The Raptors are looking to extend their home winning streak to 2 tonight against the Hawks. Just looking ahead, after tonight’s game, the Raptors have the Pistons at home before heading out on the road for a 5 game skid that will see them play Washington, New Orleans, San Antonio, Orland and the Heat. Based on past performances, this could be the start of a 7 game skid, but 2-5 seems more reasonable.

Add in the potential Melo trade involving the Nets and Pistons, and the stage is set for the Raptors descent into the bottom five of the league, which Franchise from Raptors HQ claims wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’m not one for tanking, but they might not need too if this trade goes through (the Nets/Pistons will win more games with upgraded rosters, and clarity of roles in the Pistons case).

The last time these guys played, the Hawks rather easily handed the Raptors a loss by moving the ball around masterfully and attacking in the paint with their bigs. With the Hawks playing much better since and having refined their offensive sets, which rely much less on iso-plays, things could be much worse for the short-handed-injury-plagued Raptors. Hopefully memories of an embarrassing 11-point 3rd quarter will fuel the fire for retribution.

I briefly spoke to Bret Lagree from Hoopinion about the Hawks and tonights game:

From what I’ve seen/heard, seems like this team likes to play together and are very supportive of one-another. What’s been the driving force of the camaraderie, and who’s the glue guy?
Al Horford is an extremely efficient offensive player and essential to the team defensive concept. The Hawks are at their best when Joe Johnson and/or Jamal Crawford are making jump shots but Horford is the constant, two-way presence.

How do you feel about the trade rumour of Jose Calderon + a big to the Hawks + a big? Who would be included from Atlanta’s side, and who would you want in return?
I can’t see the Hawks exacerbating their cap hell, burying Jeff Teague deeper, and failing to improve their perimeter defense in one fell swoop by acquiring Calderon. That might just be wishful thinking on my part.

Josh Smith seems fully capable of putting up 20/10 consistently, what’s been keeping him from doing that?
A desire to shoot jump shots, the team’s willingness to indulge that, and a constant need for Smith to challenge opponents’ field goal attempts as a help defender.

19pts 4rebs 5ast wasn’t exactly what the powers that be had in mind when they handed Joe Johnson that massive contract. It makes it hard to offer Crawford a reasonable contract to keep him as the spark-plug off the bench. What’s going to happen to him?
Given that Johnson missed two weeks, played hurt (and had it affect his production) much of the season, and the Hawks are just one game off last season’s pace, its hard to say that not signing him would have hurt the Hawks seriously in the short term and it obviously would have increased their cap flexibility in the future.

With Jamal Crawford (younger, can score, but doesn’t have the all around game) available, how badly would it have hurt the Hawks if they didn’t resign him, or pulled off a trade (possibly to the Knicks) with him as a principle?
I think there’s a decent chance he comes back to the Hawks on a multi-year deal for much less money per season. There isn’t a huge market for him and the Hawks love to re-sign their free agents. I think it’s better than 50-50 that they bring back Damien Wilkins and Jason Collins next season, too.

The Hawks have done very well against the Raptors, handing them some of the toughest losses they’ve endured over the last couple of season. What will be strategy heading into the game tonight?
If the Hawks simply run their offense, they can outscore the Raptors at least 9 times out of 10. I expect the Hawks to attack whatever match-up advantage they have on a given possession, either scoring quickly or swinging the ball around the perimeter for an open jump shot. It’ll be the good kind of isolation basketball.

Injury Report

Toronto
Reggie Evans – Out
Peja Stojakovic – Out
Sonny Weems – Day to day
Jose Calderon – Day to day
Jerry Bayless – Day to day

Atlanta
The whole team is healthy

Match-ups

Point Guard
Not sure that Bibby is an upgrade over Jose on perimeter defense, but I’ll digress. What we can agree is that Bibby has always seemed to get up to play against the Raptors; he hasn’t been lighting it up like he used too, but he did go 3-4 from beyond the arc the last time these cats played against each other. On the season, he’s shooting 49.1% from behind the arc, that’s good for second in the league and a career high. Bibby is still moving the ball around rather well, leading the Hawks to 5th in the league in assists. Their ball movement scares me, as the Raptors haven’t been the best at defensive rotations and closing out on shooters.

With the Raptors giving up so many good looks from the perimeter lately, Bibby can follow up his solid play against the Pacers (4-6 from beyond the arc) after 3 fairly brutal games in a row. Defending Bibby shouldn’t be so difficult: don’t leave him to help, and force him to put it on the floor. He’s basically there to shoot the ball and swing it to the open man; take that away and he’s got nothing. Calderon on the other hand…what more can we expect from him? He doesn’t practice between games because his feet are mangled, but has been able to increase his points and assists every month since the start of the season. You have to figure the foot injury is going to get worse, so the Raptors might be better served to sit him against teams like the Hawks where a win is a far-far-gone conclusion.
Edge: Even

Shooting Guard
Call it what you want, but you can’t deny that DeRozan’s improvement couldn’t have come at a better time. Not sure what the turning point was, but we know that since putting up a lame 10pt performance in a loss to the Pistons on December 22nd, DeRozan has averaged 22.1pts since. We’re going to need every single one of those points tonight against the 8th ranked defense in the league.

A testament to this Hawks team is how quietly they were able to weather the storm of Joe Johnson’s injury, going 5-4 through the stretch while not conceding much ground against the Magic for 4th in the East (and actually beating the Magic 80-74 during his absence). Makes it much easier when you have a motivated Jamal Crawford, the owner of something in the vicinity of 31 4-point plays, who can carry the scoring load quite nicely and is in a contract year.

While Johnson has played well, but never really abused the Raptors over the years, Crawford has drank our milkshake every time he’s played us dating back to the Chicago years. Tempting Crawford to drive, and forcing him into a help defender, is the only chance of slowing him down. Much like DeRozan, the guy is a one-trick pony who’s major contribution is scoring. Unlike DeRozan (up until recently at least), his contribution is much more devastating. Johnson on the other hand contributes across the board and poses a much bigger problem if allowed to operate freely.

