It’s hard to pinpoint where it’s coming from, but there has been considerable speculation about a trade which would send Jose Calderon trade to the Pacers. Michael Grange had reported this on July 14th and at that time Roy Hibbert was Colangelo’s apparent target. Recently Hoopsworld reported further interest in a trade so I’ll go ahead and believe for a second that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Whether Calderon is a better fit than Jack doesn’t matter very much at this point. Jack’s lower salary, better perceived defense, durability and ability to switch over to play the two in spots, puts him ahead of Calderon in the depth chart. His appearance at summer league had to have gone well with the club and his recent 7 pound weight drop and fitness routine has also got to be respected by the franchise.

What would we want in a Jose Calderon trade? I’d be willing to take a defensive center, a small-forward or another point guard. Since the Pacers are looking to cut costs and taking on Calderon goes completely against their current thinking, you would have to believe that any deal would see the Raptors taking on more salary, thus using their TPE. So you can throw out individual trades like Calderon for Dunleavy out the window, especially since the latter is an expiring contract valued at $10.5M. Same goes for Troy Murphy, who is expiring at $12M. The Pacers have a lot of faith in A.J Price, but he’s not ready to start just yet, and it is conceivable that they’d want him to be Calderon’s understudy of sorts for a season or two, but that alone isn’t worth it for them.

If the Pacers are looking to cut costs, the only way a Calderon deal makes sense is if they’re willing to trade Danny Granger, one of only two pacers (Dahntay Jones) to have a guaranteed contract beyond 2011-12. Whereas Calderon is owed $29.2M through 2012-13, Granger is owed $49.9M through 2013-14. Granger has missed 35 games over the last two season and Calderon has missed 28; it’s safe to say both have had trouble staying on the floor, but you can actually make a case that Calderon is the more valuable player. In Granger’s five season in Indiana, the team has made the playoffs once, losing in the first round. The win totals in those five seasons are also disappointing: 41, 35, 36, 36 and 32.

With the NBA lockout looming, teams would be reluctant to take on a contract like him; even if you leave that aside, it’s difficult to sell him as a player because he’s shown very little other than being a good player on a bad team. At this point in his career, you can argue that he’s either reached his ceiling or is very close to it and no team would take him on expecting him to improve on what he’s already shown. That’s close to $50M for an injury-prone player who hoists seven more shots than anybody on his team while the team racks up mid-30s win totals. If the Pacers are to truly rebuild, can they afford to have a player like him on the roster? They can’t, but it makes sense for the Colangelo-led Raptors.

If Colangelo is aiming for a quick fix or a way to revitalize interest in Raptors basketball, all he has to do is acquire Granger and the fans will love him. We already have fond memories of Granger because we passed on him twice, once in favor of Joey Graham, so getting him now would be like the prodigal son returning home. Colangelo could sell him as part of the “Young Gunz” package and tomorrow we’d be talking about making a run at the fourth seed. Talking that is, not actually doing it. Throw in Roy Hibbert, a young center with that dreaded word ‘potential’, and you could even say the Raptors won the deal and used their TPE most wisely. Colangelo would make a big splash in the summer market just like he has in the last two. The Raptors would have a starting five of: Bargnani, Johnson, Granger, DeRozan and Jack; backing them up would be Hibbert, Davis, Weems, Belinelli and Barbosa. On paper, that reads like a solid core which you can sell some season tickets on.

With seven expiring contracts the Pacers are in rebuild mode, and the final piece of the puzzle for them could be shipping off Danny Granger so that they can lose 60 games, get a high pick and go from there. From their perspective, they just shed $20M in salary which is a lot in today’s economic climate, even if it happens to be over four years. Calderon’s overpaid, but his contract could be considered reasonable by a team who’s looking to get some stability and become more conservative in the back-court, especially in a year or two, so it is possible that the Pacers could parlay him into something else down the road. There’s a good chance that as Granger goes older, he’s going to become more injury prone. It’s a trade-off the Pacers could be willing to make, and more importantly, so could Colangelo.

The trend of blowing big leads is becoming the norm. Last night we were able to hold off Indiana by executing brilliantly down the stretch, but this cannot possibly be a sustainable method for winning games. This one was Exhibit A of how potent our offense can be even with two of our big guns misfiring. The bench, headlined by Jack and Belinelli, lead a 59-point performance which let us get away with mediocre games from Bosh and Bargnani, although both were useful down the stretch. Throw in a perfect Jose Calderon (21/3/7) performance and you saw that there’s reason to be excited about this team. Defense though, is another matter and something that remains a cause for concern.

Any time weak opposition comes to your building you have to jump on them and destroy their will to win early, we did something like that with rookie DeMar DeRozan being highly aggressive in getting six early points against the surprised Brandon Rush. A sign of a man in a zone is when he’s nailing his jumpers regardless of situation – Calderon’s play early was impeccable, he was sticking his jumper off the screen, on the break and spotting up on the wing. Indiana decided to test out their three-point efficiency early and got nothing in return, the Raps took the long rebound and ran with it as Turkoglu and Calderon got us off to a great offensive start – up 7 early. But as you know, a 7-point lead means little to us and all it took for that to evaporate was a TJ Ford And1 against Jose and a great quarterback pass from Ford to Murphy on the break for another And1 against a trailing Bargnani. The two point-guard’s were trading punches as it became a guard’s game – Bosh and Bargnani were a combined 2-9 as Indiana was paying a lot of attention to Bosh.

Triano got Rasho Nesterovic (miserable all year but 12/7 today) off the bench instead of Amir Johnson to contend with second-year man Roy Hibbert who’s looking more polished than most imagined. Rasho provided a boost and kept Hibbert in relative check by scoring 4 on him, although the Raptors draft pick showed us something we all desire in a big man – size, strength and aggression. Danny Granger and crew were misfiring on looks they consider open as Turkoglu started to take advantage of the inexperience of Brandon Rush and Dahntay Jones, both giving the Turk too much space to operate. Granger picked up two fouls early but still managed to get 8 in the first, (6 from the FT line) and kept Indiana in it. They almost erased the lead after Earl Watson came in to spark the offense (he faked Jose 2 feet in the air at the three-point line), but Turkoglu hit a step-back three and Jack came off the bench for a great drive right at the end to punctuate a 39 point quarter for the Raptors. Up 8, shooting 56% while conceding 44%.

Jose Calderon’s passing was crisp all game long, he made decisions in a fraction of a second, whether it be finding Rasho on a bounce for a lay-in or keeping the swing going after a Bosh double. If Bosh is drawing the double, Jose’s facilitating the offense like that and the Raptors are hitting their outside shots, it’s game over for the defense. Jose was aggressive against Ford who has no chance of blocking his shot and to worsen his chances, tends to concede the jumper too easily for a guy with his quickness. Even if you were a TJ backer, you saw today which PG is more suitable for us.

