This year, Christmas has come early for the Raptors. The dreaded road trip from hell is here: 8 of the next 10 games are on the road; 6 against playoff teams; 4 against teams being much improved from last season. The Raptors could very easily go 2-8 or 3-7 in this stretch. The good news is that we will get a good sense of exactly how this team plays under some duress. They have been showing a really aggressive/defensive/running game that is tough to sustain, but if you get through this stretch (win or lose) playing with energy, the fans will really have their backs. For the record, put me in the camp that thinks these guys will play this hard for most of the season.

The Kings are an interesting team. They are the only team in the league I don’t watch, unless they are playing the Raptors. It’s a combination of them being on the left coast, getting as much national TV coverage as the Raptors (zero), and not having  a team I want to follow; although they have a nice group of youngin’s that are definitely on my radar; if that made any sense at all.

I checked in with ESPN badboy Zach Harper, who runs Cowbell Kingdom, to chat about the Kings:

The Kings have a really nice core of young players (Casspi, Cousins, Evans, Green and Whiteside) that could rival what Presti & Co are doing in OKC in a couple years. I guess that wasn’t a question, but what could the upside of this bunch?
The Kings have a lot going for them so far but the key is going to be how much these guys work to improve themselves as they build toward being a contender again. Tyreke Evans is a bully on the court who needs to keep improving his jumper (three-point shot looks great so far but pull-up jumper is still bad). DeMarcus Cousins has all of the talent and size you’d want in a big man but he has to learn how to play defense intelligently and keep his conditioning under control. Omri Casspi has to do a better job of pacing himself through the year and get better handling the ball. Donté Greene improved so much heading into last year but needs to find a way to score efficiently. Hassan Whiteside … well, he’s a nice kid who needs every bit of awareness he can soak up on the court.

This team has a ton of talent but they can’t just be satisfied with how good they are early on. They need to learn how to defend as a team and continue to get continuity on the court offensively. The upside is a contender for the Western Conference but that is a few years down the road. They need to realize what it takes to get down that road.

I have a vested interest in Samuel Dalembert (betting big he will average a double-double for my fantasy league). His expiring contract heading into the possible lockout is one the most valuable assets in the lague; for a team that’s rebuilding with nice young talent, I don’t see them not trading him for some complimentary assets. What would the Kings be looking for in a trade?
Here’s the thing about Dalembert’s contract. I don’t think they’ll trade him. If they were to deal him, they’d be looking for a good combo guard that can shoot with high efficiency. But I think the Kings are all about fiscal responsibility heading into the lockout. Nobody knows what the CBA is going to be like and what restrictions it will impose on teams. The Kings want to be prepared for everything with the way they’re building for the future. And being a small market team that is struggling to sell tickets and get a new arena, it’s actually more advantageous for them to let it expire, keep the cap space and use their intelligent drafting. They have a lot of good players on rookie contracts. Don’t take on potentially bad long-term deals just because you have an expiring contract on your hands.

Now that I’ve said that, he’ll probably be dealt by the time this is published.

Will the Maloofs move this team to Las Vegas?
I really don’t see the Maloofs moving this team to Vegas. That doesn’t mean they won’t move at all though. This franchise has to have a new arena deal and the Maloofs want it to be in Sacramento above anywhere else. But they also are still running a business and if the city of Sacramento won’t give them a new arena then they’d be financially irresponsible to not explore other cities. San Jose is pining for a team but they probably won’t be allowed with the territory rights of Oakland so close. Anaheim will probably have the same issues with the Lakers and Clippers. Seattle still doesn’t have an arena and Las Vegas has too much red tape to take seriously. But cities like St. Louis and Kansas City need to be taken seriously. Those cities have a real chance to steal a NBA team sometime soon. Maloofs don’t want to leave this city. They’re legitimately committed. But they can only wait so long.