Like Bret said, the Hawks will be able to run their offense and sofa on the Raptors 9 times out of 10, and unless either/both these guys has an off game, i got nothing to offer in terms of a ours of action; hopefully DeRozan drops 31 and gets the line in 8-10 attempt range if he has any designs on countering these two.
Edge: Atlanta

Small Forward
Josh Smith’s scoring and rebounding has been impacted by his need to play help defense and block shots; if only we were so lucky as Raptor fans. Sure he shoots too much for a man of his ability, but he does so much else, you can almost forgive him.

This is where things get quite interesting in terms of match-ups and such. The Hawks have Josh Smith at the 3, and can quite easily shift him over to the 4 at will. He’s bigger, stronger, faster, taller than Kleiza, and with Amir among the walking wounded, can really affect both match-ups in Atlanta’s favour.

The size advantage Kleiza’s been enjoying on the offensive glass won’t be there tonight with the Hawks front court, who rebound very well on the defensive glass. Best bet will be to get hot from the perimeter and keep Josh out of the paint/lane to hopefully free up space for DeRozan and Bargnani to operate. I can live with Josh scoring on jumpers rather than getting into the lane and off the glass; this screams for someone of Julian Wright’s ability and mind-set…
Edge: Atlanta

Power Forward
The toll that Amir Johnson’s body has been put through since Reggie’s gone down has been staggering. He’s basically battling in the paint, on both ends of the floor, alone. Better yet, he’s been doing it recently with noticeable pain. Ed Davis, while improving, isn’t ready for major minutes yet, but is doing what he can. Frankly, he’s been doing a good job considering. I imagine we can expect more of the same tonight against Horford; a guy I would trade Bargnani for in a second. Not hating, just that I prefer well rounded players.

If Jason Collins (yes, he’s still in the league) can’t cover Bargnani, expect a switch with Horford and Collins. Actually, the best hope the Raptors have match-up wise is shifting Horford to 5, Smith to 4 and playing Maurice Evans or Marvin Williams at the 3 where Kleiza can flex his stuff a bit more.
Edge: Atlanta

Center
For some reason, Collins has seen a resurgence of sorts with the  Hawks and is getting some play. Can’t imagine why considering he’s mostly 6 fouls to throw at somebody. Regardless, I think we can all agree that Bargnani will abuse him if he’s covering the Italian. If Horford shifts over, we can also agree that Bargnani has the size/strength/speed to battle Al, but the match-up will ultimately be decided by Bargnani’s ability to battle on the boards and do the dirty work. Horford will be out of his comfort zone on defense coming out so far to defend Andrea, that I kind of like both match-ups considering how sweet he’s shooting the ball lately. It’s going to take a big night by Andrea if the Raptors hope to stay competitive and be in a position to steal one at home.
Edge: Toronto

The Line

The gamblers have the Hawks as 4.5 point favourites with an over/under of 205.5. This game has all the makings of a game that can get out of hand quickly, especially with the Raptors so banged up. My concerns are really on the Raptors ability to create quality scoring opportunities for themselves. While the Hawks are an athletic bunch, I like the Raptors chances in a faster tempo game. Since the Hawks are 26th in the league in pace, going all helter-skelter could keep the Hawks from getting into sets and sharing the ball more efficiently.

Today’s game has the potential to be a rough one for the Raptors. You remember them right? They’ve hurt us like that a couple times, wasn’t just a one-time thing.

I checked in with Bret LaGree from Hoopinion about the Hawks and today’s matchup:

It seems as though all the Hawks wins have come against teams that are not in playoff contention, and all their losses against teams who are playoff calibre; how good is this team really?
I think they’re the mid- to high-40s win team everybody expected. They didn’t do anything to address their weaknesses in the off-season so the degree of improvement or regression from last season to this would be down to who improved and who got worse. Quite predictably, Jamal Crawford got worse and Al Horford got better. The organization clearly hoped that Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson wouldn’t get any worse and that hasn’t been the case so far. Of those they hoped would improve, Marvin Williams has been hurt, Jeff Teague has either not received or not earned a lot of minutes (and it’s a fair question as to which is the case), and Josh Smith’s been allowed to shoot a lot of jump shots, which has hurt the team even though he’s possibly improved in that respect.

Joe Johnson signed the biggest contract of the summer, and his production has dropped. His usage rates seems about the same, but his percentages are down. How much of this is an injury issue, and how much is this a matter of Joe getting older?
Some of it’s the injury to his left hand, some of it’s him getting older, and some of it’s a cold streak. I’m as big a critic of his contract as anybody (In fact, I argued for trading Johnson and building around Smith and Horford as early as the Summer of 2008) but he didn’t just become a 28% three-point shooter overnight.

It was a bad deal because he was never a player to build around and even the most rational, yet optimistic, Hawks fans could only seriously argue he’d remain as good as he’s been for two of the six years of the contract. For or against the deal, we knew it would a millstone around the franchise’s neck at some point but even I didn’t suspect it would be apparent so soon.

I heard some rumblings that Josh Smith would need to be moved because of salary cap issues. In my opinion, you can’t come close to replacing what he does on the court at the salary he’s being pad, can you shed some light on this?
The Josh Smith trade rumors are completely made up by NBA generalists though, to be fair, they are the product of rational, deductive thought:

1. The Hawks are in an untenable salary cap situation through 2013-14 if they want to improve the team.
2. Al Horford is the team’s best player.
3. If they build around Horford, Josh Smith is the only other player on the roster with any trade value.

Ergo, the Hawks will have to trade Josh Smith.

They won’t and they shouldn’t. That doesn’t mean they’ll do what they should (focus on the draft especially buying second-round picks, scour the D-League for cheap bench players with upside, bring in NBA-ready players from Europe) any more than they did what the should have done with Joe Johnson this Summer. They’ll probably muddle along as a slightly above .500 team on the strength of Smith of Horford and the motley (and expensive) crew surrounding them.

