Bucks 92, Raptors 86

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the Raptors, undermanned, competed and lost a close game. They had a five-point lead at the half and after three quarters, but the Bucks came back in the fourth, as they often do.

• It surprised me how slowly Milwaukee started, considering it needed a win to keep its playoff hopes alive. Brandon Jennings was great in the first, pressuring Ben Uzoh on defense and attacking him at every opportunity on offense, but the rest of the team was flat. Just about halfway through the quarter, the Bucks were down 14-6. Jennings had 11 of his team’s 17 in the period.
• The whole “keeping their playoff hopes alive” thing? Yeah, didn’t happen. Milwaukee got the win, but Philadelphia’s win in New Jersey put the Bucks out of contention.
• Toronto managed 16 points in the paint in that first quarter, but only 12 points in the paint in the entire second half.
• James Johnson was unquestionably the best Raptor on the court. The line: 22 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, two blocks, one steal, 10-for-21 shooting. He mixed it up, scoring inside and outside, in the halfcourt and in transition. 21 shots is obviously way more than he can usually be expected to take, but I don’t see this as a bad thing. He’s not hesitating on his jumper in the slightest and has been playing with a ton of confidence over the last five games. Johnson started for the first time since March 26 and played 41 minutes, the most he’s played in a month. I like the look of the starting lineup with him at the four spot in a lot of matchups. Let’s see if Dwane Casey sticks with it on Thursday.
• DeMar DeRozan was ejected in the second quarter and finished the game with just four points in 15 minutes. He was called for traveling on a drive, then threw the ball from one side of the court to another instead of giving it to a referee. I understand frustration setting in after three losing seasons, but it was an immature thing to do. While I’m not going to make this into a big thing, it was disappointing. There’s just one game to go now — hope DeRozan finishes the season on a high note against the Nets.
• Milwaukee was cold early in the third quarter and Toronto actually built a 14-point lead, then the Raptors got jump shot-heavy and the Bucks went on a 10-1 run.
• Ersan Ilyasova was big on the boards all night, but was practically invisible on offense until the fourth quarter. He had no points in the first half, six in the third quarter and then went nuts in the fourth with 13 points on 4-for-5 shooting. This was necessary, as Jennings as Monta Ellis had gone cold. Ellis had 13 in the first half but missed all seven of his shots in the second, while Jennings shot just 3-for-13 after halftime.
• Alan Anderson had a pretty hideous line, with 11 points on 3-for-13 shooting, zero rebounds and four turnovers. But effort was there on defense for 42 minutes and I continue to want to see him around next season. Even if he isn’t, though, he’s earned himself a roster spot somewhere in the NBA.
• The Raptors had a 79-77 lead with four minutes to go, then the Bucks went on a 7-0 run in a minute and a half and that was basically the game.
• In the fourth, Toronto turned it over nine times. One of those was a rare five second backdown call against Anderson. Do not remember the last time I saw that call. Toronto also committed 12 fouls in the fourth, so the Bucks shot 14-for-17 from the line in the final frame. The Raptors shot 14-for-18 all game. This is how you lose while holding a team to 37.2% shooting.
• Kind of sad that the Bucks failed to make the playoffs. They didn’t really show it in this game, but their passing has made them one of my favorite teams to watch on League Pass. For the second straight year, they’re finishing ninth in the East. That isn’t where you want to be.

So, Andrea Bargnani is done for the year. You already know this and you’re likely not bothered much by it. These games don’t matter, there’s no sense risking further damage and it’s a good chance for other guys to show what they can do.

The only downside: this was supposed to be the time for Bargnani to show what he can do. Or, rather, show that what we’ve seen him do is sustainable. On both ends, we saw him play far and away the best basketball of his career before the strained calf from hell. I can’t link to the Hardwood Paroxysm post I wrote 10 days ago because some miserable people decided to hack the site, but at the time I argued that this closing stretch was important for Bargnani. Now that’s gone, so the debate will remain:

Were those first 13 games representative of Bargnani?

It’s important to note that the Raptors believe they are. Click the link at the top of this post to see quotes from Dwane Casey on the matter — he’s going to demand that Bargnani plays like an All-Star in 2012-2013. He’s going to expect that he comes into training camp ready to put the effort in on defense. Now that we’ve seen him do it, there’s no excuse.