The second quarter made a case for the two-guard lineup of Jack and Calderon. Having two ball-handlers on the floor against a defense that doesn’t move in transition proved to be too much for the Pacers. The tempo increased as Jack and Calderon used quick initial passes to move the ball into the front-court, the Indiana bigs (Hibbert and Murhpy) had trouble coping. Amir Johnson’s agility showed against them as he wrested a couple rebounds away, fed them to Jack and Jose and off they went. Rasho Nesterovic’s jumper was on and that brought Hibbert further out, giving the Raptor guards driving space which they took. 7 points in the quarter for Jack including a three set-up beautifully by Belinelli who was focusing on being a playmaker today. Indiana dared Jack to shoot and he made ‘em pay. When Jack’s spacing the floor, it creates a lot of room for the big guys setting screens for him to slip to open areas and find their jumpers – just ask Bargnani who benefited twice today.

74-53 at the half. Good news, we scored 74. Bad news, we let Indiana score 54. The Pacers, who only shoot 30% from three, were even worse going 2-11 from downtown to help the Raptors’ cause. It was clear that they couldn’t handle the pace we were playing at, the question was whether we could maintain that pace. It’s very difficult to play up-tempo basketball for 48 minutes, at some point you’ll need to ease up and catch a breath and it’s in those times that good teams fall back on their defense. The Raptors currently need to score at a very high rate to maintain any advantage they’ve gained and the law of averages says that you will go cold, it’s inevitable. Right now if we’re not scoring we’re giving up big runs. A better situation for us would be to concede 4-6 points in a 7-possession stretch we’re struggling in, not 12. That’s half the points and the difference between a bad and an acceptable defensive team.

Great players come up big. As the third quarter started, so did DeRozan’s punishment. Danny Granger administered 11 points on the rookie who gave him way too much room despite being warned by the coach. After the 11th point was scored, the bench came calling and in came Wright. It was too late because Indiana had already sliced a 22 point lead in half by the 6:41 mark. The Raptors didn’t have the energy to play like they did in the first half and Indiana was starting to settle in and have success on the offensive glass, Jeff Foster giving them three extra possessions in the quarter. This was going to be a close game and the Raptors needed to dig in to pull it out.

Indiana scored 39 points in the third as the Raptors offense went cold. We went down to Bosh who was defended well by Murphy, Jim O’Brien sent additional help making the outlet passes difficult leading to turnovers. They gave Bosh space to shoot and he wasn’t making them which gave them a lift. It became so bad that we even saw Wright going 1on1 which obviously went nowhere. After Tyler Hansbrough had hit two hooks over Bargnani in the first half, he came back to crash the offensive glass and run the break to bring Indiana within 7. Earl Watson played well in his second stint, the calm collected PG set-up Brandon Rush for open looks and ran the Indiana offense much smoother than TJ Ford, even though the latter had shown great ability to penetrate early in the third. Jack’s And1 against Jeff Foster pushed the Raptors lead from 7 to 10 at the end of the third and gave the Raptors a huge psychological boost. Another boost was provided by Bosh’s defense as he blocked two close-range efforts by Granger and Solomon Jones that would’ve, he finished with 4 blocks and 12 rebounds and had an overall solid defensive game. I don’t know if this is bad defense or good offense but it’s one of my favorite plays this year. Triano spoke of the attention Indiana was giving to Bosh:

They were leaning on Chris a lot, giving him jump shots. They watched the Orlando game and he wasn’t making them. We told the guys if we move the ball side to side and set screens for each other, we’ll get any look we want and in the first half we had a lot of guys that contributed and scored.

The Raptors’ two main defensive problems are providing unnecessary help and helping from the wrong places. Three of Indiana’s threes in the third quarter resulted from a weak-side defender helping on a PG drive while leaving a legit three-point threat open. Help-defense is part of the game and Triano hasn’t able to implement a strategy that is cohesive enough that it comes natural to the players. I see too many players scrambling to get where they have zero chance of getting. Bargnani flailing at Granger, Belinelli 10 feet away from Rush, Jose on the wrong side of the court as Watson etc. The good news is that they’re at least scrambling, but sooner rather than later Triano will have to figure out why we’re the league’s worst defensive team and do something to stop it. Or maybe he believes that more games and more familiarity will pull us through, I think the issue is more technical than that.

Granger set-up Rush for three after we over-helped and soon after T.J Ford drive and kicked for a Granger three. Luckily for us those two plays were sandwiched around two Bargnani jumpers. He had been awfully quiet till now going 2-5 and was outplayed by Hansbrough and Foster on the glass and in the block. He made a conscious decision to be more aggressive in the fourth quarter and found his niche in the mid-range game. Jack found him on the slip for a jumper and then he passed up an out-of-rhythm three to step-in and nail a baseline jumper. He went 4-5 in the fourth quarter including six straight point early, consider the amends made. Murphy was left open on the perimeter as Bosh and Bargnani got confused as to who was guarding them and he touched us for a three cutting the Raptors lead to 7 with 8:08 left. The Big Turk responded with a trifecta of his own on the next possession as the Indiana defense appeared gassed. It appeared to be a dagger.

Give Indiana credit, after Bosh missed a couple chances to put the game away, Murphy was left open by a lazy Raptors defense and he hit another deep bomb, the lead was 7 again with 5:37 left. It was either time to step-up or crack and the Raptors relied on their ball-movement to get Jarrett Jack a clean look for three. Answer supplied. The Pacer’s were tired on offense and were simply passing it around the perimeter and firing, Granger hit another three (nobody’s fault really) to put the pressure back on the Raptors before Bosh and Bargnani answered with scores to ice it. Bosh’s post-move was pure determination, he fought through non-calls and a loose whistle all night and got bumped twice on this play but managed to finish with a hook. With 2:57 and a 12 point lead, the game was over.

A quick word on Belinelli, really liked his aggressiveness in going to the rim. He didn’t just step-back and launch the long jumper today and probably felt he could take Jones and Rush off the dribble and did. He got to the line 10 times and displayed a slashing ability in the half-court set, something we haven’t seen much of. DeRozan should take a page from his book and add that to his game. Triano alluded to the gelling of Belinelli, Jack and Calderon:

Everybody’s starting to get to know everybody a little bit, at one point they’re probably thinking they’re competing for a postion. Now they’re realizing that they can play together on the floor as well as give each other relief.

It’s good to see the Raptors win with Bosh going 5-19, but that’s not saying we can with with Bosh going 5-19 again. Getting 59 points off the bench while they shoot 65% is much more of an anomaly than Bosh’s poor shooting night. A loss can sometimes disguise the bad things that happened in this game and some of the clean looks we gave up in the third quarter should alone warrant hours of video analysis and practice. This team will go nowhere if our defense doesn’t improve, on the bright side we’ve played the second hardest schedule in the league and have come out of alive. Things can only get better, right?

Check the live blog for the game as it happened and the Roll Call for individual ratings. At some point on Wednesday we’ll post another session of Breaking it Down where we’ll look at some defensive breakdowns.