Whats the ceiling for this team as currently constructed; they are basically the same team that fell apart in the playoffs? Do we see Jamal Crawford and/or Marvin Williams get traded to upgrade the point?
Last Summer, Jamal Crawford’s trade value was Acie Law IV and Speedy Claxton’s expiring contract. With the uncertainty of the CBA plausibly diminishing the value of expiring deals and Atlanta’s lack of depth (and their draft history should they only be able to get a pick for him), the Hawks are probably better off keeping Crawford all season. Still, if a team gets desperate around the trade deadline, they’ll certainly remain open to offers.

Marvin Williams remains an enigma. He’s the only true small forward on the roster (seriously, I have envious thoughts of Julian Wright. Speaking of which, why can’t someone get at least Lou Amundson’s career out of him?) and thus has outsized defensive value for the team yet he’s horribly overpaid for what the team asks of him offensively and there’s no real reason to believe he’s capable of taking on a larger offensive role. He’s clearly not capable of demanding a larger offensive role but that’s largely due to him being a ridiculously and famously nice guy which itself probably tempers the criticism he might receive. Whatever the truth might be, I doubt there’s much of a market for his services.

How do the Hawks match-up with the Raptors? What will be the strategy coming into this game?
The Hawks have long benefited from playing teams that push the tempo because, though the Hawks are at their best in transition, neither of their starting guards look to push the ball up the floor consistently. And they’re better against bad defensive teams. That’s true for everyone but a jump shooting team (which they remain despite Larry Drew’s installation of a motion/flex offense) tends to be both more volatile in their results and more dependent on the opposing defense for the quality of those results.

That the Raptors are the league’s best offensive rebounding team could really trouble the Hawks. Most of the time, they leave defensive rebounding to Smith and Horford (if the second unit’s on the floor, they leave it to Zaza Pachulia), a tendency that’s been aggravated by Marvin Williams playing through a knee injury. The rest of the Hawks gave a concerted and effective effort to rebound Washington’s missed shots on Thanksgiving night but I’ll be more convinced that’s a permanent change when the Hawks aren’t playing a team on the road, on a holiday, and reduced to playing three guards all night.

Injuries

Toronto
Reggie Evans – Out
Ed Davis – Out

Atlanta
NA

Match-ups

Point Guards
Is it me, or does it seem Bibby’s been in the league much younger than he has? I also seem to think he’s lik 36…regardless, he’s still here, and not playing so bad. He can still shoot 50%FG 51%3FG, but that’s about it. Teague on the other hand can’t shoot the 3 as well, but is much better off the dribble. He likes to get to the rack, so will be attacking every chance he gets. Neither of them can defend worth a lick, so obviously…

Calderon’s been playing solid since Jack got the boot traded, averaging 14pts 12ast over the last two games. He seems to be hustling a bit more on defense, but that doesn’t mean he’s improve his defense. I fear Bibby getting open look-after-look all night, especially with the attention Smith and Horford will be getting around the basket.
Edge: Raptors

Shooting Guard
I don’t have a good feeling about this positional match-up tonight. The Hawks come with a one-two of Johnson and Crawford, both of whom have beat on us over the years (Crawford especially). DeRozan has been playing terribly crappy awful over the last 5 games, averaging up a meager 7.6pts 2.4rebs 2.4ast. Barbosa’s been doing a great job of scoring and leading the second unit off the bench, but he’s still needs DeRozan to carry his load, or it’s really all-for-naught. Meh…
Edge: Hawks

Small Forward
What a bust Marvin Williams has been since he got drafted, and going ahead of Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Raymond Felton; all point guards who the Hawks have been desperate for-forever. The kid is long, athletic and only 24 so there is some hope he can improve (maybe a change of scenery will do him well). What he does a good job of is defending the wing, so Weems and Kleiza will have to work a bit harder than they normally do to get their shot off. Williams has a tendency to disappear during games, which Weems and Kleiza can exploit if he hit the ground running. I gotta work Peja into this somehow, but he doesn’t give us anything but scoring, but at least I worked him into this
Edge: Toronto

Power Forward
The season seriously flashed before my eyes when Reggie went down. The combination of Reggie and Amir were able to compensate for Bargnani’s lack of rebounding. Now with Dorsey (I guess it will be Dorsey) coming in as the second PF off the bench…I don’t see good things, especially if Amir regresses to his fouling ways forcing Dorsey to play a bigger role than he should. Smith likes to shoot, but he’s not very good at it, so giving him the space to launch a couple jumpers would be a good strategy here. In transition, Smith has the ability to get back on defense and swat shot attempts into the 5th row, but challenging him in the paint is important.
Edge: Hawks

Center
Bargnani needs to rebound tonight; there’s no two ways about it; the 5.6 boards he’s been averaging over the last 5 games wont cut it, not with Reggie out. Al Horford is a champ. The guy plays a great all around game, and can be dangerous if left un-checked when he’s on offense. The Hawks wont need to switch up defensively to cover Bargnani on the perimeter since both Horford and Smith have the ability to get out on Bargnani. This match-up basically comes down to rebounding. With Reggie out, BARGNANI HAS TO TAKE REBOUNDING VERY SERIOUSLY FROM NOW ON. That’s all there is to it.
Edge: Even

Gotta cut this short, but the Raptors need to do a few things tonight:

• Communicate on defense; the Hawks are 3rd in assists and move the ball around like angels. The Raptors need to be vocal on defense, and play aggressively on the perimeter. Can’t let them throw passes around easily.
• Full team effort on rebounding; with Reggie out, there’s going to be a lot of rebounds up for grabs. I have zero faith in Bargnani’s ability to rebound, so it will be up to everyone else to make up for his transgressions.
• Bounce back from Friday; the Celtics didn’t pound the Raptors like I thought they would which spoke to the Raptors resiliency. Need some more of that against a Hawks team that isn’t as good as they might appear to be.