For the record, I see this team moving out of Sacramento before the city helps with a new arena. We saw the Sonics get ripped out of Seattle when their stadium deal didn’t happen, depriving fans of watching Kevin Durant on a day-to-day basis. The Kings have similar young talent. Would be a shame…

Injury Report

Toronto
Leandro Barbosa – Wrist (expected to play)

Sacramento
Samuel Dalembert – Thigh (might play, played last game)
Francisco Garcia – Ankle (might play, played last game)

Match-ups

**Sorry I don’t have any shot charts up today, but the ESPN decided to crap out on me this morning, and everyones charts were off**

PG – Jack vs Udrih
To his credit, Jack has been playing pretty good as a starter, averaging 11pts 4.5rebs 5ast a game, but tonight he will have his hands full with Udrih, who has also been surprisingly good out the gate, and if I didn’t take Mike Conley Jr in my fantasy team, I would have tried to pick Beno up on waivers. For some reason though, Udrih has always been one of those players that I’ve always hated, I don’t know why (might have been during the time Calderon was coming up and Udrih was getting similar praise because he’s a Euro, but he really isn’t as good – petty I know). Udrih doesn’t get into the lane much, but he’s picks his spots, and doesn’t play outside his comfort zone, which is definitely something of a rarity.

This is one of those match-ups where slow and steady wins the race. Jack needs to protect the ball much better than he has been so far this season: 8 turnovers in the first two games, brutal.
Edge: Even

SG – DeRozan vs Evans
In a nutshell, Tyreke is what we want DeRozan to be: a head strong guy who attacks the paint and wreaks havoc. To Derozan’s credit, he has been doing a good job of getting to the rack off the bounce and drawing contact; getting to the line about 4 times a night. While that is an improvement, he’s one of a couple cats on this team who has the ability to get to the hoop consistently, so more is needed. Defensively, he will have his hands full with Evans who does a great job of getting into the paint and to the line. This is going to be one of those nights for DeRozan.
Edge: Evans

SF – Kleiza vs Casspi
I like Casspi a lot. His game is sweet. Tall, lanky small forward who shoots the three and has handles: a prototypical Colangelo player. Not trying to start any rumours, but doesn’t he seem like the type of guy that could end up on the Raptors at some point? The kid just looks to score (doesn’t rebound, pass or get to the line well), but does so from the perimeter. Not trying to discount anything, but this will be one of Kleiza’s easier nights this season since Casspi’s backups are Antoine Wright and Donte Green; both of whome are a step down from Omri offensively.
Edge: Kleiza

SF – Evans vs Landry
**Disclaimer:** I’m almost biased to a fault on folks who played significant roles in Houston over the last few seasons. Yes they are part of a solid system that plays to their strengths, while hiding their weaknesses, but I don’t care. It’s the same blind idiocy that has fueled my support of the Raptors all these years.

Great, now that I look a tribal honking Rockets fan…

Landry is a nice player: not flashy, not overly talented, but he comes to work (think Reggie Evans with more offensive game and minus the freakish rebounding we’ve been treated too). He was part of the Kevin Martin trade last year that made you realize how desperate Morey was for a scorer (he sacrificed a key forward with Yao out for the season). I’m looking for Evans to rebound and be active on defense, basically what he’s been doing so far, but we can’t be expecting him to keep up this Rodmanesque rate for much longer, which has been making up for Bargnani’s 3.5rebs a game.
Edge: Even

C – Bargnani vs Cousins
I know nothing of Cousins other than the highlights I’ve seen/read, and by all accounts, the kid is the real deal. He’s big, athletic, strong, agile, co-ordinated, smart, and putting up nice numbers. The Kings front court is not a traditional one, which should make tonights game interesting to say the least. Normally, you’d have Evans on someone like Cousins, but Bargnani will struggle to defend Landry on the perimeter, so here we are. If you were one of the folks who were concerned about Bargnani’s scoring, you haven’t been paying close enough attention. All he needed was a couple games to adjust to life without Bosh, then he seemingly flipped the switch. His defense is better than years past, but his rebounding is worse (for now, should improve). This is one of those games that Bargnani needs to step up and protect the paint against a rookie who seems to be out for blood.
Edge: Cousins (only because I expect a better all around performance)

I don’t want to say this is a must win 3 games into the year, but if the Raptors don’t win tonight (10:30p EST start btw on Sportsnet One), they could easily be 1-9 (2-8 if they steal against the Bobcats) when they roll into Washington on November 17; this stretch of games is that tough. Wins are wins, and you want to be confident and positive when heading into a tough road swing.

Vegas has the Kings as 4.5 point favourites with an over/under of 192.5. Slower pace, with lots of opportunity. I got the Raptors by 2.

As always, live chat will be bumping tonight.

