for a championship. Maybe the Raptors just suck and this game just proved it.
man the way i am feeling right now i will trade the entire team including the coaches and GM ..
Agreed!
In my opinion, the most worrisome thing about this game had nothing to do with effort, losing or any of that. It was the fact that Triano decided to play Banks and Jack together for as long as he did, especially in the 4th… If he still plans to do that with Jack and Jose once he’s back, then we’re fucked.
The fact that we did not scorch their second unit shows that we can’t execute despite outtalenting their bench. Traino’s head on a spit please.
I fully agree with those who say that Triano is to blame or ‘under the bus’ or however you want to say it. To my eyes, it was pretty much summed up during the first half when the Raps were taking a butt-kicking for a moment (ya, one of many) and during a break between plays when the team was crying out for a little direction from the sidelines, the camera panned over to Triano, who instead of taking the moment to stand up at the sideline to talk to his team … he was sitting there looking worried. At least, I thought, he wasn’t chewing his fingernails as we’ve seen in the past (ya, there’s a good look for a head-coach). But that was a moment when they needed the coach to be getting them out of their own heads and thinking about what they SHOULD be getting ready to do next, but … no. The coach was just sitting there. Looking worried. Pissed me off to no end.
Too many times the team had the ball and they were spread around the arc looking for someone to pass it to … and the whole middle of the floor towards the basket was EMPTY … with NO ONE running through, circling, trying to shake his man … SOMEthing. So little offensive creativity in those situations, I wondered just what it is that they ‘practice’? There are too many specific talents on this team to not be running SOME plays that would at least try to utilize them. And very much the same can be said for the defensive efforts.
Bargs really bugged me on defense more than a few times last night … but he tried to shake the funk a bit and (at least) got himself into the game, doing what came easier to him … but that’s also a part of what bugged me. Somebody needs to feed him some red meat and slap him upside the head to wake him up and get him PISSED before games like last night, so he can chase after the ball (defensively) with some attitude, throughOUT the game, doing those things that DON’T come easier to him. (See coaching.)
I don’t know what happens to Bosh against these well-fed f***ers, but he always seems to lose an edge against the C**tics. It’s a mystery to me.
All in all, a piss-off of a game and I put the majority of it on Jay Triano. Like somebody above said, exchange coaches for last night’s game and we win. There’s no question in my mind that that is true.
That was a wasted opportunity. We should’ve beaten those pricks, I don’t care. Our coach should’ve been up to the task of having them ready to do battle but … he wasn’t. Not last night.
Boston beat Toronto in every aspect of that game. Outhustled, outworked and outmuscled. Its a game Toronto should have won and yet they played like they were nervous or scared.
They played liked pussies….
After last nights disgraceful performance todays game has all the makings of a Raptors blowout loss.
Not a great performance by anyone but the Raptors won the second half and were victims of some questionable calls when they were bringing the lead down.
Watching ChriS just get the ball taken out of his hands under the bucket by Perkins, bobble passes, play scared, play timid, play zero defense should be terrifying for all of us. This is our leader?
Three points:
1. Ray Allen = awesome.
2. If Hedo dunks that the Raptors go on to victory.
3. This game shows exactly why the Celtics are who they are, and the Raptors are who they are.
Watch though – we’ll end up winning somehow today.
Oh yeah – see that screen at the end on the game that knocked Belinelli on his ass? Who on the Raptors would set a screen like that??? Rasho and Reggie Evans – that’s it.
We need to get bigger – and not just taller bigger.
Driving The Bus: Raptors fans
Under The Bus: Triano
That is nowhere near accurate
For all the commentators that stated that Doc Rivers would have led the Raps to a miraculous victory – take a pill. Three years ago Doc had a team that resembled today’s Raptors and they were one of the worse teams in the league. You guys sure love to blame Triano when this loss is all on the players.
Disagree. He played Johnson for 10 to 11 mins even thu he was affective.
He played Banks for 20 mins. These are two examples of coaching decisions
which affected the outcome of the game.
Last time I checked though, Triano wasn’t doing any boxing out or running the point. Why do some of you guys always take the onus off of the players. And no offense, Amir wasn’t that effective.
To all JC haters question 1: still want JJ as a starting PG?
To all JC haters question 2: do you think CB is a much better defender?
Unfortunately even though we know the Raps have no toughness and heart, we try to forget it each time they run a few wins together. They are just great at reminding us who they are, as many have said, a 500 team at best, with some very good offensive players, but a team bereft of mental and physical toughness and grit with minimal defensive ability.
All the above being said, DD really hurt the Raps early. He missed a layup to start the game, missed a five foot jump shot (if he cannot improve his shooting to 15 ft, he may as well quit now), travelled and missed a Bosh pass although it may have been Bosh’s faulty pass. However, all the above was early and killed 4 or 5 chances to get going early. He should not be starting or if he must, he must be told he can only get put back rebounds or drive to the baskets, otherwise he must defer to Bosh and Bargs and always give the ball up to a guard so he does not travel or turn it over.
I still don’t understand why everybody is so high on Derozan. He has the potential to be a good player, not an all-star. But before he does this he has to learn how to make open shots. He has no mid-range game and cannot shoot 3’s. Has has a bad handle and when he attacks the rim in traffic, he is usually blocked, despite his athleticism and he doesn’t belong in the starting rotation…maybe in a year or two, but only time will tell. Look at all the other rookies that are producing way more than DD…Casspi, drafted 23rd is playing much better; Jerebko drafted 39th is playing much better…look at Blair, Gibson, Matthews, Hansborough, Sam Young, Lawson, Jennings…all were drafted higher than Demar. Derozan isn’t even mentioned in the rookie rankings on NBA.com.
I dunno Michel…I’m usually fully on board for “blaming” the players, but not this time. Triano is the one that put/kept those sub-par line-ups out there. Blaming Weems/Banks/Belinelli for sucking is like getting mad at a dog for pissing on a tree. It’s not the dogs fault it’s a dog.
Well, that’s an embarrassing loss. Still not the end of the world though. I think the Raps took this one lightly and by the time they realized they were in against a team that played with some hustle it was too late. For everyone coming out the woodwork to say that they suck and are soft and so on, this team is better then last years and they are very young. They will get better but I don’t think anyone thought they would be elite or anywhere near it. They are doing just about as well as everyone thought. Every team that is not in that elite class has games they should win that they don’t due to effort and taking the other team lightly. Hawks lost to the knicks the other night for example. they willl make the playoffs this year and probably lose but at the end of the year they will be better then they are now and if we keep Bosh they might actually be in the top four next year. young team=high hopes/