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The Orlando game for me was a bit of a nightmare. It showed just how dependent we are on scoring, we went cold for 5 possessions and suddenly the Magic scrubs had taken the game over. Not having your defense to fall back on when things aren’t going right on offense is going to be the main challenge for this team. This could entirely be a personnel issue in that we simply don’t have good defensive players, but Triano needs to be held accountable because he publicly spoke of his faith in this unit’s ability to play team defense and he apparently also had a say in all summer transactions. Fourteen games in and it turns out both our GM and coach were way off on their evaluation of this team’s defensive abilities. Should we wait more before passing judgment? Does it really matter? I’m starting to hope that we remain around .500 or so till January and pull off a trade for the stretch run.

Positives

Marco Belinelli: I said he was feast or famine and last week he was all feast, hopefully he stays that way for us. He’s played like the super-sub we expected him to be and I like that he’s got a swagger about him. He had two big time performance against the Nuggets and Jazz where he averaged 17.5 pts and 4 rebs. The Miami game saw him handle the ball more and he notched 4 assists in only 15 minutes of play. He missed the Orlando game and his absence was felt as the Raptors bench struggled to score early in the crucial fourth quarter.

Amir Johnson: Too bad the team couldn’t pull through against the Magic because his great 14/8, 6-7 FG performance needed to be admired. He’s starting to have stretches in the game where he’s a defensive and offensive factor on three or four straight possessions, leading the opposing coach to call a timeout. The aggression he’s playing with is being rewarded which is usually the case. He wasn’t doing that early but having a chance to look at the team from the bench it’s not hard to figure out what’s lacking. He saw it and went about providing it. If Reggie Evans does come back and Johnson continues his good play, we could pack a hustle-punch or two.

Jarrett Jack’s lack of turnovers: Three straight turnover free games, a 17-point effort against the Heat including a couple big shots and an 11 assist game against the Magic. I don’t know what it means but he’s playing better and is driving more, which is what he was hired to do. Haven’t seen him get sucked in by those 20 footers too much last few days which bodes well. The defense isn’t what it was advertised as over the summer, but considering how awful he’s been to start the season it doesn’t take much for something to count as an improvement.

Negatives

Pick ‘n Roll defense: First and foremost, I blame the coach for not figuring this out. Everybody from Carlos Boozer, Eric Maynor, Dwight Howard to JJ Redick took turns exploiting what the Raptors give away on this set. The hedging is non-existing, the switching is random and the effort is minimal. Calderon, Jack, Turkoglu and DeRozan all get caught behind the screen leaving the ball-handler with multiple options. In the pre-season against Philadelphia I saw some trapping but that’s never happened since, no idea why not because it make sense to cause turnovers (2nd worst in league) since we’re unable to stop teams in their regular sets. It’s one thing to get physically beat on a play, another to play the incorrect strategy and further worsen your chances at a defensive stop. This is nothing less than shocking to me after my ears went sore listening to Triano laud the team’s defensive work.

Andrea Bargnani: Other than a strong showing against the hapless Heat, he struggled to get anything against the better teams as Nene, Lewis and Kirilenko all outplayed him. Averaging 9 rebounds for the week is a great jump from the usual 5, but the 10M dollar man needs to have an impact on both sides of the floor and that too, consistently. The return of the pull-up 20 footer is not a good sign, especially when it comes against slower big men who prefer you take that shot. When he does “put it together”, he does it for 5 minute stretches and we’re all waiting for him to put together a solid string of games where he’s a dominant force. Or am I asking too much?

Hedo Turkoglu’s utilization: Devlin’s reminded us to death about how he’s a “big time playoff performer” and we get it, but that shouldn’t mean Triano should give him the license to do whatever he pleases in the fourth quarter which so far has been going 1-on-1. He’s not an Ace of Spades that you can hang on to and unleash only when the game’s on the line. I still maintain that we should be going through Turkoglu a lot more in the first three quarters. The combination of Calderon/Jack is being scored open too often, they’re giving up 136 points per 100 possessions, this is well below the team number of 116. If Triano’s obsessed with having ball-handlers out there, Hedo’s a pretty good option. Turkoglu’s usage rate is 18.7%, that’s the lowest its been since the 2003-04 season.

Jose Calderon’s defense: Yes, I can blame him for other PGs having big games. Yes, basketball can be that simple at times and the box-scores can be that straightforward. AST/TO for the week was 2.3 but who cares, all I can remember is him being on Deron Williams’ hip instead of in front of him, Jason Williams going past him without a screen and Ty Lawson pulling some crazy sh*t on his watch. The offense is coming along with two 16 and one 14 point games but at what cost? Sorry, even after three years I haven’t accepted that we have a below average PG who will usually concede what he earns.

Coming along…

Using Chris Bosh: Technically, I should be putting him under positives every time but that would get old. Take the Denver game out and he’s had another great week. The five rebound total against the Magic was low but when you have Dwight Howard responsibilities you have to rely on your teammates to pick it up, they didn’t and we conceded 14 offensive rebounds. Taking one-shot in the fourth quarter didn’t jive well either. The Raptors forget about their best player far too often, he couldn’t get a touch in the fourth quarter on Sunday and didn’t have as many iso sets as he needed on the West coast. Sometimes we forget that he’s our main advantage and I find that hard to believe/accept/fathom. Triano, take note.

Looking ahead

Tue v IND: My man Roy Hibbert is averaging close to 12/9 for the 5-6 Pacers and playing big, I said it then and I’ll say it again – we never should’ve traded that 17th pick. Hibbert’s exactly the type of player we need, a 7’2″ 280lb C who plays his weight. Danny Granger’s pulling the weight of his contract with 25/7 and our old friend T.J Ford is dropping 10/4/3 as the starting PG. They started off losing three straight, won six straight and have lost three straight. All things considered, they’re probably in the same tier as us and since they got creamed in Charlotte on Sunday, it should make us weary of our next opponent.

Wed @ CHA: Where the Raptors suck at D and excel at O, the Bobcats are the opposite. Larry Brown’s got these guys playing defense and it shows in their 4th place defensive rating of 100.6. However, that’s offset by their 28th place offensive rating of 94. They’re cracked the 100 point plateau just three times and have been held below 80 five times, including a 59 against the C**tics. They snapped a 7-game losing streak at home to Indiana and at 4-9 are fighting with the Wizards and Knicks for something I’m not quite sure of. Keep an eye on Gerald Wallace, he’s netting 14/11 for them and is liable to explode against us. We should also see Stephen Jackson guarding Chris Bosh at some point.

Fri @ BOS: Can we f*&^%$g beat them already? Just once, in my lifetime!? The mega-c**t hit a game-winner on Sunday too which didn’t sit right.

Sun v PHO: If we lose by one on the road we should win at home, right? Phoenix will be in the second game of a stretch where they’ll be playing 8 of 11 on the road and trust them to try to get a couple wins early. It’ll be interesting to see whether Triano repeats the switching strategy on Nash/Amare, if he does the Suns will be ready with a plan. Fool me once…

RapsFan says 2-2, I concur, and phdsteve goes with 1-3. Here’s the podcast:

Click on the play button below or listen directly in iTunes, you can also download the file.

[audio:http://raptorsrepublic.com/audio/2009-11-22-weekly.mp3]

Let’s call it what it is: a good convincing win at home, except nobody’s looking to get convinced anymore.  People have already made their mind up about this season and the only thing left to do is pick out some things that might be handy next year. Three things came about from this game. 1) Bargnani is on his way to something half-decent, 2) Pops is a high-energy player that plays within himself and could be a serviceable backup and 3) Maybe, just maybe, Jose Calderon isn’t terrible and could be an improved player next year if he stays healthy. Granted, that’s a big “if” since wear and tear is a factor for every player and his injuries seem to be stemming from just that.

The TJ/Jose battle hasn’t been as intense or fun to watch as one might expect, it’s probably because we’re starting to realize that they’re both mediocre PGs that don’t deserve to be the headlining acts of any play. We had a nice thing going with them in Toronto for two years, unfortunately the media and fans made them feel that they’re starter-quality players which eventually led to the split. They were great as a tandem, on their own they’re mediocre. Don’t tell that to TJ though, he came off guns blazing and looking to attack in the first quarter and got six points out of his aggressiveness, all on some pretty determined drives which made you think, if only Jose could add that to his game. Over the last two games Calderon’s finally making his 20-footer jumper and he had two of them in the first which Indiana and my man Brandon Rush might’ve even ran away with if it weren’t for Anrdrea Bargnani who is the reason I still watch the games.

Doesn’t matter who won, what the score was, what streak was snapped and who did what, the main thing I took from this one is Bargnani showing us that he just might be able to translate the talent we know he has into something meaningful. He had 8 first quarter points, looked comfortable on his jumpers and had a sweet drive to the rim against Murphy that Bosh should be envious of. You don’t normally associate Bargnani with points-in-the-paint but despite his perimeter oriented game, he’s the Raptor most likely to get you a score by taking his man off the dribble and finishing properly. And by properly I mean not getting blocked, not throwing it up there like its a hot potato and not letting the defense change your shot to the point that its a shot they want you to take. He’s always got that serious look on his face which says, “WTF man, let’s do this already”. Very much unlike the pointless yelling and screaming, fist-pumping and hand-signs that others on this team do regardless of quarter and score.

Danny Granger returned to the Pacer lineup after a two-week absence. Indiana’s probably thinking to get him warmed up against weak opposition like Toronto for their stretch run and you can’t blame them. Fortunately for us he had one of his worst games of the season, his handle looked rusty, he was unsure on his jumpers and didn’t look to get his teammates involved. I thought he was selfishly trying to get back in the flow of the game and it backfired resulting in a 3-11 night and a game-worst -21. Shawn Marion and Anthony Parker’s defense had something to do with it but he was bumping into people more than AltRaps at the Lower Brass Customer Appreciation Party. Granger summed up his game like so:

I played 18 minutes, I thought I had played 32.

Indiana went through a stretch of hitting four straight threes in the second quarter, the last two coming courtesy of T.J Ford penetration and kick-outs to Troy Murphy who’s defender, Bosh, was nowhere to be found. Murphy was outplaying Bosh by taking off the dribble, checking him on the glass and snuffing his rare drive. Bosh was more than happy to comply with Murphy on offense by clanking his jumpers and if it weren’t for Bargnani and Calderon stepping up and getting the W, the ire of this post-game report would’ve been directed at Bosh. All in all, a very un-Bill Russell like performance by Bosh. He started off 1-8, finished going 5-8 and had 13 rebounds. He struggled like a fish out of water in the first half and when I saw him lazily jogging up the court I wanted to throw a brick at my TV. Luckily, Calderon and Bargnani were there to bail us out, the latter finishing with 27 points on 9-11 shooting and as an entirely unexpected bonus, 9 rebounds.

Those Murphy jumpers were the last we heard from Indiana. The Raptors went on a 16-5 run to close out the second, Calderon hit two more 20-footers, Bargnani hit a three and Bosh got a couple hoops in the paint, one on his best-looking hook shot of the night and the other after Indiana lost track of him for a dunk. T.J Ford was creating for his teammates through his traditional drive ‘n kick but the Pacers just couldn’t apply the finishes and shot 37.6% for the game. Ford then, as per the scouting report, tried to carry the scoring load but shooting over tall trees in the paint will always result in a low-percentage no matter how quick you are to get there. He finished 7-16 for 15 points and 6 (real) assists, not a bad game by any means, but when he’s looking to score first your team isn’t going too far.

Calderon had 16 points on 6-9 and 12 assists. The thing that I was most pleased with was his ability to hit the jumper which if he’s not doing makes him un-contract and un-starter worthy. He had a nice alley-oop to Shawn Marion in the third quarter and hit Pops for a couple nice perfect-height passes on the pick ‘n roll for dunks. Speaking of the third quarter, it was one to remember. Raptors won it 37-19 as Indiana couldn’t throw a rock in the ocean and the Raptors and Bargnani were hitting full stride.

You know how sometimes the shot-clock’s winding down and you know you’re not going to get a good shot off so you give it to someone and he just does something with it. Well, that guy on the Raptors has become Bargnani. You might think it would be Calderon or Bosh but Bargnani’s the guy who seemingly always ends up with the ball with 4 seconds left and he usually tries to do the right thing. Jose’s #1 target might be Bosh but when the sh*t hits the fan, the ball goes to Bargnani. Today his jumper was working and he hit a half-minded three and had a couple drives when the offense had broken down. Two of his three threes came in those situations. Jose only had 5 points in the third but had four assists and upped the tempo of the game by getting us out on the break early which is not what Indiana wanted. He even played some defense on Ford by giving him enough space so that he’d have time to catch up to his drive when it did happen. Ford probably should’ve tried his jumper more often and forced Calderon to come a little closer, but instead he opted for the drive with resolute determination which isn’t always the best.

Jarret Jack was so terrible for them that he may as well have had a green Raptors uniform on. 4-14, 2 assists and 3 turnovers. He couldn’t get the Pacers offense into any kind of rhythm in any quarter and if it weren’t for TJ Ford forcing the issue in the first half this game would’ve been over sooner. Travis Diener for them was far more effective in 20 minutes and probably deserved the 36 Jack got; you could safely say that Jose outplayed all their three PGs put together. Indiana is similar to us in that they have some good pieces on that team but on the whole have been very disappointing. They’ve gotten some big wins against Phoenix, Boston and LA which is a silver lining to their season, we on the other hand don’t have that to hang our hat on.

You know how I really knew Danny Granger wasn’t into this game? He decided to take a charge while standing inside the circle against Shawn Marion and the latter made the most of it. Marion had a miserable scoreless first half with only one rebound but looked like a different player in the third quarter. It’s already been said before but if we honestly implement up-tempo in Toronto, Marion needs to be here. It’s painful watching him try to score off his drive or from short jumpers setup by mild penetration. That’s not his game and that was the difference in the two halves for him. He’s not cutting and flashing like he did in his first few games but that happens to a player when he doesn’t get the ball passed to him over and over again. Still, no excuse for inconsistent effort.

