Crawl. Walk. Run. Stumble. Fall. Get up….?
This is where we are with this squad right now. Every single playoff team is running into the post-season except the Raptors, who have the luxury of stumbling in because the Bulls are absolutely brutalized by injury. 14 games left in the season, and there is major talk about shaking up the lineup in an attempt to salvage what is left of this season. So much for putting in a solid system during training camp.
I do have to give Triano some credit since he is still working hard at making things right. Unfortunately for the rest of us, he’s learning on the job and doesn’t have the juice to command respect/obedience from the players; otherwise Bargnani and Turkoglu would probably be coming off the bench, or playing you know: good; and we would hve something resembling perimeter defense.
The Raptors are the only playoff team to be playing under .700 over the last 10 games. In fact, thanks to a grind-em-out win against the Nets, the Raptors are .300. Speaking of that game, it was seriously the most frustrating one I’ve seen all season. By this point of the year, the Raptors should have a set 8-9 man rotation, and rolling along; especially against a team that is challenging to be the worst one in NBA history.
The Timberwolves are just going through the motions at this point, hoping to win the draft lottery and steal Wall from between Jerseys fingers. No one expected much from them, and they didn’t disappoint, but they have a great young core that will only improve when they trade Rubio for some talent that wants to play there.
The last time these two teams played, Toronto was at the beginning of their resurgence, and ground out a win at home that saw them unveil their Huskies jerseys that many of us prefer.
Jefferson was kept in check by Bargnani and Bosh offensively, but he still managed 12 rebounds. Love was a beast though, with 18pts 7rebs coming off the bench while working himself back into the rotation after being injured for the early part of the season.
The Wolves are a great rebounding team; 43.5/game which is good for 4th in the league. That is really my only concern for tonight since they don’t score very well and are a worse defensive team than the Raps. Limit their rebounds, don’t switch on the pick-n-roll, and this game will be over in th third. That’s all I really have to say.
