Forget a second scorer, the Raptors need a second rebounder

Detroit Pistons 101, Toronto Raptors 85 At least Bargnani played well. That’s about the only positive I could take from this game, that and maybe Bosh`s effort on the boards. Aside from those two pieces of silver lining this one was marred by poor performances from just about everybody. But before we get to that…

Detroit Pistons 101, Toronto Raptors 85

At least Bargnani played well. That’s about the only positive I could take from this game, that and maybe Bosh`s effort on the boards. Aside from those two pieces of silver lining this one was marred by poor performances from just about everybody. But before we get to that I want to point out something to the Toronto Raptor fan. If you look at the standings before the game we were in fourth place which might make you think that we`re a contender or at least capable of winning a couple rounds in the playoffs. But beware, beware that the difference between the 3rd and 4th seed in the Eastern Conference is so significant that if it were possible to just get rid of the 4th and 5th seeds and skip straight down to perhaps the 6th, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

Watching this game it was painfully obvious that nobody on this team has any inclination towards rebounding save Bosh. Even the rebounds the others got are because Bosh was fighting his ass off under the glass and trying to keep the Detroit PFs (all nine of them) off the boards, he`s really boxing out two men on each defensive possession. I`m surprised how good a scoring game Bosh had considering how much energy he has to exert on the defensive boards just to avoid the other team getting an offensive rebound. Don’t worry though, I’m not going to blow on Bosh any longer. It was his indiscretions on the offensive end that ended up costing us and you can take a good guess at what he didn’t do when he needed to do it. Yup, I’m not even going to say it because it’s so damn obvious when he lets the defense off the hook. But people, I went to this game and let me tell you, you may criticize his shot selection but his effort cannot be questioned. He works his ass off on every defensive possession and contests for every rebound, it’s shocking how little help he gets on the boards, pretty much everybody else on the team watches him rebound.

The turning point of this game is Anthony Parker missing two FTs which would’ve cut an 8 point Detroit lead to 6 early in the fourth. This came after Sam decided to start the fourth with Calderon and Bosh on the bench only to see the Detroit lead go from a manageable 5 points to a grim 9 in less than 90 seconds thanks to some Dixon and Humphries turnovers. I would love to see what ESPN had Sam saying at the start of the fourth, my guess is ”Guys, we’ve finally managed to cut this big lead down to 5, let me put a weak ass lineup in just so we can give Detroit a chance to go back up by double digits”. In all seriousness, not having Bosh and Calderon out there didn’t really cost us the game because we were poor in many other areas tonight.

I’ve already mentioned rebounding but the even bigger reason we couldn’t contain the Pistons was the defensive play of Jose Calderon who simply can’t guard anyone. Hamilton, Billups and even Stuckey went straight at him and did whatever they wanted. The defense was always forced to help which split us open every time usually leaving Prince, McDyess or Wallace wide open. Now on paper it says that Calderon had 15 points and 9 assists but that`s hardly the story of the game because he gave up about twice that by allowing Piston PGs to create and score at will. Not sure what the solution here is because providing him help obviously didn`t work and you can`t possibly let him handle Billups on his own, he was getting eaten alive. If TJ Ford had been playing perhaps he`d force Billups to work a little harder on the defensive end and thus slow down his offense. Just a thought. But don`t worry Chuck! That AST to TO ratio is still damn sweet, who cares if it comes at the expense of not running the break, giving up easy basket opportunities and slowing an already creaking offense down to a crawl.

The bench may as well have been sitting in the upper deck. 5 measly points courtesy of Humphries is all we got with Kapono, Dixon and Delfino all going for a big fat 0. So much for showing `em they were wrong to trade you eh Carlos? Also in a game where we got killed on the boards 47-36 you`d think we could use a big body like Rasho Nesterovic, no? Instead he gets a DNPCD whereas Detroit proceeds to play Jason Maxiell 23 minutes. This is unexplainable phenomenon that only a COY can explain. I wish a reporter had the common courtesy to ask this question to Sam in the PG interview.

It’s easy to shut the Raptors offense down because we`re predictable as as predictable can be. Detroit had their rotations on the screen ‘n roll made before the screen was even set. I`m not exaggerating, look at the tape. They had the guy from the weak side already covering the screener before he had even made his cut to the rim. This forced Calderon to throw lob passes which ended up in the Detroit defense collapsing on us and forcing tough shots around the rim. Since this is our only play it was game, set and match for our offense who only mustered a painful 85 points of which the last 15 or so came because Detroit was in a charitable mood.

OK, so we fail to beat a good team, nothing new here except that this time half the team simply choked under the spotlight of ESPN and playing in a statement game. This doesn`t speak well of the mental makeup of this Raptors team. The first game back from a west coast trip is always tough but we did have four days to recover so that can`t be used as an excuse. We simply weren`t ready for the Pistons who went about their business in a professional way whereas we kept on wasting about 12 seconds on each possession just trying to get our players in a position where we`d run the high pick `n roll which was defended very well by Detroit (as expected).


One-Liners:

* Jamario Moon is out of his element in taking 22 footers and playing 36 minutes a game. Just for testing purposes I would`ve liked to see Joey Graham come up off the bench and try to contain Hamilton or Billups. It didn`t happen, instead we got more of Juan Dixon.

* The in-game entertainment should be completely stopped while the Raptors are losing. That annoying chick who keeps popping up on the jumbotron with dumb ass promotions gets really annoying really fast.

* People need to stop booing at stupid stuff like Rasheed Wallace taking FTs, it doesn`t work and only motivates him to hit three after three which is something we don`t want.

* Bargnani had a damn good game and had a couple drives that got me out of my seat. Yeah, he can’t grab a board to save his life but at least he scores. It’s something, right?

* There was a guy at the game with great seats who brought a BOOK TO THE GAME. Not joking, the fucker was reading a book. As he was leaving (early of course), I yelled at him, “The game`s still going on sir“.

* Anybody got any idea what ESPN had Sam saying in their microphones?

* So we failed to beat Detroit, can we beat Cleveland on Sunday? I’d say we have a 50-50 shot.

You should check out Dinosty’s blog, he usually has a much more entertaining and far less grim take on things.

Later. Feed.