Let’s talk about Pops. 21 points, 8 rebounds and 11-13 FTs. Didn’t see that last stat coming. He knows he’s not a scorer (ahem, Hump), he can jump (ahem, Voskuhl) and he doesn’t play outside of four feet (ahem, Bosh). He understands the ‘roll’ in the pick ‘n roll, takes everything to the rim, tries to break the backboard on every dunk and spins off people when trying to get rebounds. I haven’t seen a Raptor do that since……I’ve never seen a Raptor do that. Let’s give Colangelo some credit, this has turned out to be a nice pickup. The toughness, grit and sheer hustle Pops has displayed isn’t something I expected from a Colangelo signing given his record. Looking forward to him next year. Here’s a Pops quote I thought was funny, he’s talking about Marion here and referring to his dunk on Granger:

I’ve been telling him I want to see some of those highlights I used to see when he was in Phoenix. He keeps telling me he’s old but I told him he’s still got it and, like you saw today, he still does.

He’s Matt Bonner, only stronger. He’s Charles Oakley, only younger, less crazier and people don’t owe him money. He’s Kevin Willis with longer arms. He’s Zan Tabak except the crappy part. He’s Eric Montross except he makes his FTs. He’s Oliver Miller, except good. He’s a sober version of Keon Clark. He’s JO except 96.46 times cheaper ($21,352,500/$221,360). He’s a darker version of Jelani McCoy. He’s Mamadou N’Diaye except he’s not injured. He’s John Thomas….no wait. He’s no John Thomas.

The score at the end of the third was 90-69 which meant the fourth quarter was garbage-time. And I don’t talk about garbage-time.

Liners:

• If you ever wanted to give someone an example of how meaningless the +/- stat is, I’ve got one for you. Jason Kapono went 3-11 with 4 fouls in 21 minutes but was a game-high +20.
• Joey Graham’s parents were in the crowd hoping for a showdown. Didn’t happen, Good Joey had 0 points on 0-7 shooting but did grab 10 rebounds. Bad Joey got some points in garbage time. Box Score.
• Jose Calderon missed a FT. He still leads the league in percentage but Ray Allen isn’t far behind.
• Raptors had lost the PINP in battle in both of games against Indiana until yesterday when they killed them 48-28 thanks to Pops and our 15 fast break points.
• At one point in the game Leo said that Bosh is following Pops’ lead. I cried.
• Not sure why Anthony Parker is being drilled in the Roll Call. Anytime he shoots more than 50% and doesn’t let his man go off for 30 should be considered a successful outing. As yertu damkule once said, him showing the ability to play the backup PG in limited minutes will benefit him more than it’ll ever the Raptors.
• The Raptors snap a 7-game losing streak. If we play our cards right we could win 6 straight. Wouldn’t that be terrible?

OK, time to plug the site. I’ll be honest with you. If you get a Twitter account and follow us you’ll be alerted of all the stuff you see in Latest Web Articles, the latest posts and you’ll always have somebody to chat ball with throughout the day as AltRaps and myself usually man that thing pretty good.

Part of me didn’t even want the Raptors to make that run in the fourth because it doesn’t mean a thing. We got outplayed for three quarters and were down 24 when the Pacers decided to bring out the salami and cheese and decided to take things a little easy. The Raptors had never looked capable of making a run but opportunity knocked and they obliged, Chris Bosh led a furious fourth quarter rally which caught the Pacers (who lead the NBA in blowing 10 point plus leads) off-guard and it looked like we were going to complete the comeback until the curse of Jason Kapono was realized and Bosh made a crucial defensive mistake as Mike Dunleavy coaxed him into a foul behind the arc in a one-point game. Game over, thanks for proving to us that you were actually capable of a better effort for the first three quarters but for whatever reason didn’t show it.

Alarm bells should be going off in Colangelo’s head after seen the Raptors’ effort and focus over the last two games. This is a do-or-die stretch for the team, if we fall a couple more games under .500 the season is over, and if we pull off a string of wins the season could be salvaged. In these crucial times the team is struggling to find the motivation to pull themselves together and put forth an honest 48-minute effort. With the result we’re down early and playing from behind the entire game and when we finally make the obligatory run, there’s not enough left in the tank to finish off anything. This team hasn’t shown the commitment, passion, effort, mental strength or desire to win anything. Talking the talk in post-practice scrums and acknowledging your mistakes in post-game interviews is getting old, at some point they’ll have to put their words into action and it hurts me to acknowledge that it’s just not going to happen. Why? Because if they were able to do it, they would’ve already done it. Colangelo has to be dense not to know that this current team isn’t going anywhere and I would be shocked if this roster is kept intact, maybe the players are already aware of this and are playing like a group that knows that major changes are coming.

Let’s start with some technical stuff. The pick ‘n roll defense was so bad that Indiana was daring us to stop it by running it over and over again with the same result: open layup for the pick-setter as the hedging was too tight or the rotation late. It appears that the personnel on the floor don’t know what the plan is to defend the simplest play in basketball; after the pick is set and we’re in danger of giving up dribble-penetration to the ball-handler, the pick-setter’s man will hedge. At this point one of two things should happen: somebody needs to rotate to the pick-setter because the ball-handler is being momentarily double-teamed OR the hedge man should not be aggressive in his defense and make it a priority to get back to his man. We’re not doing either and making the decision for the ball-handler simple: bounce pass to pick-setter for a clear lane to the rim. Our inability to defend this play and the Pacers’ recognition of that was their bread and butter. Watching Jeff Foster and Troy Murphy stroll to the rim as Bosh, Bargnani and O’Neal took turns helplessly watching them was comical.

Dribble penetration is old news around these parts and it’s not even a story when Jarret Jack (great porn name insists the drunk at Philthy’s), T.J Ford or Mike Dunleavy are doing it, but when Rasho Nesterovic drives the lane against Bargnani and kicks it out to Troy Murphy for a three (4:41 3rd), it starts to get a little ridiculous. That play right there was indicative of what the level of our man-defense was. The help defense was no better either as we didn’t pick up a single charge and blocked zero shots. So with both facets of defense ranging between horrible and terrible our offense needed to make up for it. Andrea Bargnani had his first off-night in some time, Bosh only had 8 first half points which put the Raptors in a big hole early.

The game started off harmlessly enough with the Raptors attacking and getting 8 points in the paint and building a 10-5 lead. This lead to a Pacers timeout and they responded with a 13-3 run which was the beginning of the downfall. Jack isn’t a special player but he’s quick enough to get past Will Solomon, force the help defender to take a couple steps towards him and make an intelligent pass to a perimeter player who is moving without the ball. You don’t need to play complex basketball to beat the Raptors, there isn’t an offense in the league that can’t crack the Raptors’ defense within three passes off a screen. We might survive the first screen action but if the other team’s got secondary movement on the weak side, you can forget about Parker or Kapono staying on par.

The Pacers led by Danny Granger went on a crucial 11-3 run early in the second quarter. Joey Graham made the mistake of wandering away from Granger to help on Rasho (insert joke) and Granger made him pay with a three. Now that he had made a jumper Joey tightened up on him but instead of settling for more jumpers, Granger decided to test Joey’s lateral quickness and the latter couldn’t cope. He fouled Granger twice for 4 FTs. In this stretch the Raptors committed four turnovers, two of them were the customary O’Neal offensive fouls (the drunk at Philthy’s really wants me start writing his name as O’kneel). Granger had 14 second quarter points to keep the Pacers’ offense chugging along, the Raptors on the other hand committed 9 turnovers in the frame and were somewhat lucky to be down only 14.