This might be my confidence in Casey talking, but I’m inclined to expect the same. Yes, I know I’m going off a 13-game sample size in a six year career. I know that the broader evidence suggests consistency and focus on the defensive end are not his strengths. But I’m willing to give Bargnani a pass on the way he played when he came back from his injury — it’s a short season, he didn’t have time to get good practices in and he’s never before been expected to produce on every possession at both ends. As we approach the summer, he knows this isn’t the same old Toronto team. He knows that the organization won’t settle for being below average on defense. He knows he’s expected to make it his team.

Back in August, I was unsure if Bargnani deserved another chance. Now I’m thrilled he got one. As convenient as it may be for ping pong ball purposes, it’s unfortunate that his injury took away his opportunity to definitively show that he’s an elite player. But to my eyes, those early season performances give us more than enough reason for optimism.

Guess I’ll have to wait until November to see if he’ll make me look smart.

The RR End of Season Party is this Wednesday at St. Louis at Yonge/College (7:30pm).

Pacers 103, Raptors 98

Weird, fun game. A lot more interesting a watch than the OKC game the night before. While there wasn’t a hell of a lot of flow in the first half and Toronto was down 14 at the break, the Raps managed to fight back and make an entertaining game out of it. They dug too much of a hole early on to get the win, though. No Pacers were brilliant, but they have depth and much more talent than Toronto. The Raps held both Roy Hibbert and David West to eight points, but Danny Granger and George Hill had 18 apiece. Notes:

• That lack of flow? I’m talking about Toronto, mostly, and I’m talking about the offensive end. There were numerous offensive droughts in the first half. It’s not like the Pacers were unbelievable offensively, but the Raptors only had 10 points with two minutes left in the first quarter. Some of that is the absence of Bargnani, I suppose. But this was very similar to the way the game started in OKC, except Jose Calderon wasn’t bailing the offense out with jump shots.
• It was a solid night for Calderon, however. 14 assists, setting guys up for open jumpers like he always does. Just wasn’t looking for his own scoring. His first basket came about seven minutes into the third quarter. Eight points, 3-for-6 shooting. And his eye still looks terrible. Tough dude.
• Quiet, quiet night for All-Star Roy Hibbert. Those eight points came on five shots in 30 minutes and he totally disappeared at times. He did hit a high-arcing hook in the first quarter, though. Impossible to block. Kurt Rambis would’ve appreciated it.
• There were two A.J. Price-Lou Amundson alley-oops in the first half. See that coming? Here’s the second one:

• Funny: Price got greedy and tried a third one on a fast break. It had no chance.
• In the first quarter, Aaron Gray shot a six-foot floater about three feet. I’m sure you can picture it.
• How do you feel about Gray? I see people making fun of him sometimes, but I kind of think that’s crazy. He’s a minimum contract guy just paid to be big and play hard/physical ball. He’s done that. I wouldn’t mind at all if he came back next season —Jonas  Valanciunas cannot be asked to play heavy minutes against the bigger, stronger centers every night in his rookie season.
• Gary Forbes had a nice run in the second quarter where he scored seven of his nine points and had a drive and dish to Gray. I really wonder how many of these wing guys will be back next season. Everybody’s shown a little something.
• Speaking of the wing guys, ALANSANITY! Alan Anderson was on fire. If he keeps this three-point shooting up, there’s no reason he can’t stick in a rotation. 17 points in the game on 6-for-9 shooting. The Raptors cut the lead from 16 to nine in the third quarter and he was the biggest reason why, hitting five shots in a row, three from downtown, before missing his easiest attempt: an open reverse layup off a cut. His form on his long jumpers looks a little strange, but it’s working. And the dude plays tough defense. Love that he’s making the most of this opportunity.
• Toronto started out the third quarter shooting 8-for-9, Indiana 6-7. Wasn’t terrible defense, either. Fun times.
• Gray had to go to the locker room in the third quarter when he hurt his ankle. He came back, though.
• Ben Uzoh didn’t check in until late in the third quarter, with Forbes playing backup PG late in the first and Calderon playing the entire second. It wasn’t completely his fault, but the Raptors’ offense stalled when he came in and the Pacers closed the third on a 6-0 run.
• Big comeback in the fourth quarter — started with Uzoh on the floor, accelerated when Calderon checked back in with just under nine minutes to go. Ed Davis had seven points in three minutes, then was replaced by Aaron Gray and had to watch the rest from the bench. Good effort from Ed, though — 11 points, 10 rebounds, and Jack Armstrong sounded proud of him for making some energy plays. Hope he finishes the season on a high note.
• Remember when Linas Kleiza was the fourth quarter go-to guy without Bargnani? Well, he scored 18 in the fourth. 3-7 fg, but he hit all 10 of his free throw attempts. He hadn’t hit a shot in his four minutes of playing time in the first three quarters.
• Tough night for DeMar DeRozan. He had six points early and finished with just 10. He was on the bench for the entire fourth quarter run and was not a focal point when he came back in with a few minutes left in the fourth. He did get a touch in the midpost on a key possession, but Leandro Barbosa guarded him well and he missed a turnaround.
• Guess who hit the dagger for Indy? Barbosa. His three-pointer with just over two minutes to go made it an eight point game.
• Toronto might’ve been able to take this if it wasn’t for the free throw shooting. Kleiza made the numbers look better — you take away his 10-for-10 and the Raptors shot 6-for-14 on the night from the line.
• Hill had seven rebounds for the Pacers, Paul George had six. Who was the last rebounding guard for the Raptors? It’d be nice to have that, hey? Maybe DeRozan can up those numbers when he puts on some more weight. We’ll see.