The gamblers have the Raptors as 1.5 point favourites, at home, meaning this game is pretty much anyones match. It’s going to take a full 48, but I think the Raptors can pull this off.

What a difference a day and some shame makes. It was the Raptors/Bulls game all over again, except the Raptors did the exact opposite of what they did against Chicago; aka, they played well. The day started with a guarantee for a win by Charlie Villanueva, and boy did he hear it from the pre-game tip. Matt, Jack, Rod and Leo all had a chance to rip into him for what I can only imagine was payback for Charlie banging all their wives or daughters or something equally bad.

So just to recap (cause I wasn’t clear yesterday), if:

• the Bulls lose both the next two games, Raptors are in
• the Bulls split the next two games, the Raptors need to beat the Knicks to get in
• the Bulls win both the next two games, the Raptors are in the lottery

Regardless of what the Bulls do, the Raptors have to beat the Knicks tomorrow. You want to be going into the playoffs on a mini two-game winning streak, not fall ass backwards into the post-season. It wont really matter in the grand scheme of things since the Cavs will roll over the Raptors something fierce, but you want your ducks in a row.

This game was over in the 2nd quarter, so I’ll save you the play-by-play, but a few things happened that really makes me hopeful while frustrating me at the same time, namely Bargnani. No one disputes his talent. No one disputes his abilities. We’re ok with his sub-par rebounding given his offensive talents; but when you only do one thing well (score the ball), you need to do that every single game. Guys like Jamal Crawford and Ben Gordon have made careers ($$$) doing nothing but scoring.

You know when Bargnani is going to have a good game. He takes his shots in rhythm; he keeps those lame shot fakes to a minimum; he scores from the post and drives the ball. His scoring fuels his defense (and rebounding), and when he’s doing more than just popping J’s, he’s a pretty good all around player.

Amir came through with a career scoring night; 26pts on 10-12 from the field and 6-7 from the line. Where was the rebounding though? I know I know, I can’t be happy with a win, and always need to pick at things….but Amir’s job is to rebound and bang in the blocks. He took good shots and made them, but only grabbed 2 rebounds? Detroit missed 42 shots, and grabbed only 11 offensive boards, that’s a lot of rebounds that Amir could have grabbed, but he didn’t. Just don’t want him to get used to scoring at the expense of his rebounding, scorers the Raptors have enough of.

The Pistons protected the ball better, grabbed more offensive boards and got to the line more (hitting more free throws than the Raptors actually attempted), but the Raptors shot the crap out of the ball. Wasn’t even a matter of being on, it was all about ball movement and playmaking. Calderon and Jack dished out 23 dimes with only 4 turnovers between the two. That’s an almost 6:1 ratio, ridiculous.

Playing Weems 40 minutes in a blowout was about the only thing Triano did that pissed me off (other than the post-game, those interviews insult and anger me). Hopefully the injury isn’t too serious, I didn’t catch any news yet.

At the end of it all, does it really matter if this team makes the playoffs or not? You make the playoffs and get swept by the Cavs, are you better for it? You go to the draft, and take someone at 14, does that make you better? I’m of the belief that going to the playoffs is always better, but only if the future of this team includes Bosh.

At the least, we can all enjoy a win over the Pistons.

So with a 1:21 left in the Bulls/Cavs game, Noah hits the go ahead basket, and neither side is able to score for the rest of the game; Bulls win and draw even (in win/loss) to the Raptors. They’re still 9th in the east, but when if the Raptors lose to the Hawks tonight, they will be in 8th place by half a game. So it goes in Raptorland…

The Raptors are the walking wounded, what terrible luck that Bosh and possibly Turkoglu are out when things are coming down to the wire. From the beginning of the season, even though a few of us talked about the Raptors being a .500 team, and the 5th to 8th spots in the East not being decided until the last couple games of the season, it doesn’t mean we’re not nervous about the last week of the season.

Including tonight, both the Raptors and Bulls have four games to go, and their schedules look like:

Toronto
@ Atlanta
vs Chicago
@ Detroit
vs New York

Chicago
@ New Jersey
@ Toronto
vs Boston
vs Charlotte

The Chicago game is a must win, there is no question, but the Raptors have owned Detroit and New York all year, if they can win 2 of those three games, I think the Raptors sneak into the playoffs. You have to remember that Boston can’t rest their guys much coming down the stretch since they are dead-locked with Atlanta for the 3rd seed (no one wants Cleveland in the 2nd round). I don’t know, I think the playoffs are on the horizon, and with Bosh rumoured to possibly return for the playoffs….could be a boon.

First things first though, the Hawks. I checked in with Bret LaGree of Hoopinion about the Hawks:

Q. With Boston holding the tie breaker, I took a look at both your schedules, and it looks like both you guys could go 3-1 over the next four games. Milwaukee might be a better first round match-up given they lost Bogut with the broken finger, but do you really want Cleveland in the 2nd round?
A. The Hawks are going to be a decent-sized favorite in the first-round and a big underdog in the second-round regardless of the particular match-ups. I do think Milwaukee (without Bogut) is a slightly better match-up for the Hawks than Miami. For selfish reasons, I’d like to avoid another first-round series with the Heat. I’m not sure I have anything interesting left to say about those two teams playing each other. Even though the Hawks finally beat Orlando, they still match-up terribly against the Magic. The Hawks are probably no more likely to trouble Cleveland but all their games tend to be competitive until the Hawks stop scoring in the fourth quarter.

Q. Can you rate the Hawks this season? From an outsider looking in, I would say they are having a great season, comments?
A. It’s a been good season. They’ve taken another small step forward. It’s hard to see how they get from 50 wins to contending for a championship (I suspect it involves putting good defensive guards in front of Smith and Horford but I don’t have a practical and plausible scenario for making that happen.) but the Hawks were so bad (and boring-bad) for so long that competence hasn’t grown stale.