Yet another Pacers spurt opened up the third quarter, this one an 8-3 run which started by Jeff Foster looking like John Stockton on the pick ‘n roll and was capped off by Troy Murphy becoming a double-team threat and kicking it out to Granger for another three which stretched the lead to 19. Granger might’ve been 8-24 but he scored in key stretches that decided this game. Since we weren’t getting good PG play from Roko or Will, we labored on offense and reverted to just giving the ball to Bargnani at the top of the key and expecting him to create. That might be a good idea for a few plays here and there but its hardly a sustainable strategy. The rest of the third quarter saw us play more of that sad pick ‘n roll defense which finally drove Triano mad and he played his last card – have Parker play the PG. The results weren’t immediate as T.J Ford’s eyes lit up and he schooled Parker on two jumpers to finish off the quarter and extended the lead to 24. Before we talk about the fourth, I will digress and talk about Bargnani and O’Neal.

Bargnani had a so-so game going 5-14, he still mixed his game up with a good proportion of drives to jumpers but I thought that we didn’t give him enough touches. He showed an ability to drive against Foster, McRoberts and even Dunleavy, but still wasn’t sought out in the offense as much as he should be. He got the ball a few times late in the shot clock where he was forced to execute one-on-one moves with the clock ticking down and ended up taking forced jumpers with sagging help (Moon, Ukic and Solomon’s man) nearby. He was called for three traveling violations which killed his rhythm and threw him off, a couple of them were very sketchy calls. We have nobody on this team that is capable of creating a shot for any of his teammates. Unless Bosh is doubled early in the post and the pass is obvious to him, there’s simply no way any one of our wing players can get open looks. Jamario Moon and Will Solomon might think that they’ve “tricked” the defense into leaving them open but the chaps should realize it’s not a coincidence that the defender has never fought through a screen set for them. Kapono is a one-trick pony who has difficulties performing that one trick and Anthony Parker is hit-and-miss, mostly miss.

O’Neal returned to the lineup to a smattering of boos which drowned out the three guys that were cheering of him (RR is investigating whether they were paid). He looked bad, committed a couple offensive fouls, an offensive goaltending and took a couple paint-jumpers that left a a full Spalding imprint on the glass. 7 rebounds in 17 minutes sounds pretty nice but his impact on the game was zero. After Thursday’s practice Triano said that he’d like to play O’Neal, Bargnani and Bosh together as much as possible, I think that’s not going to work for a multitude of reasons. #1) Bargnani needs the paint to be open when he catches the ball at the top of the key, #2) It forces Bargnani to defend the SF, #3) It’s turned out that O’Neal rarely commands a double team so any possession where he’s posting up will not result in a clean look for somebody else (Bosh, Bargnani), sad to say but he’s become a black hole, #4) O’Neal being in the painted area means that his man is easily able to help out on Bosh drives. In the second quarter stretch the Big 3 played tonight they were -2 and the offense looked stagnant.

On to the fourth quarter. The Pacers thought the game was over and put out a lineup containing Brandon Rush and Josh McRoberts. Bosh took full advantage and led the Raptors on an 11-0 run; Parker was able to negate their pick ‘n roll by going under the screen conceding TJ the jumper which threw off their perimeter oriented offense. The Raptors hit the glass hard and got 10 offensive rebounds and outrebounded the Pacers 24-6 in the quarter. Bargnani’s 6 points including a big three all helped to cut the lead to 100-95 with 2:35 left but Kapono committed a classic Kapono travel (faked a shot and took a step without dribbling the ball) to waste a possession and more importantly, time. Bosh FTs and a clutch Anthony Parker jumper cut the lead to one but then Bosh stepped out to challenge Dunleavy’s three and committed a very stupid foul which put a damper on his otherwise respectable night. With the deficit only 4 with 46 seconds left, supersub Kapono committed an even more classic travel and Danny Granger iced the game with a three.

I was nervous the second Kapono was brought into the game, usually its only because of his defense but lately he’s been committing traveling violations more often than he’s hitting threes. Leo Rautins keeps calling him a “smart” and “crafty” player which is ridiculous. He’s a player that doesn’t know what’s good for him, usually his pump fake is unnecessary because the defender is flying at him from at least 6 feet away which means all he’s doing is giving the defense more time to get into position. Even if he does have to shot-fake there’s no reason for him to move his feet, especially, and this is key, especially when he’s not even getting behind the arc!! Insanity! Signing him was a mistake then and keeping him on the team is a mistake now. He just doesn’t get that all we need him to do is catch the ball and if the shot is there, shoot the ball. If it’s not, pass it along buddy.

One-Liners:

• We have too many people who are unable to guard their position to be an overall good defensive team.

When Danny Granger pushed Bosh with both hands, he rasied his arms up and avoided a technical like he didn’t want any part of it. Smart move. Now who instead would’ve liked to see him shove his skinny ass back? If not that, then at least don’t apologize to Granger!?!?

• Best Lineup: Graham, Parker, Bargnani, Bosh and Moon. +12 in the early fourth quarter blitz.
• Worst Lineup: Graham, Kapono, Ukic, Bosh and O’Neal. -5 in the early second quarter.
• Stat of the game: Raptors AST/TO – 17:20, Pacers AST/TO – 28:10.
• Side-effect of O’Neal returning: DNPCD for Voskuhl and Hump.
• Anthony Parker’s flailing defense for the first three quarters was bad but his point-guard play in the fourth was good. He didn’t turn the ball over, didn’t panic and made good passes out of pressure situations.
• Roko and Will’s combined +/-? -26. Yikes!
• It’s time to seriously consider tanking, up next we have Phoenix at home and then trips to Detroit and Atlanta. We could easily be 12 games under .500 and not have a hope in hell of getting the 6th spot.

Best part about this game was the great crowd at Philthy’s. Thanks for coming out.

After we beat Atlanta even the optimist amongst us would’ve pointed at this game as being our best shot at getting our next win, so let’s get the obvious out of the way first: Indiana is currently in the basement of the Central Division and has the 2nd worst record in the Eastern Conference. If there’s ever been a game that we “should” win, it was this one right here. We snap a five game losing streak where we lost to teams that were a level above us and we do so against a team that is a level below us. That’s not dwelling on the negative, that’s just stating how things are. Now, considering how badly we’ve been playing and what our effort level have has been over the last week or so, we should be happy that we won and even more happy that we won comfortably. The other reason to cheer is the sense of alertness and readiness amongst the players last night which resulted in better transition and perimeter defense. What a shock?

I got some late great tickets to this game (Sec. 113, somewhat behind the basket near the Raptors bench) and I got to say its much easier to analyze the game when watching it on TV or sitting above the action with an unobstructed view. But still, I’ll try.

