The “where first round matchups come to die” edition.
Banks – call me crazy, but the guy could turn into an okay back up. He’ll never be flashy, he’ll never be consistent, he’ll make you want to throw stuff, he has that lost look in his eyes……and he is a perfect representation of this basketball club.
Bargnani – this game was somewhat a microcosm of what his season is like. Not enough rebounding, he seemed to have trouble staying in front of his man, he brought back that maddening step-in-dribble-on-the-side shot, YET he gave you just enough positives to make you believe the next game is going to be so much better.
Belinelli – I’m sure part of the plan is for him to shoot himself out of his slump. Going 2 for 9 shows that he can’t even do that right. Right now I would have more faith in me taking up archery and being good enough to make the next Olympics than for Marco to do something positive for this team for more than 10mins in a game.
Bosh – I’m still bemused by the return of his lobster claws. Same thing happened last year where he would go through a stretch of games where it seemed 3 or 4 catchable passes would go right through his hands or he’d lose a dribble, uncontested. His lack of rebounding (again) is starting to prove that teams know what to do with him, so he needs to adjust to fight through these box outs.
Calderon – anybody else envision this guy sitting at home clapping his way through every game?
DeRozan – Heir Canada continues to play like Wally Wannabe. Carter is a tough cover for anybody, granted, but someday soon we need to see the rook rise above the crowd, accept the challenge of his cover, and produce on both ends of the floor. Do that for 2 or 3 games straight and the league will take notice and some will stop second-guessing where you were picked.
Evans – I would pay money for Reggie to go on uStream during an away game. It would be cool to hear what he has to say, but it would be a BLAST to actually see what he wears around his house.
Jack – better than last night, but that isn’t a tough feat. Still, as a starter, he did pretty well in keeping J-Will from going off. As usual, would love to see him drive and kick more, but kind of hard to do when you have the equivalent of a mini-tank standing in the paint with the reach of a giraffe. As much as we haven’t been winning games without Jose, if we didn’t have Jack, we probably would be setting some horrible records.
Johnson – this is one of the few nights this year that I kind of lost him during the game. Maybe it was the 4 fouls in 14minutes. Just didn’t seem to have “it” tonight.
Mensah-Bonsu – speaking of fouls, 5 in 11 minutes and a play where he got tangled up and looked like he was doing the macarena. Raps only have a few more days to make a decision about him. Lets see what happens.
Nesterovic – I can just imagine what he must have thought when Triano pointed to him to go check-in. He probably looked at the Magic frontline and said “Are you kidding me? I’m a 62 year old man that wants to live to wrap Christmas gifts for his kids. You want me to go out there and defend THOSE guys?”. Shortly thereafter you could almost hear the squeals of pain.
O’Bryant – he suped up his car today. DNP-Pimpin His Ride. He even posted a video about it. Sadly, the video was longer than most of the games he played in and he made more noise in it.
Turkoglu- stood up pretty well against his old mates. Good first half, kept his emotions in check but certainly didn’t play as well as most do against their old mates. Certainly fought hard to get to the line and produced when he did. Oh, and going into the Magic end to do shootaround before the game started and chortling with your buddies? Not cool. Here’s hoping it gets addressed.
Weems – some bad defensive checks, but he at least tried to make up for them with his athleticism. Have to wonder if he doesn’t get showcased soon to be part of a package deal.
Wright – well, he could have been much worse…and he has. Granted, the game wasn’t exactly, um, gripping, but he did what he is supposed to do: make his shots and shut bloggers up. I give it 2 more games before he calls out Colangelo.
Driving The Bus: Hedo Turkoglu
Under The Bus: Marco Belinelli
Game Theme:
