I’ve had a chance to have a couple cups of tea and managed to calm down to the point where I can rationally think about what just transpired at the ACC. There’s good news and bad news.
The bad news is that we played horrible for the majority of the game – our set-defense was awful and our transitional defense non-existent. New Jersey ran us up and down the floor at will and we failed to get back. Richard Jefferson had a career half simply because the Raptors did not get back on defense. Sam Mitchell’s decision to rest Bosh for an entire quarter after picking up his second foul backfired and that’s when NJ built their lead. Even when the Raptors made their run, Bosh came up short, too often settling for a bad shot (baseline fadeaway, long jumper) to make things easier for NJ. Late in the fourth, it was his missed fadeaway that sealed our fate. It’s a moot point whether the fouls he picked up were legit or not, I thought the second one was a phantom call.
Joey Graham was awful and did not deserve 1/5th of the playing time he got. Mitchell protecting Bosh can be forgiven but this cannot. I don’t remember Morris Peterson being this bad, do you? 35 pointless minutes for Joey Graham where he failed to defend, score or rebound and what the stats won’t show you is the amount of time he wasted on possessions by just foolishly dribbling in front of his defender “faking” that he was going to make a move right before he just passed it off. What the stats won’t show you is how easily Jefferson beat him down the floor and off the dribble every time he was guarding him. I’ve seen pregnant cows with better lateral quicks.
I’m getting to the good news, just wait. It would be unfair to blame this loss on one player or coach because save TJ Ford, nobody was ready to play this game. Maybe Bosh was but after he picked up his second foul, Mitchell did an excellent job of shutting him down. We weren’t ready to play and it wasn’t until late in the game that we shook of our nervous jitters and finally started to play some Raptors basketball, but it was too late by then. It took a while for Calderon to warm up but in the fourth quarter he singlehandedly brought us back in the game while TJ was resting. There’s no reason to get into the “TJ should’ve played in the fourth” debate because it carries no meaning here. Both Ford and Calderon played excellent in their stints.
Another victim of early jitters was Anthony Parker who met with little success in guarding RJ in the first half. The Raptors’ offense looked about as stagnant as a statue and a player like Parker can’t flourish in that setting. Again, it wasn’t until the fourth quarter that there was movement in the Raps offense and it was then that Parker managed to get open and the PG found him for shots. There’s no need for Parker bashing, overall he had a good game and if you take away the bad defensive job on Jefferson in the first half, he had a good game.
Trust me, I’m getting to the good news. Chris Bosh came up short, we needed him in the fourth quarter to take the game over and he didn’t. Although it sounds harsh, it’s as simple as that. This game was not about Vince Carter (he was basically a non-factor in the game), it was about Chris Bosh’s ability to step up when it counted. At least for one playoff game (his first ever), he couldn’t. I’m sorry to say this but that really is the case. Maybe things will be different in Game 2 but for now that is the reason we lost (ignoring Mitchell’s bad coaching).
Now to the good news. The Nets played a great game and we played a terrible one, yet we lost by only 5 points. All the mistakes we made can be corrected in time for Game 2. The playoffs are about adjustments and the Raptors have to make a few but they aren’t that difficult. Leo should use these as his IBM Winning Strategies:
- Get back on defense. Nets had 20 fast break points which came way too easily. Make them score in the half-court set.
- Make Bosh make his move early. Like him or hate him, Leo is right about one thing: Bosh is 100% more effective if he just makes his move quickly rather than thinking about what he’s going to do. No hesitation.
- Run your only play early and often. The high pick ‘n roll is what got us here and we should be running it early in the clock instead of passing the rock around meaninglessly. If we need to go to Bosh in the post-up, makes sure he doesn’t get the ball so close the baseline that he’s being guarded by it.
- Spaced close-outs. Why let Nachbar and Jefferson drive by you so easily? No reason to jump or close-out so aggressively that you leave the offensive player with an easy decision to drive the ball. Give them the long range jumper with the hand in the face. The Nets were driving to the rim so easily that the game opened up for them. Let’s play selective zone-defense.
This was the first playoff game for many of these players and it is 100% natural to be nervous and jittery. It just happens and we should have been expecting this. As Bill Russell said during the game, Game 1 is the least important of them all. The Raptors are the better team and with a few minor tweaks, we will overcome this measly 0-1 deficit. If Bosh makes that fadeway and Calderon doesn’t pass to Darrick Martin when we were down 1, we could be singing a different song.
Bargnani gave us nothing today and neither did Dixon, both will do better for Game 2. This is also Sam’s first playoff game as a coach. Whether you like him or not, he has done an allright job of making adjustments. Over the last part of the regular season, his halftime adjustments have always paid off with the Raptors usually overcoming first half deficits. It’s great that we have a 3 day break between games since it allows us to think about what we did wrong, analyze tape and make appropriate adjustments. I ask everybody to have a little faith in Sam (even though you might hate him) and hopefully he can motivate the team to play smarter basketball and do the little things right, because that is what was wrong today, the little things. They just added up to a loss.
The boys will play as we’re accustomed to seeing them starting Game 2. Fear not Raptor fans, all is well. This is just a minor bump on the road – one that was necessary, think of it as an initialization of the new Raptors to the playoffs.
Note: Comments are closed since I posted this on RealGM and there’s already a discussion there.