Q. I know people are talking about Jamal Crawford as a replacement for Joe Johnson, but give me a break! Shouldn’t the Hawks be doing everything possible to keep Johnson in a Hawks uniform going forward? (I have a man crush on Joe Johnson btw)
A. I was open to the idea of trading Joe Johnson and building around Smith and Horford (and Josh Childress but that ship has sort of sailed) two summers ago. Johnson’s the team’s best player but not good enough to take up such a large share of the cap on a team whose owner’s aren’t going to pay the luxury tax. Plus, they gave up too much (Diaw and 2 first-round picks) to acquire him and wasted so many resources (several draft picks, the rights to Childress) that they’ve never been in a position to acquire a true franchise player to play alongside Johnson via trade. The best they can do with their disposable assets is acquire an over-paid Bibby or Crawford. Then they keep those shot-happy defensive liabilities and further limit their options with regard to the cap. I’m not sure Johnson will re-sign but I suspect the Hawks will aggressively try and keep him. They’ll have to make more than one major trade to replace Johnson if he leaves and the organization is terribly resistant to change.

Q. Josh Smith; gush about him a bit.
A. It’s nice to have him healthy again. He really struggled to move last season after he sprained his ankle against the Raptors in the fourth game of the season. He’s back to his normal rates on the offensive glass, blocking shots, and getting steals and now that he’s (mostly but not enough) playing inside of 15-feet where defenses have to pay attention to him the passing lanes have opened up and he can take advantage of that skill, too. If he ever stops taking jump shots (three a game this year, and he makes the long twos no more frequently than he made the three-pointers he’s abstained from this season) and gets back to being a 70% free throw shooter, he’ll be a legit All-NBA candidate.

Q. I’ve hated Al Horford since he raped TJ Ford a couple years ago, but the guy has been huge for me in my fantasy league, would you consider trading him for Andrea Bargnani, straight up?
A. If there’s a precise amount of alcohol I could consume that would significantly impair my judgment but not kill me, I might consider Bargnani for Horford. Marvin Williams for Bargnani better represents my interest in Andrea in a non-altered state.

There are only a few games left this season, I had to throw a jab at Bargnani…

The last time these guys played was that epic Bosh game winner with 2 seconds left in the game. The Raptors played hard and gave themselves a chance to win the game at the end (which is all we want from this team). The Hawks are in a bit of funk heading into the playoffs; they have dropped 3 of their last 4, including their most recent loss to the Pistons. In their defense, they were missing Joe Johnson, who is expected to return tonight (great!).

Regardless of Johnson’s status tonight, the Hawks have enough weapons to really give the Raptors problems. Starting Reggie Evans may not be the way to go tonight. Josh Smith is just too athletic for Evans, who wont be giving him much trouble on either end of the floor. If the Raptors want any shot at winning, Amir Johnson needs to start, and play heavy minutes alongside Bargnani against the Smith/Horford front line. I can’t see it any other way, just saying.

Bargnani bounced-back in the game against the Celtics with 17pts 5rebs after playing TERRIBLY against the Cavs (horrible). Although he hasn’t been shooting very well from the field lately, he has to figure out a way to get some shots when that double comes. With Bosh out, room to operate is sparse. His play will be crucial tonight. If all he does tonight is elbow Horford in the face, that would make me really happy.

I’m mostly just afraid of Jamal Crawford; the guy has been killing us for years, and is averaging 21pts a game against us this season – there are really no words…hate maybe…

If Turkoglu is out tonight, this game could be over as quickly as it starts. Move the ball around, rebound and tempt Josh Smith to shoot three’s, that’s the only way I see this ending well for the Raptors.

It’s the last Raptor Fan Friday tonight at the SCC, and we’ve had a great year with your support, and really appreciate y’all showing up in the snow/cold when the team wasn’t doing very well. So come on down and join us tonight. One love baby.

Unlike the Raptors, we continue to work hard at RR and bring the goods. The good news is that AltRaps’ and Arsenalists prediction for a 3-1 week is still alive. The bad news is that all three have to come on the road starting tonight in Atlanta. After losing Sunday to a Pistons team without Ben Gordon, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince, we can expect this team to want to rebound. You will all be in my thoughts tonight as this one is going to get messy, I can guarantee you that.

The last time these guys played, it didn’t go so well, with the Hawks taking down a 118-110 decision. There was some playoff seeding on the line in that game, as the Hawks had a couple game lead over the Bulls for the 4th seed, but the Raptors had already thrown in the towel, even if Marion hadn’t.

The Match-ups

The Point: Calderon and Jack are both coming off of good games last night, Calderon more so than Jack. Triano needs to manage these two better today…if Calderon is hot, ride the wave man, don’t be afraid. What happened last night was terrible. We have to make sure that if Calderon is hot, that we use that, and not take the ball out of his hand. On the flip side, Jack needs to know his role, and not try to take the game over. He hit some big shots last night, but we have a lot of guys who are better scorers (better shooters) than he is, and they need to be utilized for these types of roles. Bibby has always hurt the Raptors, and I don’t see that changing much. If Calderon/Jack leave him open, he will take and hit that three. Triano needs to NOT play them together as the thought of these two playing defense on a combination of Bibby/Crawford/Johnson makes the Pad Thai I had for lunch make some noise in my stomach.
The Edge: Atlanta

The Talent: Johnson is going to murder DeRozan/Belinelli/Wright/Jack/whoever covers him. I don’t see any ways around this one. Hopefully Jack will not be assigned even a minute of duty covering this guy. Crawford is the other Raptor killer on this team. How many times have we seen him drop 50 on us? Again, he wont have much trouble slicing and dicing.
The Edge: Atlanta

The Wing: Turkoglu is continually being under/incorrectly utilized. His usage rate is at 18.9%; to put it in perspective, he was at 23% and 24.8% the last two seasons in Orlando. Figure he is getting between 4-6 less touches a game, as well he is being used to do the wrong types of things (should be a playmaker for others, not told to get his own shot off), and we have ourselves a problem. To put this in perspective, Jack is being utilized at 17.3%….yeah. I like this match-up with Marvin Williams for Turk, he wont get abused on defense, and should be able to do what he wants on offense.