 
Three more weeks. 11 more games. That’s all that’s left for the 2011-2012 Raptors. They’re out of the playoff hunt, there aren’t a hell of a lot of interesting storylines around the team, and tonight they face a team that’s equally irrelevant. But there are always things to watch for, so here are seven questions in advance of the game, one for every contest in a playoff series. Oops.

• How watchable is Cleveland without Kyrie Irving? This is a serious question; he’ll miss the game due to a sprained shoulder and I’ve missed the six games in which he’s been injured. When I do watch the Cavs, he’s captivating. Not sure I can say the same about Donald Sloan and Lester Hudson.
• Speaking of point guards with D-League experience, can Toronto get anything from Justin Dentmon? His 10-day contract was finally announced today and he should get plenty of minutes given that Jose Calderon is sitting out with his swollen eye.
• Who exactly is going to score for Cleveland? In addition to Irving’s injury, old friend Anthony Parker is out with a bruised sternum. He scored 27 of the Cavs’ 98 points on Wednesday against the Bucks.
• How will James Johnson respond to his benching against Philadelphia? We don’t know the details, but he’s not a guy I would’ve expected to need to be disciplined. If he’s back in the lineup, he needs to avoid the temptation try to do too much.
• Can the Cavs do anything about Bargnani? He’s been putting up big scoring numbers of late and Antawn Jamison is not the answer defensively. Perhaps Tristan Thompson will get the challenge.
• Can Thompson have a big game in front of family and friends? His first visit here, he received a great ovation but did not play particularly well, missing all five of his shots. It’s normal for a player to press in his first professional game in his hometown. With how depleted this roster is, Cleveland needs him to do more.
• Will the Raptors have energy coming out of the gate? They’ve been notoriously slow starters for much of the season and, after their strong fourth quarter in Philly, might be feeling themselves a bit too much. It’s hard for a non-playoff team to get up for any game this kind of year, let alone against the Cavs, let alone the Cavs without their best player.

Raptors 99, Wizards 92

No sense sugar-coating it: this was a dud. A win’s a win, unless you’re a Draft-obsessed fan and a win’s a loss, but this was not an inspiring effort from the Raptors against a Wizards team without its starting power forward and center. There were defensive lapses all over the place, there were some very, uh, strange offensive possessions throughout, and Toronto let Washington back in the game in the fourth quarter when a stop or a bucket here or there would have put it out of reach.

Talking about the absence of energy in the building in the fourth quarter, Jack Armstrong hilariously said it was “one of those days you don’t want to get out of your pajamas.” I think this can be said for the players, too. It’s been a grueling season with a ridiculous schedule and it’s tough to get amped to play Washington on a Sunday on the first day of April. I’m not going to kill Toronto for this because it’s actually been remarkable how few of these less-than-entertaining games there have been this season. The opponents are almost always more talented, but the Raptors have been competitive way, way more often than not.

