It would’ve been nice to get a win to start things off, yeah I know it’s preseason but even then a win can’t hurt the old confidence of a team that’s been predicted to finish third in the division which they happen to be champions of. But let me try to look past the L (which really hurts despite preseason) and try out point out some things that happened that deserve a closer look. It’s a little disappointing to lose this game in the way we did because our bench got outplayed by Boston’s. Now the Celtic bench is a prime collection of who’s who of who the hell is that but despite their nomadic appearance they were able to outplay us in the fourth to preserve the slim Boston advantage going into the quarter.
As with anything Raptors, it starts off with Bosh who had a pretty miserable game which had a lot to do with who he was playing against – Garnett. They weren’t matched up on every possession but when they were, KG clearly had the upper hand. The Bosh we saw today looked way too similar to the Bosh of the New Jersey series who looked uneasy with both his role and his game on the floor. Now settling for second-thought jumpers from 20ft is bad enough but it’s more the way he looked on the court, almost confused where to start his offensive moves. Of course anytime you give him the ball at the top of the key you’re just asking for trouble because, see, he’s a PF and has no business handling the ball over there. But we’ll attribute the dismal performance to mostly preseason legs, an injury plagued summer and a lot of Kevin Garnett.
Andrea Bargnani. There were two instances where he drove to the rim hard, and by hard I mean really hard. Other than those two plays his primary concern was to find an open shot from outside 18 feet. Now this may be his game and there’s no point criticizing it because for the most part it works so I’m learning to live with it. But on the defensive end other than playing some good team defense, he showed very little on the boards and when guarding KG, granted the latter is a tough task for anyone.
The commentators for the game made some great points about Jason Kapono:
- He’ll find it more difficult to get the wide open inside-out three pointers in Toronto.
- He’s a great shooter when it’s simply “catch and shoot” and doesn’t involve any maneuvering. When coming off screens is involved his percentages are likely to dip.
- He’ll have to work very hard to get the clean looks he’s used and will need to alter his game to match Toronto’s offense.
He’s not a good defensive player at all and Ray Allen/Paul Pierce were licking their chops anytime he was close to guarding them. But we already knew that and today we just received confirmation. Sam Mitchell has his work cut out to get Kapono the looks he feels comfortable with, if he can do that it’ll be a commendable coaching feat.
Anthony Parker and Juan Dixon were rustier than an old nail but that’s just the long layoff talking, nothing more. Can’t really say anything after this game about those two except maybe that Dixon is trying to shoot himself into the rotation. TJ Ford and Calderon had replica games from last year which bodes well for us. Calderon’s jumper seemed crispier while TJ was TJ. You can’t ask TJ to play under control, this is something that’s part of his game and what makes him good, the sooner everybody accepts that the better. His outside jumper was working, I’ll take that.
The team defense looked improved, we were doing the small things like keeping our arms up on defense, pressuring the guy who had picked up his dribble, not allowing space for Ray Allen, things like these were encouraging to see and it actually looks like those defensive-oriented practices are working out. The Celitcs big three are a problem which can be countered by the Raps but our bench MUST OUTPLAY theirs for us to do that and that didn’t happen today, not in the fourth. Then again, I keep telling myself it’s only one preseason game.
That about ends the first post of the new season. Grab the feed.