Like so many times this year, the Toronto Raptors pulled out a game at home that they probably shouldn’t have. Yes, they got lucky on St. Patrick’s day in the end, but for a while it looked like they’d had a few brews at halftime, laying down another clunker in the third quarter.

Let’s not kid ourselves. This was the Raps biggest game of the year to date. The teams confidence was shook as it went from high to low in the matter of a dozen games. Fingers pointed at the team, and at specific players. Two of the main targets, Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu did step up to the challenge tonight. You knew they had to. I mean if they aren’t going to respond to this situation, then you could have basically written them off for this year. This had the same feeling the Chicago game had back in December after the Raps were handed a royal beatdown by this same Atlanta team.

So it was kind of expected the Raps would come out guns blazing to start this game. The guns didn’t start firing right away as the Raps spotted the Hawks a quick 7 – 0 lead. This is when the Raps called out a time out and went on a 23 – 7 run. We’ll call this Andrea’s Run because he dominated fot his stretch. It was the kind of effort that’s bittersweet in the sense that it was great to see him get inside and bang for an offensive rebound, post up and attack the rim aggressively, but the bitter part being that perhaps I’m getting excited about something we should be taking for granted from our starting center. Even more bitter is why he can’t do it on a consistent basis. Ok, Al Horford is good, but I don’t think the way he aggressively took the ball to the rim and his overall activity level on defense was a revelation for Hawks fans. It’s something they expect from him, and he delivers it on a consistent basis. But let’s give credit where credit is due, Andrea had a very good 1st and 4th quarter, and an overall solid game.

I think this game was more the exception than the norm, but I’m willing to see this through. Amir played another great game tonight. His play to get his hand on the Turk free throw miss saved the game. What bothers me more than anything is that because this guy hustles and brings energy, he gets labelled as such, and it seems synonymous with “unskilled”. Make no mistake, this is one very skilled basketball player. He is getting very good with that jump hook, and his hustle includes challenging any play down the lane, getting this team extra possessions for second chance points. That’s a skill too, just like shooting is. Try telling Charles Barkley it isn’t. If Bargs starts coasting again, I want to see Amir in there for more than 25 minutes, at least.

The Raptors continued to play well, keeping a double-digit lead until something happened that I wish I could see from the Raps. I wish I had seen it when Paul Pierce stood over our best player after a dunk, seemingly taunting him. The Hawks rallied after a frustrated Josh Smith got “disrespected” by Jose Calderon. Hey, Caldy actually didn’t mean to, but unintentional swag’s better than no swag at all right?

Cue the Hawks rally. After a spontaneous players-only huddle where they must have pumped themselves up, Atlanta whittled a 10 point lead down to a one-possession game in less than 3 minutes. End of half. Gone was the adrenalin of a big home game, and the lead that came with it. Now came the dreaded 3rd quarter.

It was dreadful alright. The Raps got lucky with the absence of Joe Johnson, but Jamal Crawford made up for it. He was a tough guard all night, and the 3rd quarter was no exception. Demar DeRozan may have gotten burned by the wily veteran, but he got some back with his own stellar offensive play. He is going through another strong stretch of play. There is no denying his quickness, especially in the open court. 19 points, without any threes, impressive.

Chris Bosh really struggled in the third. It might have been one of his worst quarters of the year. Some of it has to do with Horford. Earlier in the game, Horford denied him on the drive, with some help of course. It succeeded in putting Bosh into jumpshot mode. Which is fine if your jumper is working. He got into foul trouble midway thoruh the 3rd, something he rarely does. He’s not fully back yet, Bosh is. Not sure what it is, but he’s not at the level he was pre-injury, and this team just cannot afford him to be any less than 100%. That is the sad reality that is the 2009/10 Toronto Raptors.

It was 86 – 75 at the end of 3, and you have to give credit to the Raps for bending but not breaking. They were always within arm’s length of the Hawks and with some of the stellar fourth quarters this team had had at home, you knew that keeping it close was important. Enter Hedo Turkoglu, who made a pivotal 3-pt play with 6 mins to go, just after a big Jarret Jack floater. I like Jarret at the end of games. You need assertive guard play in crunch time, and Jarret does that better than Jose, me thinks. Jose was great in the 1st, not so much the rest of the game. Let’s hope he doesn’t fall into that passive player we all grew to loathe as a starter.