It’s Dwane Casey’s job from now on to try to get these guys to play with the same effort and focus they did earlier in the season — in his halftime interview, he said the team’s defensive concentration had “gone the way of the buffalo.” Curious to see if there’s an improvement against the Bobcats on Tuesday. If you’re wondering, Charlotte is 7-43.

Some notes:

• The Wizards’ offense looked a mess. This shouldn’t be surprising if you’ve watched them this year. With Nene and Trevor Booker both out with plantar fasciitis, it was a bunch of young guys plus Brian Cook, Roger Mason and Cartier Martin running around, basically.
• Not really sure how a lineup of Shelvin Mack, Mason, Martin, Jan Vesely and Cook is supposed to score points. That group played together in the second quarter.
• Cook is my favorite NBA player. I love nothing more than to watch him jog up and down the floor and shoot jumpers. It’s a treat when he puts the ball on the floor, too. He doesn’t make me completely lose my mind and want to throw things at my TV at all. Nope. Not one bit. Promise.
• Andrea Bargnani had 18 points on 6-for-15 shooting, plus eight rebounds. Yay, eight rebounds! But he could have done lots more. He was 2-for-10 after the first quarter and, sorry Wizards, but I’m not giving the defense credit here. Bargnani is more than capable of shredding them.
• John Wall had a case of the Bargnanis himself. He had no trouble getting in the lane, but he didn’t appear interested in taking over the game. A modest 13 points and 11 assists for Wall, who made Kevin Seraphin look good by continually setting him up for dunks. No reason he couldn’t have looked for his offense more, however.
• Amir Johnson had two big plays down the stretch when Washington was in striking distance: a screen for DeMar DeRozan and a putback dunk.
• Credit DeRozan for repeatedly attacking the basket. He isn’t exactly going to get a ton of love from the national media for putting his body on the line in a game like this. I’d almost forgive him for settling for jumpers at this point in the season, but he got to the line nine times and took a couple of bumps. Good for him. It’s starting to feel like he’s been around for quite a while, so it’s easy to forget he’s still 23 and the organization still wants him to get stronger in the off-season so he can absorb more contact and be more physical defensively.
• Vesely had the play of the game.
• Ben Uzoh dunked, too!
• This game was ugly, but I’m still enjoying the Alan Anderson experience. Aren’t you?

Bulls 94, Raptors 82

I’m going to do something a bit different here to mix things up. In a nod to Rob Mahoney at The Two Man Game, here are 12 bullets, reflecting each point in the final margin.

• The uniforms. Dear lord, the uniforms. You’re aware that it was Canadian Forces Night and the Raptors wore the ugliest unis you’ve ever seen. Toronto snatching defeat from the jaws of victory could very well have been punishment from the Basketball Gods for putting these things on. Also, the fact the Raps are wearing camo whilst tanking is never going to stop being funny to me.
• DeMar DeRozan started strong. He had 11 points on 5-for-9 shooting in the first quarter, but one of those misses was a deep, contested three at the buzzer. The Bulls were a step slow chasing him around screens, so he got a few open looks. That opened the game up for him — DeRozan picked his spots to drive against a rather listless first half Chicago defense and hit a few more difficult jumpers, too. As Andrea Bargnani continued to struggle offensively, DeRozan was the Raptors’ No. 1 option. He finished with 23 points, but couldn’t keep up his early efficiency, shooting 11-for-25 on the night. Fun fact via Kyle Soppe at Hickory High: Toronto is winless in games where DeRozan shoots 20+ times.
• I mentioned Bargnani struggling on offense — Dwane Casey keeps referring to him needing to find his sea legs and I hope he finds them soon. Eight points on 2-for-10 shooting, 0-for-3 from behind the arc, and an overall lack of rhythm in this one. It was always going to be tough going up against Joakim Noah, but he was pretty much invisible here. Bad sign with five and a half minutes left in the first: Raptors are in transition, DeRozan passes to Bargnani trailing. He could pop a straightaway three or swing it to Calderon open on the right wing. Instead, he drives, which is actually fine because the Bulls’ defense is completely out of position. But he loses the ball, C.J. Watson heads the other way and gets a layup and Dwane Casey calls a timeout. Also, in the third quarter, there was this:

• I enjoyed Jerryd Bayless’ bright green shoes, but did not enjoy watching him have difficulty moving from side to side in his 1:29 of playing time in the first quarter. Good thing they pulled him; he clearly needs a bit more time after that hip pointer. It’s just crappy timing, though — he was playing so well, and Jose Calderon shouldn’t be playing 40 minutes on the second night of a back-to-back coming off an injury.
• As a result of the Bayless injury, we had quite the point guard matchup early in the second quarter: the 6’7 Gary Forbes vs. the 5’11 John Lucas III. It’s funny how rarely you see guys like Lucas, J.J. Barea, or Isaiah Thomas get exploited on defense in these situations. You figure NBA teams would post these guys up and make their coaches sit them, but more often than not the help defense is adequate and the other team ends up getting away from its game plan.
• Count the number of Toronto mistakes on this play:

• Look how happy James Johnson made Aaron Gray!

• It looked like the Raptors had this. They had a seven point lead heading into the fourth quarter. They had some defensive breakdowns in the third, but the Bulls were shooting 42 percent and looked tired, with their starters playing heavy minutes. This all changed extremely quickly in the fourth, as the Lucas/Kyle Korver/Luol Deng/Taj Gibson/Omer Asik unit completely turned the game around with a 20-0 run. Yup, 20-0. The Raptors went seven and a half minutes between field goals. Lucas and Korver did most of the damage, with 13 and 10 points in the quarter, respectively. Everything looked incredibly easy for the Bulls, while the Raptors struggled to even get clean looks. Toronto shot just 4-for-18 and was outscored 32-13 in the final frame.
• Lucas is so fun to watch. You saw him against the Heat, right? I love how much confidence Thibodeau has in him. He’s allowed to essentially step into the Derrick Rose role when he’s out there. Obviously, he’s not Rose, but with his aggressiveness and his body language it’s clear he’s always going to play as if he’s the best player on the court.
• DeRozan picked up a technical foul with four and a half minutes left, down by nine. He drove at Deng and missed a layup, not getting a foul call. Instead of hustling back on D, he screamed at the official nearest to him. Total frustration. In all honesty, I don’t think Deng fouled him. But DeRozan kept that scowl on for the rest of the game and it didn’t particularly help him. Felt bad for him — he was trying, but his team could not get a damn thing going down the stretch.
• I also felt bad for him because he was matched up with Deng in the fourth and Deng smothered him. Really impressive performance for Deng, who played 43 minutes and the entire second half. Playing through a wrist injury, he shot just 5-for-16 but he led the Bulls in scoring with 17.
• One guy who could have helped offensively: Linas Kleiza. Just five points on 2-of-9 shooting. He played the whole fourth quarter, but missed all four of his shots down the stretch. One was blocked by Asik and turned into a Deng-Gibson alley-oop, which gave Chicago its first lead since the second quarter. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand what makes Kleiza so streaky, but he’s now shooting 10-35 in his last five games. He’ll turn that around.

Check back later today for a draft post.

Let’s go back to late in the first quarter in Charlotte. This is before the disastrous 38-14 third quarter in which Toronto committed 13 fouls, 10 turnovers and let Charlotte shoot 80 percent. It’s before Jerryd Bayless scored 14 in the final frame to make a game of it. 44 seconds left in the first, the Raptors are up by seven. On a set play, Ed Davis receives a pass from Gary Forbes at the left elbow. DeMar DeRozan gets a step on Reggie Williams, cutting baseline from the corner, and it’s over. Bounce pass, hammer dunk.

On the Toronto broadcast, Leo Rautins raved about DeRozan’s timing. While it looked like an easy play (and, given that Bismack Biyombo was occupied with Amir Johnson at the right elbow, the finish certainly was easy), making reads and cuts is just as important as having the necessary skills to score in the NBA.

Take Gerald Green, who is producing for an Avery Johnson team that runs a play almost every time down the court — he always had that talent, but struggled with the mental part of the game.

Take Chris Paul, who has made the Clippers into a top-five offensive team in part because he has incredible court vision and is an extremely efficient scorer himself. He also does the little things, like teaching DeAndre Jordan to count to two before rolling to the basket.

I jumped when DeRozan smashed it because it was a sweet play and I love those kind of assists from big men. It was also unexpected. Davis isn’t selfish, nor a black hole, but he only has 38 assists on the year and is almost never asked to be a playmaker. His four assists last night were a career high. No one questions Davis’ talent; his finishing ability and his shotblocking made you think he was a great NBA prospect from day one at UNC. Same goes for DeRozan — he was a project when drafted in 2009, yet seemed like the obvious choice at No. 9 for a team in need of a shooting guard. The question is if they can harness this talent, work effectively with the rest of Toronto’s core, and make the Raptors a serious threat two or three years from now.