The Edge: Raptors

The Big: Bosh vs Smith, I love this match-up. The PF battle will be crucial off the bench with Amir “put me in coach” Johnson battling Joe “I’m still kickin around” Smith on both ends. It’s amazing Joe Smith is playing, and at such a high level. A true pro, and a great pick up for the Hawks IMHO.
The Edge: Even

The Strong: I don’t have any problems with Bargnani right now. He’s doing about what I expected. Sure, I could use some more rebounding and better rotational defense, but f*ck it, the system sucks. Horford does represent some big problems for Bargs though. This guy is relentless on the boards, and lives in the paint. Leave him alone 15ft out, and he can knock those down. Bargs needs to box this guy out, job # 1. I don’t even care if he doesn’t score a lick, keep this guy off the board and in foul trouble, and this game is ours, simple.
The Edge: Atlanta

The Line

The Hawks are a 9 point favourite with an over/under of 211.5

Simulation

Visser’s sims are 13-6 this year and this time the crystal ball is predicting a 107-95 Raptors loss.

Prediction

AltRaps predicts a win. Arsenalist predicts a win. Who am I to disagree? I’m a realist, that’s who I am. Raptors lose, sorry guys.

Come swing by the RR Forums and check out our game thread. You want Twitter? Live Chat? ESPN Daily Dime? We got you son!

Shooting guard is the only position where the starter at this point is undetermined. There's been talk that rookie DeMar DeRozan will get the assignment because he's a lottery pick and that no one else has really grabbed the bull by the horns. But Wright, a four-year NBA veteran, has been hurt for most of the pre-season (sore right knee) and now a battle royale for the starter's job is expected leading up to the Raptors' regular season opener on Oct. 28 — with the amiable Wright leading the charge and kicking the rookie's derriere in practice.

Raptors’ Wright anxious to unseat DeRozan – thestar.com

Even if he remains as a backup, it's not as if Wright won't have a major impact on whomever starts. He'll have days of practice to make sure DeRozan and Sonny Weems, another young guy looking for minutes, know they're in a legitimate competition because lessons learned at practice should carry over to the game.

Nash won’t disappoint B.C. NBA fans

Canwest: How hard did Toronto Raptors head coach Jay Triano try to recruit you when he was coaching at Simon Fraser University?

Nash: He recruited me hard, but he was great. He said, ‘look, I think you should go to the States and play Division 1 basketball, but if you don?t then I think Simon is the best place for you.?? That honesty from him was really amazing. He had his own self interest involved but he put my interests ahead of his, and that tells you what kind of person he is.

Vloggin’ On The Preseason > Raptors.com

Check out the latest vlog from Raptors play-by-play man Matt Devlin!

Match Ups – Toronto Raptors v/s New Orleans Hornets « Heels on Hardwood

What do I know about the Raptors vs. the Hornets? I know that the Raps are one of my fave teams out East. I know they will be improved this year. And I know our game there will be at an absurdly early hour of the day. (Let it be said that I wrote that without checking. And sure enough, I just looked, and it is at 11:30 AM CST. The reason I knew is that for some reason the Hornets at Raptors game is always at an absurd hour of the day.)

NBA Predictions: 2009-10 Toronto Raptors | NBA Picks & Odds

The pressure is on the Toronto Raptors to get off to a fast start this season. Chris Bosh is expected to opt out of his contract at the end of the season, and he’ll be one of the sought after guys in a class that could include LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. I think this team has plenty of weapons to contend in the East, but if things don?t start out well the team might be forced to trade Bosh instead of losing him to free agency and being left with nothing in return. The NBA odds makers aren’t putting a lot of stock in this game, listing the Raptors at 80-to-1 to win the NBA Finals and 40-to-1 to win the East.

Toronto Raptors 2009 NBA Basketball Future Lines – Season Predictions

The Raptors don’t have much chance of cracking the Big Three of Orlando, Cleveland and Boston, but there’s not much stopping Toronto from making a run at the 4 seed along with the likes of Philly, Miami, Atlanta and maybe Chicago.

RaptorBlog.com featuring Scott Carefoot: The original Toronto Raptors blog – NBA insight, analysis and humour since 2002

Before last season, Rasho was the "anti-Jamal Crawford" – he played in the post-season in each of his first 10 seasons. Last season with the Pacers was his first time missing the playoffs. It was also his fewest minutes played in a season since his rookie year. Coincidence?

RealGM: Basketball Wiretap Archives: Bosh Doesn’t Want Team’s Schedule Altered

Chris Bosh doesn't want to see the Raptors change their game-day routine as some teams have this season.

No soup for (the rest of) the draft class of ’06 – TrueHoop By Henry Abbott – ESPN

Andrea Bargnani got a $50 million extension from the Raptors in July. Brandon Roy followed with a max $80 million extension in August. And his teammate, LaMarcus Aldridge, just agreed to a $65 million extension on Wednesday evening. But so far the rest of the first-round draft Class of 2006 has been totally out of luck.

Toronto Raptors: Is 2010 Jose Calderon’s All-Star Year? – Brothersteve’s Green & Red Raptor Blog

This year, Jose Calderon has slipped below the radar of many NBA analysts and, sadly, many Toronto Raptors fans. Sometimes we need to be reminded that each season Toronto fans have witnessed the development of one of the better point guards in the NBA.

In which I worry bout Hedo and a slow start – Season warmup, part 1 – Raptors Report

Hedo Turkoglu missed a bunch of games because he was hurt, as did Chris Bosh. Crazy bench rats like Hassan Adams and the immortal Marcus Banks got some serious minutes. And there were those awful replacement refs with hair-trigger whistles and a tenuous grasp of the rulebook.

This is the point where if I were Malcolm Gladwell or Liston I’d pull out some number that shows things aren’t that bad. But I?m neither one and I have no number.

Instead I have a nagging worry about Turkoglu. He’s a big guy (6-10) and he just came off a long season. 77 regular season games, 24 playoff games and however many he played in the summer. That’s a lot of mileage.