I wouldn’t worry as much about this if Jay Triano wasn’t our coach. I don’t know why MLSE allows us to hear in on his timeouts, because they expose him as someone who carries no authority behind his words. It’s not that he’s not loud or overly demonstrative, Phil Jackson isn’t for example, but when the Zen Master talks, you listen. With Jay, he just doesn’t sound convincing. I could be wrong but he doesn’t make eye contact with players, nor does he address specific players, which you need to do sometimes. Does that part get editted out? Perhaps. I hope. There was no way to edit that timeout on a fast break… at the end of the game… where the Raps had numbers. Not going to hang everything on the coach though, because I think it’s just too easy to do it when fans can’t admit their team is just not as talented as they would hope.

Back to Turk. He looked a tad quicker out there. The effort was there, and maybe the conditioning he referred to recently is starting to reap its benefits. If he’s getting back to the player he was last year, this game being the first of many steps, then a lot of our questions are answered. That’s how important he is, especially in Bryan Colangelo’s eyes. He should be the second option on this team. Yes, he’s not terribly efficient, but he generates offense through his passing as well, which is not as quantifiable.

In the end, Chris Bosh hit a nice stepback fadeaway over Al Horford to ice the game. Good for him, good for the Raptors to struggle but make ‘em when they counted. Big men have never been counted on to close games. Some of the greatest, Patrick Ewing comes to mind, failed more than they succeeded in endgame scenarios. But on a team that hasn’t seen a quality backcourt gunner since the days of Vince Carter, he has started to figure it out. He’s stepped up to the challenge, worked hard this offseason to become a better player, and is now arguably the best power forward in the game. He’s not the problem on this team, and this victory was one important step to retaining respectability and his services for the next few years.

On paper we win this, but on paper we should’ve also won against Philadelphia and Sacramento. It’s a matchup of the third and fourth highest scoring teams, and the worst and third-worst defensive teams. The Warriors have 17 wins on the season and have lost six straight by an average of 10.2 points. I wish their recent poor run would fill me with some sort of confidence heading into this one but no such luck. Wait, maybe this will: Our 10-26 record against teams over .500 might make you question whether we can handle good teams, but there’s no doubt about whether we can kick the crap out of the minnows: we’re a whopping 22-5 against teams under .500.

This back-to-back thing, we’re 4-10 in them and the wins have come against New York, New Jersey, Washington and Chicago. The only road win has come against New Jersey so with all due respect to the Raptors, tomorrow night in Portland is a write-off. I hope Triano sees this as the gettable game and goes all out instead of holding back for Portland or Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

The Warriors have been hit by injuries and have lost Andris Biedrins, Kelenna Azubuike, Raja Bell, Anthony Randolph and Brandan Wright for the season. Even that doesn’t fill me with confidence because you just know one of their scrubs will be eyeing this game as a chance to get some points on the board. My pick for who that scrub will be is C.J Watson, profiled here by our TrueHoop colleagues or of course, the great rookie Stephen Curry. Even though the Warriors are clearly a rather pathetic injury-riddled squad, the oddsmakers seem to have little faith in the Raptors making them only a 1.5 point favorite. I really am torn which way this game will go. Also of note, this will be Monta Ellis’ second game back after missing the previous six due to a back injury.

I’m sure this will be an up-and-down no-defense game but as with any NBA game, it’ll come down to playing fourth quarter defense (or in our case, third quarter defense). After a fairly solid first half, we gave up 43 in the third quarter, the Warriors did something similar against Portland. They led them 96-83 heading into the fourth but scored just nine points in the final quarter. They shot 3-14 shots and had six turnovers in the fourth, completely blowing their solid play of three quarters (shot 53%). RaptorTalk did some analysis of our third-quarter struggles and concluded that Jay Triano’s talk at halftime does us no good.

This will be Marco Belinelli’s first game back in Golden State so I’m looking forward to seeing him in the first half tonight. If I don’t, Triano doesn’t know what he’s doing. We’ll need to maybe even see if he can use his length to cover Curry as I’m sure PG defense is going to be a high-priority after Beno Udrih’s impersonation of an in-prime Isiaiah Thomas. We cannot expect Calderon and Jack to cover these types of guards, if they would’ve been able to do it they would’ve done it by now. It’s time to start getting creative defending this position and perhaps even throw Marcus Banks out there who I recall as someone wanting to play defense.