For some, Davis and DeRozan haven’t lived up to expectations this season. Their numbers are down, even factoring in the uptick in DeRozan’s scoring over the past six weeks. But they’re not supposed to be finished products yet, so we shouldn’t be talking about them with doom and gloom. Development takes time. Adjusting to a new system takes time. Doing so with your star on the bench most of the time doesn’t help. Part of getting better is playing smarter and building chemistry. If you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic, they’re there below the surface. It’s alright if it takes a fancy dunk to get your attention.

Raptors 83, Warriors 75

I’d say this was the turning point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2nL2xgGb6g

After an ugly, ugly first half in which David Lee scored 16 points on 6-7 shooting, the Raptors played with a different kind of energy in the third quarter. At halftime, they were down 47-38 and were shooting 33.3 percent. In the third, they shot 47.4 percent, held the warriors to 11 points on 5-22 shooting (that’s 22.7 percent, if you were wondering) and didn’t send them to the line. That play, perhaps the highlight of the season, put Toronto up for the first time since it was 10-9. Golden State would not recapture the lead.

Aside from that being just a beautiful play and the moment the Raptors took the lead for good, that play is important because it illuminates the two most encouraging takeaways from this game. First, there’s Ed Davis fronting David Lee, deflecting the post entry pass and saving it to a teammate. That’s the kind of hustle play that Dwane Casey wants from him. That’s what will keep him on the floor. It was not a big scoring night for Davis — two points on 1-4 shooting in just under 22 minutes — but it was certainly not a bad game. He had 12 rebounds, five offensive, and he earned a few minutes of fourth quarter playing time.

Finishing that play was DeMar DeRozan, who had an all-around excellent night. This was needed. After a string of strong games, he was a non-factor Friday against Memphis. Coming into this game I was sort of worried — Dominic McGuire is capable of shutting people down. But whether it was McGuire, Dorell Wright or Monta Ellis, DeRozan kept his cool. He didn’t sink into the background like he did against Memphis, not forcing anything but staying aggressive all night. He finished with 25 points on 9-17 shooting, going 6-6 from the line and adding six rebounds in just under 46 minutes. Yeah, just under 46. He played the entirety of the first quarter and the second half and was tasked with guarding Ellis for the majority of it. Maybe look for him to play a tad fewer minutes tonight.

With just under two minutes left in the game, Amir Johnson banged knees with Ellis. Johnson clutched at his knee, scaring the bejesus out of me. He’d played a solid game: 11 points and 13 rebounds including six and six in the fourth. In typical Amir Johnson fashion, he eventually got up on his own and tried to insist on staying in the game. That didn’t fly, as he went to the bench to get the knee looked at. Turned out he was okay and he returned for the last 36 seconds. Phew.

This was a good win, as it demonstrated an ability to bounce back from a bad first half. But it was not pretty. Toronto shot 37.2 percent, Golden State shot 36.3. This wasn’t because both teams played awesome defense, although I will credit the Raptors for making the Warriors take 18 long twos. Monta Ellis shot 0-7 on those. Jerryd Bayless was not able to repeat his performance from the Grizzlies game, missing all five jumpers he took. He did manage to get to the line, however. Leandro Barbosa had a typical 18 points on 16 shots off the bench, Linas Kleiza had an off-night and barely played in the fourth quarter, and Jose Calderon was fairly invisible save for a nice over the shoulder pass to James Johnson and a bounce pass to Bayless on the break in the first quarter. Johnson continues to look significantly better than he did this time last year.

A few quick notes on the Warriors:

• This was gorgeous:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvT5pvYWPYg

• Watching Andris Biedrins play basketball makes me very sad.
• So happy Ekpe Udoh is the starter now. Not just because Biedrins is benched; Udoh is immensely fun to watch on the defensive end. He’s active, smart and is good for a pretty block or two every game. He’s slowly coming along offensively, too.
• The Raptors were extremely lucky that Nate Robinson took so many of the injured Stephen Curry’s minutes.

