The “no passion no desire no will” edition.
Banks – spared the pain tonight. Wish it was me.
Bargnani – who would like to trade Andrea for, say, Jeff Green? All those in favour say aye. Andrea had a nice night shooting the ball, but he must have felt like a drunk who was in a gutter getting kicked by a bouncer on the defensive end. It was an onslaught that was just nasty.
Belinelli – first we win the medal, then to throw the nation another curve ball, Marco seems some extended minutes in garbage time and actually does something with them. Got to the line, hit from the field and manned up on D.
Bosh – back in Toronto looking out at all the celebrations wondering if the people of Chicago will act that way when he signs there in the summer.
Calderon – banged his elbow, didn’t shoot particularly well, but when you consider how poor this team was offensively tonight, getting 7 assists and 5 boards from your backup PG is positive. Of course, if you get hit over the head with a bat but don’t die, that’s positive too.
DeRozan – he played better than he has been. I got the impression that the up and down nature of the Thunder’s game actually excited him and kept him mentally in the game. Finished the night with a 13/7 and, even given some bad shooting, didn’t make you want to stab your eyes out with a fork.
Evans – not a strong game. After showing some chops against Cleveland, his point guards didn’t put him in a good position to score nor did he himself put himself in good positions to give his team second chance points or putbacks.
Jack – Jarrett had one nice stretch in the second half where he brought his aggressiveness out to make an appearance. He spent the rest of this game back on his heels and being a detriment to his team rather than a leader. Westbrook is a nice point guard and Jarrett did force him into taking some bad shots, but it wasn’t enough. He sure does love that stutter step though.
Johnson – did a nice job of crashing the boards tonight, showing that under most circumstances he should get the call off the bench ahead of Reggie. Helped get us some second chance opportunities, something that we needed more of, and did a good job keeping up with the Thunder in transition.
Nesterovic – spent most of the night letting Krstic know he beat him in the hair department. Once done with that, he decided he would join in the brick fest and lay more eggs than a prize winning hen.
O’Bryant – after spending late Saturday on ustream answering tough questions from fans while watching Titanic (no, seriously, he was) he probably wet himself when he heard Jay call his name. I know I did. How did he look? Well, you know what a guy looks like when he is drunk and trying to hail a cab? There ya go. Better still, our 7′ man of steel decided to try and hit a 3 point shot. Seriously. I don’t need to tell you the outcome.
Turkoglu- another game with 2 quick fouls, little effort, and the style of play you’d expect from a rookie, not someone that was brought in to help this team go deep into the playoffs. When brought in, people thought he would be an anchor on this team, instead it’s pretty much been dead weight. 3 of 8 tonight, 3 rebounds and 2 assists in 20 minutes of pathetic effort.
Weems – once again it seemed like he was hidden under a bunch of coats. When he made it into the game, he produced. Well, after he missed a layup and a dunk, he produced. He actually showed some passion on a night when the rest of his teammates had the passion of a Russian border guard. A wing player that shows hustle. On the Raptors. Who knew.
Wright – how do you think he’s feeling about being the guy defending the other teams best players now? It looked like he was shooting at the hoop from the deck of a boat in the middle of a hurricane but you have to give him credit for attacking loose balls and..well…that’s about it.
Driving The Bus: Sonny Weems
Under The Bus: Hedo Turkoglu
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