Tom Liston was busy flogging dead horses on Friday night and trying to come up with a starting lineup that would fix our issues. He concludes that replacing Wright with DeRozan makes the starting lineup better defensively, yeah, no kidding? Other than Bosh’s offense and Jack’s desire to get to the rim, there’s hardly a consistent element on this team and even though Wright might have a couple good games (after doing nothing for the last 8 – 16/56, 29% + countless blown coverages) by getting the nod as a starter, there is simply no way he’ll maintain that level of play for more than 4 or 5 games and we’ll be having this same discussion two weeks from now.

DeRozan should not have played the entire third quarter against Sacramento, as much as I like him his defense has been disappointing and he should’ve been yanked after failing to fight through the pick set on him in the first minute. However, to state that taking him out of the starting lineup is going to mend some of our problems is a fallacy, the first quarter has been DeRozan’s strongest, he gets about 50% of his points in the first and is very attack-minded, something you need to be early in games. I hardly care though, take him out or leave him in, players like him are red-herrings when it comes to identifying problems.

There’s an article in the Star today which is talking about how the Raptors have been plagued by injury. Really? Losing 96 man-games is now considered being ‘plagued’? Especially when Reggie Evans accounts for 51 of them which the article fails to mention. From what I recall, the only significant injury we’ve had is to Chris Bosh recently and to Jose Calderon a while back. Injury cannot be used as an excuse this season.

Taking a quick reluctant peek at the standings we find that the Raptors are now in 8th spot after wins by Miami and Charlotte. The good news is that we’re three ahead of Chicago in the loss column who, like us, also blew a back-to-back road assignment (Miami and Orlando). They’ve lost 7-straight and have road dates with Memphis and Dallas before returning home to face Cleveland. Chuck Swirsky must be pulling his hair out. If the Raptors current slide continues, we have every chance of making the playoffs only because Chicago is playing awful basketball. Question becomes what does making the playoffs really mean if it’s going to happen like that? BTW, there is no chance for another team to come and steal that 8th spot as Detroit in 10th is a full 10 games back of the Raptors.

Finally, March Madness is around the corner and we’re having a pool. Get the info here, create the bracket and prepare to have your ass kicked.

GSW tonight, let’s do this now. Love the late-night games.

Caught this one on the PVR knowing the Raptors had lost. Was expecting a total crap performance and true to rumour, they started out like they finished in Memphis – spreading the cheeks wide open for unproven perimeter players. This time it was JJ Reddick (he of the Duke persuasion) and Ryan Anderson who I got laughed at for picking in my fantasy league. Things got better from there mostly because they couldn’t get any worse. They made a game of it because Orlando – who were missing Lewis, Carter and Pietrus – cooled off and we started moving the ball a little bit better. In the end it was a relatively close game with failure to defensive rebound and knock down a key open jumper serving as the final nail in the proverbial coffin.

Defense is a 48 minute thing and despite the long pre-season video sessions, coaching retreats, hand-holding and camp fire talks, the Raptors haven’t figured that out. This Orlando starting backcourt went 16-34 for 57 points. Ours had 18 on 6-12, do I really need to continue with this post? Problem was two-folds, the guards getting beat, mostly Jose Calderon in 1on1 and high screen situations and failure to recognize who you’re supposed to check in help and double situations. Go ahead and pull out any old recap from last year and you’ll get the gist of what I’m trying to get at. Unnecessary help was also another issue in that miserable first quarter where we gave up 36 points, DeRozan leaving Reddick in the corner to help out on Nelson’s opposite-side drive when there was already help there was the pinnacle of the phenomenon. Or how about going under a screen for Nelson even though he burned you for a three for doing the exact same thing on the last possession. Same stuff as last year, disappointing part is, as I already said, Triano’s talk that this team was of a defensive nature. But hey, maybe they need more time to gel but god damned if I’m to believe that leaving a guy who has already hit 4 threes wide open is a chemistry issue, more like a “I’m too f***ing dumb to understand what I’m supposed to do” issue.

The only added twist today was Howard who I’ve always felt we should never double. Not because I’m a believer of the “let him get his but control the rest” theory but because there’s no reason to put our fragile defense through the test of close-outs, rotations and all that painful stuff if you don’t have to. I think our post-defenders are actually pretty solid, Bargnani and Rasho are competent enough to slow him down on their own, no reason to play right in their wheelhouse and test Howard’s passing ability, which by the way is pretty good. It’s bad enough that we’re forced to help on Howard and are leaving prime three point shooters open, it’s even worse when it’s Marcin Gortat who we’re helping on. I mean, Triano’s got to get a handle on his “help and recover” doctrine. The Magic shot 7-11 threes in the first quarter and had 17 for the game, that really was all there is to it.