Rockets 88, Raptors 85

The Raptors dug themselves a hole with a dismal first quarter, made a comeback and lost a close game to a good team. Imagine that.

You know by now that DeMar DeRozan tweeted his displeasure with not playing in the fourth quarter. I’d have been mad, too. DeRozan scored 10 of his 17 in the third, with several drives to the basket, a sweet turnaround over Chandler Parsons, and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc4DSudiTxM

Still, that’s not how you handle being benched and DeRozan knows it. It was out of character, he deleted it pretty quickly and I’m sure an apology is forthcoming.

I did find his fourth quarter absence strange, but it didn’t stand out that much. Jose Calderon’s late-game benching was more noticeable because it meant crunch-time Anthony Carter and I am just not used to the concept of crunch-time Anthony Carter. If it was me, I’d have put DeRozan back in midway through the quarter, but it’s impossible to know how that would have affected the game. If you criticize Casey for the way this was handled, be aware that the Carter-Barbosa-Johnson-Kleiza-Johnson lineup went on a 6-0 run in a minute and a half to get within two with just over three minutes to play. Do you change things up at that point? Tough call.

I’d also like to remind people that Leandro Barbosa is on the trading block and potential suitors would like to see him play 25 minutes a game.

The good, aside from DeRozan’s third? Ed Davis had FIFTEEN REBOUNDS. As mentioned a million times on the broadcast, he was caught way out of position against Samuel Dalembert on his first possession and committed a silly foul. After that, he was solid. Only five points, but that isn’t what Casey is most concerned about. It’s about focus and effort with Davis and he came through. I’d still like to see him set better screens, though.

Other positives: Jamaal Magloire was a nice interior presence (seriously) and James Johnson came through with his third straight productive all-around game. Encouraging!

The bad? Turnovers. Six after one, 11 at the half, 15 in the game, many of them unforced. You know why Carter was playing late and not Jerryd Bayless? Bayless coughed it up five times and looked even less point guardy than normal. Also, nobody could hit a three, Linas Kleiza was short on everything, and unsurprisingly no one could slow down Kyle Lowry.

All in all, not a bad effort. The Raptors contained Luis Scola and Kevin Martin, forcing a top-10 offensive team into an ugly game. As usual, they fouled a ton (23), but gave up few points in the paint (22). Make a couple of threes, hold onto the ball a bit better, and you have a road win. Let’s see if they can do that in New Orleans tonight.

This is probably the worst place to say it, but whatever: people need to calm down about last night’s loss to the Bobcats.

Yes, it was bad. Very bad. I produce a web show where two of the hosts recently called the Bobs the worst NBA team ever. Getting D.J. Augustin back makes them a bit better than they’ve been for most of their 16-game losing streak, but the Raptors still lost to an inferior team. They lost while playing fairly uninspired basketball — Dwane Casey said he was disappointed and said they “came out flat.” But let’s not freak out. Let’s not use words like “disgusted” or “embarrassed” or say that the players don’t care.

They do care. They just played down to their competition, as much as a team like this one can “play down” to anyone. It happens. A month ago, the Thunder lost to the Wizards. I’d say there’s a bigger talent disparity there. The Heat have lost to the Bucks twice and the Bulls have looked terrible against second-tier Eastern Conference playoff teams on a couple of nights. Some games, you just don’t have it. This is true every season. It’s doubly true with this compressed schedule.

I get that rebuilding is tough. For fans, players, GM’s. You want instant gratification, you want exciting games every night, you want the games to matter. But for fans, it should be easier to take a step back. Your job isn’t on the line. You probably predicted they’d finish near the bottom of the conference. You should be able to see the big picture. This season is important in terms of development and establishing good habits, but no single game should get you too riled up. I’d say this even if Andrea Bargnani wasn’t hurt.

With him hurt, fan expectations should be low. They should be losing-to-the-Bobcats-isn’t-shocking low. In the locker room, they’re understandably higher. Casey wants wins not because he hates lottery balls but because he wants to keep his players fighting, motivated. He needs them to feel they can win every single game. They need to be working, improving, growing. The most challenging part of coaching a rebuilding team is to stop them from getting discouraged during a losing streak. He’s said he’s not happy and they need to play with more urgency. The Raptors didn’t get their day off today and that should be enough. Stop getting all dramatic. Go watch Jonas Valanciunas highlights or something.