Anyone else lifting their eyebrows after the moves the Knicks made? Donnie Walsh divined Malik Rose, Tim Thomas, Jerome James, Anthony Roberson and some cash into Chris Wilcox and Larry Hughes. That’s what a great GM does, he turns useless pieces into better ones that can contribute now without impacting future cap flexibility. Don’t get me wrong, BC almost did the same thing with the Marion/Banks trade, but the trade happened 6 months too late, and required two first round picks (and a 2nd rounder) to get it done. I’ll stop, I feel some of you groaning…

So the Raptors head into Gotham, on the first leg of the annual home-and-home with the Knicks. This will also mark the first time this season that the Raptors face the 7-seconds-or-less-Knicks, should be a fun one. I am actually really excited about the Knicks. It’s no secret that they are my second favourite team after the Raptors, dating back to the early 90′s when Ewing/Smith/Oakley/McDaniels/Starks all showed us what grit, toughness and determination was…something we have been lacking in Toronto for about 6 years now…sorry, I’ll stop, the groans are getting louder.

Hands down the best hair of any KCD’s.

The Raptors head into this game 3-7 in their last 10, with a couple notable wins against the Spurs and the Nets (not really notable, but they are in the same division and between the Raptors and the 8th seed). Most recently, after the loooong All-Star break that saw Bosh  playing Waldo in Phoenix instead of resting up, the Raptors got thumped by Z and the Cavs in their own house. Can’t blame them really, Bosh was injured and the Cavs are elite.

The Knicks on the other hand are 4-6 in their last 10, with a couple notable wins against the Spurs, Hawks, Rockets and Suns. In fact, they have double the wins then the Raptors do against quality opponents this season (I count 7). Their last win came after the All-Star game, where their lone representative was tea bagging Howard on route to the dunk title, against the Spurs.

Momentarily turning our attention towards the lovely Sarahbeth, who hails from Long Island and is a second year Knicks City Dancer (KCD). She holds Nicole Richie (NSFW) in such high esteem that her favourite quote is:

You just have to go after what you want and if it doesn’t want you back, then so be it, it doesn’t deserve you anyway

…no word of a lie…oh, and if you get close to her, don’t touch her with your feet, it freaks her out, gotta love New Yorkers man. Down to business…

Injury Report

Raptors
Kris Humphries

Knicks
Eddy Curry

Matchups

Calderon vs Duhon
The Edge: Duhon - Is he injured? Is he healthy? Is he at least 91.6524%? With Marion patrolling the wing now, the rotations will be more effective, so when Duhon blows by JC, there will be help waiting, and there will help for the helper. I just don’t know how effective JC will be on the offensive end. Sure he will get a boost from his favourite recipient (Bosh), but 3asts to 3tos in a low tempo/half-court game? What is going to happen against these athletic Knicks? The guy wont be able to keep up, and the transition defense will be an issue, book it.

Parker vs Chandler
The Edge: Chandler – I don’t care what anyone says, I’m glad BC didn’t trade the guy. In a straight up scenario, we wouldn’t have gotten value for him. So what, trade him for the hell of it? Didn’t we learn our lesson with HO? I’d even go so far as to resign the guy to a 2yr/$5mil deal; can’t have enough classy veterans who can knock down shots in limited minutes. Anyways…Chandler is a nice player, who is younger, faster and more athletic then Parker. This matchup isn’t a run-away for Chandler, as I don’t have him edging AP out by much, but having to deal with Chandler, and Hughes off the bench, might be a bit too much for our weary war horse.

Marion vs Harrington
The Edge: Marion – They are both good players, Harrington is younger, but Marion is just as athletic and can hang with him. The only place I see Marion getting burned is when he rotates to help JC, and the ball gets swung to an open Harrington (because the rotation will be late to help) and Harrington will do something with it. That being said, with Bosh coming back, things will open up for Marion to operate around the basket unfettered as the focus will be Bosh and trying to stop the guy. I expect higher output from Shawn then the 10pts 6rebs 6asts he put up against the Cavs.

Bosh vs Lee
The Edge: Bosh - He’s expected to play, which usually means he has the advantage at 4. Lee is one of my favourites, and will be boxing Chris off the boards, and giving him that shot all night. I’m sure D’Antoni will take CB4 popping jumpers, no questions. 22pts 7rebs sound about right?

Bargnani vs Jeffries
The Edge: G.O.A.T. - It isn’t an accomplishment outplaying Jeffries. The guy isn’t a starting $6mil/year player in the league. He can thank Isiah for that one, and so can we. After a fairly poor showing against Ilguaskas, this is a perfect game/matchup for VL to rebound from. It’s not so much that Jeffries can’t keep up with our G.O.A.T., cause he can, it’s just that JJ is the kind of player that VL will have confidence against, and we all know that a confident VL is productive one.

Intagibles

The trades Walsh made make this team much deeper. Hughes or Wilcox wont be starting, but expect them to get significant burn, especially if Bargnani abuses Jeffries early. The lone saving grace is that Jamal Crawford is no longer a Knick, and wont be lighting us up, that dubious distinction no doubt falls to Robinson who will posterize somebody, my money is on Bargnani.

The Line

Couldn’t find odds from my regular sources, so I will go out on the line and give the home team 3.5, that seems about right.

Prediction

Seeing as this is a home-and-home, I like a split on the two games, but for tonight, I’m going Knicks by 7.

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Free Bukic!

Beggars can’t be choosers so we can’t be getting too picky about the type of wins we get as long as they’re wins. Despite missing Robinson, Marbury, Randolph and Curry, the Knicks put up a very commendable fight and if it weren’t for their bad FT shooting and blown gimme layups, this one might’ve been one of those “I don’t believe we just lost that” games for the Raptors. The sense of urgency that we expected to see in these final 12 games was only there for the first quarter and after going up big on the Knicks early, we shifted down a few gears and expected NY to fade. A trend far too disconcerting for anyone.