Ryan Anderson was torching Andrea Bargnani early and was one of the main reasons for the Magic building up a lead that turned out to be insurmountable. Bargnani was leaving him wide freaking open; our man gets a lot of credit thrown his way in terms of man defense but that’s only true when it comes to the post. He’s a good defender against bigger matchups in the block, mostly because he doesn’t leave his feet, plays straight and isn’t very reactionary. Asking him to D-up a more mobile guy similar to him has always been an issue and Anderson gave him a taste of that early. He got some measure of vengeance in the second half by hitting four straight threes for 26/5 (Anderson had 20/6) but the numbers don’t tell the story. If you’re one of those people who like to use his jockstrap as a face-mask, I suggest you skip the next little section, I’m about to point out three great Bargnani fourth quarter plays which were nullified immediately on the ensuing possession because of his poor defensive play:

1. He hit a three to cut it to 7 at 10:17 but failed to get the rebound on the next possession leading to two FTs.
2. He hits another three at 8:49 to cut it to 6 but failed to fight through a weak screen leaving Anderson open for another three at 8:33.
3. Drives and lays it in against Anderson at 4:05 to cut it to 4 but completely forgets to box-out Anderson who glides in for the offensive rebound and the dunk. Bargnani flails his arms implying that it’s not his fault. No, it’s your fault.

I also hate it when a commentator (Leo) makes a comment like “Maybe that made basket will get him going on the defensive end as is the case for many offensive players”. That is not a ringing endorsement, in fact, it’s the exact opposite. If your offense if failing, you try to make up for it on defense, not become a non-factor. Bargnani might be the only NBA player who needs a working offensive game to be involved defensively. In a game where the Magic shot 44%, there were plenty of rebounds to be had, especially against Ryan Anderson, but he only managed to get 4. As the above three examples allude to, how good of an offensive game does he need to have in order for us to look past his defense?

Bosh later alluded to the the guards’ and Bargnani’s defense referring to the threes:

“I think we came out flat defensively. We didn’t do the things defensively that we’ve been talking about since the pre-season, which is have all contested shots and give them one rebound. They had a lot of wide-open threes and that’s what killed us”

We shot 54% and had 116 points in this game so you might think that our offense is functioning as efficiently as a Rexdale crackhouse, not so much the case. I’m noticing a LOT of isolation sets with four guys standing around. I know it’s a cliche analysis but that’s really what it was; Chris Bosh bailed us out again with a monster 35/16 game but other than three of those scores, they were all results of individual brilliance and great effort. We ran one fully successful instance of the pick ‘n roll in the first half which saw Calderon hook up Bosh for a layup but excluding that it was very flimsy stuff by the Raptors – 1on1 play, basic reads and play it by the ear type high screens..meh. Asking your players to “spread the floor” and “move the ball” is nice and all but lacks substance which is often needed to succeed late in games. The Magic are by no means defensive stalwarts, not without Lewis’ length and Pietrus’ lock-down defense; the Raptors had plenty of chances today to run some good stuff but instead chose again to give the ball to Jose and have him use pointless high screens that go nowhere and serve as a formality that lead into the “real” play. I wonder how much of this can be attributed to our coaching staff who don’t have any notable experience designing NBA-proven offensive sets.

Whatever the case, I don’t like quotes that explain a loss through sheer stats:

“It’s difficult when you lose and you shoot 54 per cent and you out-rebound them (38-37),” said Triano. “But they made three-point shots ….. It’s not like we didn’t, we shot 59 per cent from the three-point line (10-17) but they just took more of them.”

Turkoglu had a good offensive game with 19 points on 8-13 and we saw again why he was signed. Problem is that he goes without having a say in the game for far too long at a time and that’s because Triano doesn’t have a single play which isn’t either an isolation or a high screen by a big for Jose. Whenever Turkoglu has the ball in his hands at the start of the possession, good things happen. Period. That’s all the thinking and analysis required here and it should be enough for Triano to test him as the primary ball handler. Yes, it makes Jose a little less useful but what’s the sense in giving Calderon his seemingly guaranteed 30 minutes if he’s not producing consistent offense for his mates. Or did Colangelo write minutes played into Jose’s contract? It seems painfully obvious to me that Hedo’s the better playmaker so why not just stick with him.