Kapono got the start as Parker was rested due to an ankle injury, Bargnani was replaced in the starting lineup by Moon and this must be at least the 7th or 8th time that he’s been shuffled in and out of the lineup in hopes of getting the team out of a funk. Whatever works, I don’t think it makes a big difference either way, he ends up playing the same amount of minutes and his production either way is very comparable. It’s not like getting benched motivates him or having to start fires him up. Triano was asked about the Moon for Bargnani switch and he said this:

We were a little lethargic in chasing the ball against Cleveland and Jamario was one of the guys who was tracking the ball.

So Bargnani got benched for not hitting the glass. I thought it was a good move strategy-wise since we needed somebody to check Danny Granger and since Parker was out, the job would’ve fallen to Bargnani who would’ve struggled. The strategy worked, Granger was woeful in the first half and finished 9-25. Lot of his jumpers were fairly clean looks setup by TJ Ford that just didn’t go down for him, but you have to give Moon, Graham and even Kapono credit for being cognizant of the Pacers main threat and not leaving him open. Bargnani on the other hand was invisible. 0-4, 0 points, 3 turnovers and 4 rebounds. He never got in any sort of rhythm, he picked up early fouls, missed wide open three-pointers and turned the ball over, now I don’t care what he scored on the Caliper test, a start like that affects you and can throw off your evening. He hasn’t responded well to the coaching change because his role isn’t well-defined, natural thinking leads you to believe that he should be taking his game closer to the rim and contributing on the boards but his skill-set tells you otherwise. Jay Triano’s got to figure out what he wants from Bargnani and set him up to produce. This isn’t your usual #1 pick, this one you’ll have to spoon feed for a long time to come. Get used to it.

The star of the night was Jason Kapono as he repeated his performance from last year against Indiana. He was schooling Marquis Daniels then and he’s doing it now. Since Triano has taken over Kapono’s FGA’s have been 8, 10, 6 and 16 for an average of 10.0. Under Sam Mitchell he averaged 6.17. That is a significant increase leading me to believe that the order from Triano is clear: you got to shoot to score. Kapono’s now launching them when when he’s semi-covered and last night he attempted 7 three pointers, his prior season high was 4. It’s widely accepted that we’ve hired him to shoot the three and when he starts dribbling and getting all Reggie on us, it’s annoying. But when he’s got his floater going it works like a charm. It’s probably not a viable strategy against good teams because they’ll encourage those kind of shots but against Indiana where their bigs are busy dealing with Bosh and O’Neal, why not?

The TJ/Jose matchup didn’t live up to the billing, TJ didn’t try to take the game over and Jose was his usual conservative self so there wasn’t any excitement to speak of. Maybe TJ was trying to show his responsible side to the Raptor fans but a responsible TJ is a bad TJ, his game is to play at 120mph and if he’s not doing that he’s out of his element. A fish out of water if you will. I’ll easily give the win to Jose on points, he did a good job of pushing the ball and finding Kapono, Graham and Jermaine O’Neal early in the shot-clock, these scores aren’t registered as fastbreak points but they have the same impact: catch the defense unprepared and get good position to shoot or make a move. Calderon’s assist distribution looked like this:

• Kapono: 6
• Moon: 4
• Bosh: 3
• Graham: 1.

They’re hardly your traditional put-it-on-a-plate type assists and that’s the weird part about them, these scores aren’t spawned of drive ‘n kicks at all, they’re coming from intelligent ball-distribution from beyond the top of the three-point line. It works great against teams that aren’t pressuring the perimeter and not offsetting screens but against a buckled down defense that’s checking tight, it’s not nearly as effective.

We won every single quarter in this game and never let Indiana gather any momentum, a lot of it has to do with our defense that did an excellent job of closing out Granger, collapsing on Daniels forcing him shoot a low percentage and collectively rebounding the ball. Throw in Jermaine O’Neal overcoming two early fouls to post a near double-double of 10-9 and 3 blocks and you got your defensive bases covered well enough for Indiana to shoot 34.7% for the game. If you can hold any team to that kind of a shooting percentage you’ll win the game. Our defense got better as the game went along, the first quarter was more Indiana missing shots than us stopping them but from that point onwards the majority of the credit has to be given to the Raptors defense, not Indiana’s failings.

We took control with an 11-0 second quarter run, rode Moon, JO and Kapono in the third for +6 and finally finished off the Pacers with a 9-0 run in the fourth. The only pure one-on-one moves today were executed by Bosh and JO in the post, other than that almost all of our offense came off of good ball movement and good recognition by Jose. The ball movement is undoubtedly better under Triano, he’s trying to get Kapono and Graham to try to slash as much as they can, if not East-West, then North-South. Slashing doesn’t always mean taking your man off the dribble and finishing with skill, if Graham can continue to fight for post-position and Calderon manages to find him early, that’s good enough. If Kapono’s man is sticking tightly to him when he doesn’t have the ball, that’s an ideal time to make a run towards the hoop and have O’Neal or Bosh find you as your defender is trailing you. It happened a couple times against Cleveland and it happened again tonight. The options that open up when you move without the ball are truly amazing.

Chris Bosh’s 21 were spread out enough to not be noticeable. He started off well but then faded into anonymity before picking it up in the fourth. 21/10 are great numbers and we needed all of it but let’s see him do it against a good team. Not playing down his game, just waiting for him to face high-caliber defenses before anointing him a MVP candidate. His defense was very suspect, he let Troy Murphy get 20/20 on him and those kind of numbers for Bosh’s man are only acceptable when they’re playing the Magic. If this game would’ve gone south in the fourth quarter all we’d talk about is Murphy’s game.

Joey Graham continued his strong play by taking it to the rim every conceivable chance he got, he took a couple step-backs late on when the game was out of reach but that’s about it. Triano has shown a lot of faith in him and Joey’s responding to the opportunity provided. He’s displaying the ability to stay composed when he’s got the ball in a post-up situation, he’s angling his body properly, avoiding the offensive foul and finishing cleverly by avoiding the blocked shot. Jamario Moon’s hit-and-miss and today he was a hit, will he do it again against the Nets? I don’t know, but let’s see him put back-to-back good games before we even dedicate a paragraph to him. Good coverage on Granger though, also made him play some D which definitely took away from his offense.

This team needs to shed a lot of bad habits that it learned under Sam Mitchell and the feel around Triano’s talk is that he understands it’s going to take some time and wants the players to buy into what he’s selling:

We’re slowly getting there…at least we had a system tonight guys got rewarded for it and hopefully it translates to them wanting to buy into it more. We’ve been taking steps in the right direction, we had good intensity throughout the whole game.

And to the silly media folk who keep asking him about being Canadian, give it a rest, will ya?

We got a revenge mission coming up against NJ in the swamp. A divisional game against a team that we should be ahead of in the standings, at least on paper. What value would the Indiana win have if we go ahead and drop a stinker in NJ?

*******

We’ve all been looking forward to this one.

It started so well, two players working in symbiotic harmony. Touted as the best 1-2 punch in the game at their position, it looked to be the beginning of something special. But injuries, differences of opinion, and meddling management started to change history’s course, until it finally ended early last off-season, with one of them discharged quicker than Sgt. Lance Rainbowfabulous in Vietnam, traded for a injury prone big man 6 seasons past his prime.

