It’s official, the Detroit Pistons bench can win 46 games in the Eastern conference. Going into the fourth quarter Flip Saunders made a commitment to the bench and made it clear that the starters were done for the night. It was left to the Raptors to come up with a much needed win against the Pistons second unit and not surprisingly we failed to get a single meaningful stop and fell to their sheer aggressiveness and determination. The fourth quarter was humbling, despite our best efforts we couldn’t come close to overcoming the Pistons as Chancey Billups, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Richard Hamilton watched from the bench. If there was anybody who thought that we even had an outside chance against the Pistons in a playoff series, today was a counterexample which disproves that fallacy. It was humbling.
Chris Bosh’s 30/10 night was overshadowed by Jason Maxiell’s stellar fourth quarter where Bosh was unable to contain Maxiell in the low-block. Maxiell and Stuckey (5-9, 18 points) were the stars of the fourth quarter and shredded the Raptors defense through penetration and interior ball movement. On the odd occasion were they weren’t able to score they got the offensive rebound. The Raptors looked like a mess in the fourth quarter with Anthony Parker once again coming up short in the clutch, Bosh missing jumpers, TJ Ford unable to create and Bargnani being Bargnani – a pathetic 2 point performance in 21 minutes which goes beyond inexcusable further assuring us that he’s closer to being a bust than a star. Grange goes deeper:
Bargnani, by my count, put it on the floor once in the first three quarters and drew a foul on Theo Ratliff when he did. He took five three pointers and missed them a different way each time. His only basket was a short-corner deuce in the first quarter. Without getting into his statistical nightmare of a season, there is something significant to how he’s missing the shots he’s taking. He missed one triple way short and way right – he very nearly drew air. He missed another way short and way left. The rule of thumb is that misses short and long are not so concerning: your alignment and mechanics are good, you just missed. It’s when you are missing left and right that you have to worry, as it implies that you’ve got a mechanical flaw. Right now I’d have to say Bargnani has a glitch. These were wide-open, in-rhythm shots that he has to be able to take and make if he’s going to have a significant impact as a player, now or in the future, and he looked like he had no business taking them and no hope of making them.
I think Grange might be freelancing here. Last year when he was making his threes nobody talked about alignment and mechanics, now when he’s missing people want to identify reasons for his miserable year. I don’t know where this “rule of thumb” is coming from because people miss left/right all the time – I’d say half the miss shots in the NBA are because of east/west misalignment and the other half north/south issues. Its a confidence issue more than anything. Once you’re confidence is shattered, nothing will go in, he got rejected by the rim against NJ – thats not mechanics, thats confidence. Drawing air on threes isn’t mechanics, you miss because you feel its going to be a stretch for you to make that three. I do think that Bargnani’s shot is designed for the 3 and not for the mid-range game, his rotation is too strong and the arc isn’t there. Those are signs of a bad mid-range shooter.
If there is one area that he can help this team, its outside shooting, anything else might be asking too much from him. He just needs to get his confidence back so he can spread the floor for Bosh. I know, not exactly the responsibilities you would think of a #1 pick, but oh well, we f***d up.
It’s sad to know that in a game of this magnitude we couldn’t beat a Pistons second unit that had nothing to play for except get some practice. Look around the box score and you’ll see our starting small forward with 2 points and our starting shooting guard with 6. It’s a shock we were even in this one. Bosh and Nesterovic were the only two consistently effective players for the Raptors with TJ Ford and Jose Calderon having average games. Most of what they produced on the offensive end was quickly canceled out by Billups and Stuckey who took advantage of the lack of size and quickness in the Raptors back court. So when you end up analyzing our PG play today you’ll invariably end up calling it a wash and if anything tilting the scales in the favor of the Pistons. So much for the best PG combo in the league.
The Raptors didn’t play particularly bad in this game, sure they went all perimeter on you more than you like and gave up PG penetration way too easily and couldn’t rebound (44-33) when it counted but all thats to be expected by now. What’s sad is that we tried really hard to win this game and tried to play defense in the fourth quarter but still couldn’t beat the Piston bench. As I said before, it was humbling and further illuminated the distance between us and the Pistons.
The one thing I noticed about the Pistons second unit was that they play exactly like their first team. They take advantage of mismatches, play inside-out, pass the ball and force the defense to adjust. Their play is a testament to the discipline instilled by the Detroit coaching staff. Compare and contrast this with the Raptors who play like “mixed salad” as opposed to a cohesive unit. Delfino’s looking to jack up shots, Kapono’s looking to get open on his own, Bosh is working his ass away to get position, Moon is doing nothing and TJ Ford’s playing like you get a point for dribbling. For us to win against good teams we almost always need spectacular and unsustainable individual performances which are rare to come by. Most of all when our threes aren’t falling (3-16, 19%), our “offense” is f****d and we just don’t have the team concept to fall back on.
This game being nationally televised in the US only added insult to injury as the only positive was Bosh, at least he looked good for the discerning US viewer. This also gave Kenny Smith the chance to catch his first Raptor game all year.
For us to NOT get the 6th spot we would have to lose to one of the Bulls or Miami AND Philly must beat Cleveland at home and Charlotte on the road.
Update: I just had a revelation on the AltRaps blog:
Moon drives me insane, I kid you not man. This guy is so fucking inconsistent in his offensive game that it drives me nuts. He needs to grow a set of balls, wipe that cunt of a smile of his face, get fired up and start driving to the rim. I’m fucking tried of his two dunks and countless missed perimeter jumpers. This fucker should not be starting for us, at best he’s a “come off the bench, grab some boards, make a couple dunks” type of guy. In other words, he’s a piss poor man’s JR Smith.
What else, the Raptors lose to the Pistons bench on national TV. Fuck me but that’s the most embarrassing thing thats happened all season. At least Bosh is playing hard and not folding like a lawn chair. Same can’t be said for that ass-pirate Bargnani who’s about as worthless as tits on a nun. Can you say bust? I sure can.
Fuck, while I’m typing this I just realized I fucking hate this Raptor team. I really do, even fucking AP who I used to like gets his nuts all tied up in crunch time. If I see any more missed threes in the clutch or 1-2 from the line, I’m gonna throw a brick at my TV, put on my wife beater and beat my wife. Seriously.
What else, then there’s Calderon and Ford. We like to kiss their ass and give them a hot massage after most games but both these two SUCK ASS defensively. They can’t guard their man worth shit and don’t give me this TJ is a better than player than Jose bullshit because they’re both trash on the defensive end. Stuckey and Billups were pulling their pants down, lubing them up and then going Church and Wellesley on them.
As for our help defense, even 124 year old ubie Brown was like, “why can’t these cunts rotate properly or double early?”. Then we miss our interior rotations once we allow penetration from the PG – recipe for disaster.
Fuck. We’re fucked in the playoffs. Orlando will rape us regardless of how sure that bald eagle Swirsky is about our chances. Enjoy your fucking spaghetti or raviolli dinner with Maurizio and Bargnani, do tell us what Bargnani orders and how fucking smoothly he ate his chicken and then later took the shit. I know you love that shit Chuck. Also on how he passed the Caliper test thus deserved to be the #1 pick in the draft and his demeanor and his great chemistry with Bosh and blah blah blah…..FUCK YOU MAN. You’re a fucking nobody who knows dick all about basketball!
Colangelo – please get some balls, defense, grit, passion on this team. Get rid of Delfino – the fucker wears makeup for chrissakes, Kapono sucks and is as one-dimensional as a fucking streetcar, Bargnani has the heart of the tin-man and we’re as soft as cotton….fix this shit. now.
