Dominic McGuire, SF10 MIN | 0-1 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | -11The new Michael Curry. Twitter didn’t think him posting up and taking a bad shot early in the shot-clock in the 1st quarter was a good idea, and neither did Casey; dude kept Quincy company on the bench the rest of the game…garbage; wish we had an N/A rating specifically for him.
Andrea Bargnani, C31 MIN | 8-12 FG | 2-2 FT | 4 REB | 1 AST | 21 PTS | -2421 points on 12 shots but only 2 of them came in the 3rd; nothing in the 4th. I liked him going to the rack in the 1st half and making the Houston defense react to him, but the 2nd half was more of the same we saw from him in the Spurs game; if he gave the Raptors anything at all, things might have been different.
Jonas Valanciunas, C32 MIN | 5-10 FG | 2-3 FT | 5 REB | 2 AST | 12 PTS | -17I’ll look the other way when he shoots the occasional 17 footer if he keeps banging in the paint on both ends. We haven’t had a consistent player who rolls instead of popping after setting a pick since… I can’t remember I’ve seen that consistently from a Raptor, ever. Got caught on a couple defensive rotations like a deer in headlights, but we’re used to that from our bigs.
Kyle Lowry, PG27 MIN | 3-10 FG | 1-1 FT | 8 REB | 5 AST | 7 PTS | -17Guess he wasn’t joking when he said he wasn’t looking forward to this anymore than any other game on the schedule. 7pts 8reb 5ast on 3-10 against your old is just brutal. The rebounding was his only saving grace as he sadly lead the team in that regard.
DeMar DeRozan, SG27 MIN | 5-10 FG | 2-3 FT | 3 REB | 1 AST | 12 PTS | -16Shot 50% from the field, took good shots and didn’t force the issue. The problem is he didn’t shoot the ball enough and kind of took the back seat to Ross. There was a play in the 2nd quarter where he curled off the high screen, caught the ball, took a dribble and finished like a champ in some traffic. Happy we’re seeing more of this from him this season; always thought he could make a living from that space.
Ed Davis, PF21 MIN | 5-6 FG | 2-2 FT | 4 REB | 0 AST | 12 PTS | 0Continuing his strong, consistent play of late. His hard work in the summer is starting to pay off, but he’s a really boring guy and I’m bored of talking about him.
Amir Johnson, PF12 MIN | 2-5 FG | 0-1 FT | 5 REB | 3 AST | 4 PTS | +8Was present in body only. Grabbed a nice offensive rebound for a put-back +1, but that was his contribution for the night.
Linas Kleiza, SF5 MIN | 0-1 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | +1A wise man once told me that there are two types of slaps: a slap with the backhand means love, the palm means hate; the palm for him. He made even less an impact than McGuire did on the boxscore; two years and about $10 million left on his contract, folks…
Aaron Gray, C1 MIN | 0-0 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 0 AST | 0 PTS | +1White flag; the new Solomon Alabi.
Jose Calderon, PG24 MIN | 4-9 FG | 0-0 FT | 0 REB | 7 AST | 12 PTS | -4A really quiet/standard Jose Calderon-type game: 12 points 7 rebounds. Really quiet and a non-factor.
John Lucas, PG14 MIN | 1-5 FG | 0-0 FT | 2 REB | 5 AST | 2 PTS | +11Did nothing with the garbage time minutes with the game well out of reach.
Terrence Ross, SG36 MIN | 9-17 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 1 AST | 19 PTS | -12He played solid defense on Harden (as good as could be expected against an elite offensive player anyways), dropped a career high 19 points in a career high 36 minutes while giving us this redonkulous dunk in transition. Can we start this kid already? The signs are there: minutes = experience = confidence = production
Quincy Acy, SFDNP COACH’S DECISION MIN | FG | FT | REB | AST | PTS | Big donut.
Five Things We Saw
The Rockets got any shot they wanted at any time from anywhere on the court. 53% from the field, 50% from behind the arc…they even hit more free throws (16) than the Raptors took (12). This game came down to aggression and execution and the Rockets had that in spades. They set the tone and pace early and never looked back.
Lin and Harden combined for 22 assists to the Raptors 25. To make matters worse, the Raptors were one-and-done on most of their possessions (no ball movement). They shot well for the game, 48%, but this isn’t an offense that can win us games over the course of 82 games.
Kyle Lowry set the tone of sloppy ball protection on the 1st possession of the game and Raptors never recovered. I really don’t understand how he didn’t show up for his homecoming.
This game was over in the 3rd, the fourth was just horrible. Matt Moore hit the nail on the head with this tweet.
Matt Devlin’s Movember moustache made/makes me uncomfortable; can’t wait for December.