Reason for that is that it would make Jose and Jack handle less of the ball, which means Triano would have to find more alternate uses for them. Jose needs to get his outside jumper going, we’re lacking three point shooting right now and are counting on him to spread the floor. In fact, we were hugely counting on him to cut the lead to 3 with 2:48 left to play but he clanged a wide open right wing jumper. That was a real killer. Jack had another bad game, four turnovers, not providing any sort of guidance to the offense and losing track of Barnes and Reddick on key threes. Problem with him is that he’s too short, at 6’3″ you’re never going to make an off guard think twice about shooting over you and unless you’re playing high-energy tight defense and have a system behind you that can provide help, he’ll be more of a liability than a strength on defense. Reddick blowing by him in two 1one1 situations had to make Colangelo swallow hard. His offensive game was inexcusable, I was expecting him to get past Nelson and bump into Orlando bigs all night long for fouls, you know, show that bull in you we were told you had.

While JJ Reddick was burning the ACC down with his shooting, not once did we test this bloke’s defense. He was checking DeMar DeRozan and Jarrett Jack, surely we could’ve made him defend and force Van Gundy into a sub? Belinelli only played 5 minutes whereas Jack played 20 and Jose 30, where is the sense in that. We keep hearing Colangelo tout Belinelli’s playmaking ability but haven’t seen it. We keep hearing (and I firmly believe this) his good defensive abilities but don’t call on them, and instead, for the second game in a row have him on the bench when a guard was hot. I don’t think Triano’s subs are planned or thought-out, he’s rolling dice.

That’s basically all I have to say. A terrible defensive start leading to a big Magic lead. Orlando cools off and we get back into the game but when we truly need a stop, we can’t get one or if we do get one, we concede the key offensive rebound. The hilarious part of the game for me was Devlin describing the “skirmish” between Bargnani and Barnes who were both calmer than two guys fishing on a Sunday afternoon. Devlin called it like this: UH OH…HERE’S BARGNANI!! AND HERE’S BARNES!! WATCH OUT NOW, BOSH GETTING IN THERE..WORDS BEING SAID…UH OH…HERE WE GO….OH SHIT..OH SHIT..OH SHIT..THAT’S WHAT YOU LIKE TO SEE!!!

I’m not giving up on this team and nor should you. There are some positives to be drawn from today, our floor spacing has been good, Bosh appears to be in contract-year form and Turkoglu is playing as advertised. If we can get a handle on what to do defensively to try and prevent guard abuse and install some sets that make players like Bargnani, Belinelli and Jack consistent threats in all four quarters, we’ll be okay. Yes, it’s painful to see questionable effort in the first quarter of a home game against the Eastern elite and that worries me more than anything, but let’s see how this team reacts to adversity. I’d say we’re right in the middle of our first test right now.

Chisholm has more positives to speak of.

Crowd says: 41-41
RR says: 44-38

Yes we can!

The Raptors headed into the off season with little hope of improving the roster with the chips they had to play with, but a man by the name of Steve Fruitman did some math and boom! Suddenly they had their midlevel exception, veteran’s exception and Hedo Turkoglu. The MLE was converted into Jarrett Jack which addressed the Raptors biggest weakness of a year ago – backup point guard. they did away with underperforming Croatian rookie Roko Ukic and got underperforming but potentially good Amir Johnson. The veteran’s exception got us Rasho Nesterovic who should help clog the paint and improve the Raptors defensive rebounding – the team’s second biggest weakness. Jason Kapono’s rotting carcass was magically transformed into the serviceable intimidator, Reggie Evans.

Turkoglu gives the Raptors the perfect point-forward to run the pick and roll with Bosh and Bargnani, something teams will have issues dealing with. The word around the team is that the Raptors are Magic Lite. I hope they’re Magic 2.0. Oh, the team also got more Euro-rized when they traded for Marco Belinelli, a good talent that Don Nelson just didn’t like. You can tell that was a good deal by how much the Warriors hated it. I mean, c’mon, they got Devean George.