No matter how big or small the Raptor lead was there was a general feeling that it was a comfortable one, aside from Jamal Crawford, the Knicks didn’t have a firepower scorer that could propel them to a win. Crawford and Jared Jeffries did their best in cutting a 17 point deficit down to 3 in the second quarter but fortunately for the Raptors, that was the last of the big Knick runs. We had serious trouble putting them away because our offense couldn’t handle the zone and the pressure they were applying on Bosh (5 TOs). Our defense couldn’t contain the Knicks’ playground style of ball which consisted of one-on-one moves and jacking up the first chance at a shot. If the Knicks had been a little more patient or if Fred Jones didn’t suck, they’d have a lot more to say in this one.

Neither team played very well, the Raptors struggled stopping the Knicks and the Knicks never got into any sort of offensive rhythm. If the Raptors had played better defense and played with more intensity, there was no reason why the Knicks wouldn’t have been blown out of the water by the third quarter. This might cost us against New Orleans because Bosh ended up playing a game-high 47 minutes! Yup, our superstar needed to play 47 minutes against the second worst team in the East who happened to be missing 60% of their starting lineup. Yikes!

Chris Bosh (29/10/1) had his hands full with Jared Jeffries (21/10/3) who was running the break, hitting the glass and being very aggressive by attacking the rim. Bosh had a strong but quiet night, he spread his points across the game and seemed to come up with timely baskets whenever the Knicks were about to get too close for comfort. Isiah Thomas noticed it too:

“Toronto did a good job of keeping us at bay, whenever we tried to make a run, Bosh was there to answer it.”

Stick Rasho Nesterovic into any role and he’ll produce, tonight he was at his best and kept getting deep position on David Lee and Jeffries for scores around the hoop. The beautiful part about the 18/8 from Rasho is that they all come naturally, not a single shot is forced and not a single shot can be considered a bad shot. Needless to say his play has been superb, what does get lost in his performances is what he’s been able to do on the defensive end by throwing his wide load of a body around to block out players from getting offensive rebounds. Unless there’s a serious helter-skelter under the rim, you’ll never see his man pick up an offensive rebound.

It wasn’t pretty watching the Raptors trying to figure out NY’s zone defense nor was it any fun to watch us crumble when the ball was pressured. TJ Ford did a good job of figuring out what NY was doing and never forced it by going blindly at the heart of the zone but choosing to penetrate just enough so that zone would somewhat collapse on him in the paint and he’d pick out his options. A very controlled and impressive 10 point, 9 assist and 0 turnover performance from TJ which included an ankle-breaking move on Jared Jeffries made for Sportscenter (the ESPN kind, not the TSN garbage).

Andrea Bargnani tends to play pretty well against the trash of the NBA so it wasn’t surprising to see him put up a decent night of 12/4 in 22 minutes. It’s the sort of performance you can build on, maybe go to bed happy tonight that you hit a few shots, managed to get a nice dunk and weren’t manned-out on the boards. But he should be anxious to get back on the floor on Sunday so that he can build pressure on Sam to put him back in the starting lineup. I want the man to be ticked off that he’s coming off the bench and it should motivate him to play harder and smarter. A lot’s been made of the “internal competition” on the Raptors – Graham/Moon/Delfino and Ford/Calderon – but the most interesting one is the minutes battle between Rasho and Bargnani. Idealy speaking, Bargnani would play 35 productive minutes a game and in the process hone his skill-set and start becoming the next Nowitzki while the veteran Rasho spells him for 12-17 minutes a game. But it’s turning out quite differently coming down the final stretch with Rasho playing the bigger role and Bargnani being part of the supporting cast. A bit of an unexpected role reversal. On a somewhat related unrelated note, Barraketh on RealGM summed it up nicely:

The problem with Bargs is that he was picked too high. The man has huge flaws in his game, and though it’s possible that he will be able to overcome them and become a great player, it’s by no means a sure thing. If we were a team like Seattle, we could let him play through his mistakes. However, we’re a playoff team, and we need to win now as well as later. He was given his shot as a starter, he didn’t learn on the job fast enough to keep him there – guess what, that’s NBA for you! It’s absurd to say that he hasn’t been given a chance to succeed. From here on out he has to earn his minutes just like anyone else – by contributing on the floor. Hopefully he’ll train hard this offseason and come back a much improved player.

A very stupid moment occurred in the game where Chuck Swirsky was openly laughing at how the Knicks weren’t running any set plays but just going around “freelancing” as suggested by Jack Armstrong. Do they not see the hypocrisy in this or have they completely shut out the fact that we are one of the worst when it comes to freelancing on offense? Also, did anybody catch Swirsky saying Amare Stoudamire is neck and neck with Kevin Garnett when it comes to who’s more deserving of the MVP? I hope this guy doesn’t get an MVP vote. I can point to at least 4 other very homerish/questionable things uttered by the Swirsk, but lets not dwell on it.

Till Sunday.

Liners:

• Phoenix spanked Philly so we’re back in the 6th spot. Big game on Sunday, Hornets lost to the Celtics so they’ll be looking to get back to winning ways.
• I wonder where the Knicks would be if they fielded the same lineup they did tonight and didn’t have Randolph/Curry/Marbury. They’d probably win the same number of games but at least they’d be fun to watch and a lot cheaper.
• Jason Kapono with 7 scoreless minutes. I’m trying to think of how this guy can have an impact on this team and right now I’m coming up blank.
• Seeing Jamario Moon pass up a jumper to drive and dunk the ball in the first quarter was a welcome sign and Jack Armstrong very correctly pointed out that we need a lot more of that. But in typical Moon style, that was the last such play.
• We played down to the level of our competition but we have good outside shooters and the 50% shooting bailed us out.
• I disagree with Swirsky/Armstrong that David Lee is the one guy you’d pick up from the Knicks. It’s Jamal Crawford by a big margin.
• After Charlotte, Detroit is the only +.500 team we’ll face and even they’ll be resting their starters.
• CB4 = Top Rap.