Just like that, the JoJay Forderon era was over.

Love him or hate him, former Raptors starting PG TJ Ford steps onto the ACC hardwood tonight to battle resident Raptor PG – and the player TJ refused to share top billing with – Jose Calderon. Most die-hard Raptors fans will forget the team’s recent troubles for one night, as all eyes will be on the homecoming of Toronto’s most notorious shot-chucker (sorry Mike James).

Expect an emotional back-and-forth between two proud ballers. Both have distinctly different styles and attitudes. Both have had their struggles of late. Both will look to come out on top in tonight’s:

FEATURED HEAVYWEIGHT BOUT!!!
TJ FORD	vs	JOSE “OCHO” CALDERON

KEYS TO VICTORY: TJ FORD

On offence: TJ must play the entire game aggressively instead of defaulting to his jumper, driving the ball at Jose and looking to draw fouls that send Calderon to the bench.

On defence: TJ should pressure Jose whenever he’s got the ball in his hand, using his quickness to bother the slower guard.

KEYS TO VICTORY: JOSE CALDERON

On offence: Jose has to make TJ fight around screens all night long, tiring him out for the 4th quarter, where he likes to make his runs.

On defence: Jose must lay off TJ and allow him to fall into ‘auto shoot’ mode, relying on his height advantage to close out on the jumper.

LETS GET READY TO RUMMBBBBLLLLEEE!

I want to puke. I just want to hurl and get this sick nauseating feeling out of my stomach. A home loss to the Pacers missing Jermaine O’Neal, Jamal Tinsley and Danny Granger to end the “easy” month of February at 7-5. Why are we surprised? We really shouldn’t be, this is the most inconsistent team in the league, it fools people into thinking that they’re good (just ask John Hollinger) when they’re just a bad defensive team which exclusively relies on the jumper and has trouble maintaining effort across games. We’re used to the dependency on the jumper, but the non-existing defensive effort can never be excused.

We might as well have had a gimp playing defense on Travis Diener, Troy Murphy or Mike Dunleavy because God knows that Jamario Moon, Jose Calderon and Anthony Parker can’t guard them for shit. The perimeter defense was the worst that it has ever been. I don’t recall a game where it was as bad. It was embarrassing to watch Murphy and Dunleavy get 3-pt play after play after blowing by our perimeter 3′s (Parker/Moon/Graham) with ease. I can’t stress this enough, they pulled their pants down, used the shiniest of vaselines and let it rip. There’s really no other simpler way of putting this. They fucking killed us.

Let’s get to tonight’s key play and if you saw the game you know what it is. After Indiana was pummeling the Raptors by 16 midway through the third, the Raptors found some pride, played a little defense and went on a 15-0 run kick-started by Bargnani and Parker. We managed to cut the lead to one and got the ball back. That’s when Jamario Fucking Moon managed to use his arm to clear out Kareem Rush while the ball was still in the backcourt. Turnover. Momentum gone. Indiana goes on a 10-2 run. Back to square one. Fuck. Moon has been playing D-League level basketball over the past little while, yeah he had a good game against the T’Wolves but he’s not doing the job that he was hired to do. He doesn’t play defense, that play where Dunleavy almost tore his ankle at the top of the three point line epitomized just exactly how bad his defense is. The guy can’t keep his body-weight even and defenders are exploiting it. Plus, he’s it’s become super-easy for players to make him leave his feet. Horrible game by Moon. Just brutal.

For all the perceived depth on this squad, without Chris Bosh we’re a lottery team. It’s cool to shit on Bosh at times for not taking to the rim and finishing strong but take him out of the lineup and you get this. CB4 is our one and only shot blocking threat, once he’s out of there it’s open season for opposing 2/3′s. The only reason our shit perimeter defense has gotten us this far is because once you come inside Chris Bosh is simply awesome on help defense. Mind you that the rotation behind him still sucks ass but at least he’ll make the defender think twice before trying any funny shit.

After Bosh went down, we countered with Jose Calderon and TJ Ford playing a good chunk of the entire second quarter together. It’s good to have them there at the same time for brief stretches but to play them the entire quarter is defensive suicide. I lost count how many times in the second quarter Diener had open lanes to the rim after catching the Raptors defense in transition. It was as if though the Raptors were playing transition defense the entire game. Nobody was dug in on defense at any time, we kinda wandered around, aimlessly switched on screen ‘n rolls, tended to just pick up the player that was the most convenient for us and were three steps too slow. It made you nauseous.

Why Sam went with a lineup where Joey Graham is the 5 is unexplainable. The Pacers are playing small ball but that doesn’t mean you have to comply We have Rasho and Brezec warming the bench, why not throw them in the game to rebound our misses and try to control the boards. Did Sam honestly think our 2/3′s can outplay theirs? Dunleavy must’ve been licking his chops when he saw that we have absolutely no big man in there to even contest his shot once he waltzes past our perimeter D.

People wonder why the American media doesn’t talk about the Raptors and respect them as they should. It’s not because they’re biased or prejudiced, they just know that come playoff time when it counts, we have no ammunition to compete. This team has serious, serious holes starting on the defensive end which are just itching to get exposed in the playoffs. But tonight what pissed me off even more was our non-existent effort. It was pathetic. Ughhh.

What did you think of Bargnani’s performance? I liked it. He was 12-25 for 27 points and only 9 rebounds. I liked the way he played, he was aggressive, he was confident, he was driving, he was pulling up, unfortunately, he wasn’t hot enough early to keep us in the game. He needs to find his offensive rhythm so he can be a little more consistent, it’s games like these that might help him, with the playoffs coming and us being locked somewhere between the 4-6 seed, I say give him the green light so he can warm up and hopefully be a real contributor in the playoffs.

Anyway, to some up the night in two words. Fucking disgusting.

Sorry for the shit language.

Liners:

* It’s hard to sweep even a bad team but Indiana was there to be had.

* Jason Kapono is useless to us. He’s about as useless as an asshole on your elbow. It doesn’t matter if he plays with TJ Ford, Jose Calderon or fucking Bob Cousy, he can’t help this team because he’s too easy to cover and our coaching staff is too dumb to utilize him.

* Chuck, I don’t believe your lying ass when you say you have that much trouble telling part Joey and Stephen Graham that you make the same mistake like 5 times. Here’s a little hint that might help: THEY WEAR DIFFERENT UNIFORMS!! Also, did he just blame the lack of energy in the arena on the fucking weather?

* I’d even excuse the Raptors for allowing the Pacers to blow by them so easily on the perimeter if they at least took away the outside shot, but they didn’t even do that. The Pacers made 12 three and countless 18 foot jumpers. I’m telling you this was the worst I’ve seen them play. Ever.

* We managed to crawl only 2 games over .500 in the softest part of the schedule by playing 7-5 ball. I don’t even want to know what March will bring.

* Why am I shocked? I saw this coming. It’s just that when it actually happens you can’t believe it.