With the Raptors’ needs addressed to varying degrees and there actually being a semblance of true talent on the roster, the biggest question mark remains the coach – Jay Triano. He was 25-40 last year but let’s not forget the team finished strong with against Chicago (twice), Orlando and Philadelphia towards the end.

I know what you’re thinking: How is a rookie(ish) head coach going to integrate nine new players in a new system with two new assistant coaches (Marc Iavaroni and ex-Raptor Alvin Williams)? Triano actually has credentials at the national level for both USA and Canada, is on the same page with general manager Bryan Colangelo and commands the respect of his players. Don’t believe me? Ask Mike Krzyzewski or Jerry Colangelo. Most of all, he doesn’t just yell “Go go go!” with both arms waving like his predecessor. Most of all, he doesn’t cater solely to Bosh but factors in the whole team.
Colangelo has completely stopped everyone reminding him of Bosh’s impending free-agency but instead has us thinking of winning games and making the playoffs. He’s made it so that the coming season will be a test of whether Bosh can do anything with actual talent around him. He’s told Bosh, “Let’s see if you’re the max-player you claim to be.??”

No you won’t

We go across the Mississippi for this one and to the Bright Side of the Sun:

When Chris Bosh is the most “normal American” on your team full of Euro’s playing outside the borders of basketball’s home your motto should be, Expect Soft.

Ouch.

All-a-Twitter

@ChrisBosh: NONE OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT MY TWITTER BOSH ARMY WHO GOT ME TO 50K TONIGHT !! 2MORO I SHOUT U ALL OUT ON ESPN! they DID IT!!

Not exactly the type of contest you want to see your franchise facilitating during the off season, but his competition of “The first to 50k followers on Twitter” with Charlie Villanueva drew the ire of many fans (the folks at Raptors Republic included). He is doing his best to connect with his fans, which they can appreciate, but when you are holding out signing a contract because you are unsure of the future of the franchise, and its commitment to winning, maybe you should be doing other types of things with your summer then building up a following on Twitter. Thankfully he isn’t conducting anymore contests on Twitter.

On the record

John Hollinger:

It’s easy to split the difference and say they’ll be a .500-ish team, but I don’t think that will be the outcome. I’m expecting either a brilliant success or a spectacular failure, and I’m really not sure which.
That about sums up the feelings of 75 percent of Raptors fans.

The 2008-09 Almanac

Need a killer stat? If by “killer” you mean what kills the team, well, it’s got to be Andrea Bargnani’s rebounding. He’s the worst rebounding center in the league. His 5.3 RPG rank 89th overall and 57th amongst all centers. All the other roster moves are made just so that they can afford to have him rebounding next to nothing and still play 32-plus minutes a game.
We had issues scoring in the clutch. In crunch time they looked solely towards Bosh (which was unfair to begin with) and he couldn’t bring the cows home. His 5.4 points ranked 20th in the league in fourth quarter scoring even though he had tons of touches. We’re hoping Hedo brings some stability into late game situations.

Our record against Boston last year: 0-4. These dealt serious blows to the Raptors confidence and a win in Boston on November 27th will restore the team’s confidence and faith.

Last Year’s Almanac

• Offense: 22nd
• Defense: 22nd
• Pace: 14th
• Team Factor Strengths: Free Throws Allowed (3rd), Turnovers (9th)
• Team Factor Weaknesses: Offensive Rebounding (29th), Turnovers Forced (23rd), Shooting Allowed (22nd)

The Play

Calderon into Bosh down low, who demands the double and immediately passes to the perimeter for a picture-perfect swing sequence to find Marco Belinelli for the win.

The People’s Choice

You’d have to go with Amir Johnson under normal circumstance but there’s a chance he’ll actually play minutes over Evans and Nesterovic. So they’ll have to go with Sonny Weems. He fits the bill perfectly: Nobody’s seen him play, he looks like he can play, but he doesn’t play.

If you’re watching the bottom line, you’re watching this

Easily the pending Chris Bosh free agency. Last season was supposed to be about whether Chris Bosh was going to re-sign in Toronto. Thanks to Bryan Colangelo, there has been enough talent assembled on this team that the talk is about making the playoffs and making noise when they get there. You want to be elite? You want a max contract? Lead this team and build something special in the city that drafted you, nurtured you and idolizes you.

Fellow network member, EightPointsNineSeconds has a summary of ESPN TrueHoop previews for all 30 teams.