With Andrea Bargnani out, that was about as close as this Raptors team could have played the Lakers. The Raptors rose to the occasion in the first quarter, bent but didn’t completely break in the second, mounted a challenge in the third, and ran out of gas in the face of experience in the fourth. Repeating the success seen on this floor against the Lakers last season would have been a tall order even with Bargnani, but without a consistent offensive force the Raptors succumbed to timely Laker runs despite a rather effective zone defense paying dividends.
With Bargnani nursing knee and ankle issues, young Ed Davis (his initials are his first name!) got the start alongside LA-boy Amir Johnson, who became the story of the first quarter. His first quarter shot-chart does the talking for me, let me just add it’s safe to say that his jumper has improved from last year. Sure, it takes about three whole seconds to release and everybody in the audience wonders why Amir is reaching into his shirt pocket, but it seems to go in a lot of the time. Speaking of time, over time he’s going to figure out how to speed up the release and maybe unleash it off a bounce, otherwise he risks getting stuck with a Camby-type jumper.
Johnson didn’t carry the load by himself, he had help in the form of Linas Kleiza who wasn’t getting much respect for Ron Artest. The artist-turned-model was roaming on defense leaving Kleiza with open shots, the lumbering Lithuanian missed his first couple shots but soon gathered his wits to knock down some jumpers. He had 7 in the first quarter and was on his way to his second-straight stellar game (11-21 FG, 26 pts, 10 reb). The Raptors ball movement was full of risks that were paying off and included sweeping cross-court passes, skip passes touching Laker nails, bounce passes in traffic and the lot. The finishing at the end of the movement was at a 60% clip and the Raptors ended the quarter on a 12-5 run, a quarter in which they notched 10 assists.
The only frowns descending on my face were due to Sam texting me from Heathrow about how he was using a public washroom as a honeymoon bed. That and DeMar DeRozan being torched like a…well…torch. I understand it’s Kobe Bryant and he’s made more posters than Imaginus, but c’mon man, you have to play with a little more passion on defense. Kobe went around him like he literally wasn’t there three times, so much so that the ACC crowd let out a collective “Ooooohhhh..ugghh…eeee”. Never good when that happens. This was his best defensive coverage of Kobe all night. Even then, Raps up 6.
Bayless got the reins towards the end of the first and start of second, and didn’t quite get himself in the game. Couple of issues with him. First, he picks up his dribble prematurely, this is a cardinal sin for a point guard and one that pisses off every single one of your teammates. He needs to work on that, and honestly I don’t think there are many better than Calderon to learn from in that regard. Second, pick out potential pass options before you drive, not once you get there. He had a really nice steal and pass to Amir Johnson, too bad that was it (18 min, 4 pts, 2 ast).
The bench for both teams in the second unit was quite a mashup. The Lakers had Luke Walton, Shannon Brown, Matt Barnes, Steve Blake and Andrew Bynum, while the Raptors countered with Barbosa, Bayless, Davis, Wright and Alabi. I had some concerns about where the offense was supposed to come from for the Raptors, but I figured the Lakers would struggle as well and things would even out. It was looking to be that way until the Lakers brought back Pau Gasol for Bynum, with the Raptors bringing back DeRozan and Johnson. The Lakers worked exceptionally well off of Gasol, got some run-outs and had a two point lead at the 6 minute mark. This was to be expected, the Raptors couldn’t have possibly continued shooting 60% against the Lakers set defense and interior length and so they began to crumble.
Johnson was being hampered by a sore back and Triano surprisingly opted to go small against the Lakers with Kleiza at the four and Dorsey/Davis at the five. That didn’t prove wise against a frontline of Odom and Gasol, and the Lakers hammered the Raptors on the boards in the second quarter on their way to a 46-35 advantage. The Raptors weren’t getting any second chance opportunities and when that happens, any miss is made to look that much worse. With the offense sputtering, the Raptors surrendered the lead and went in to halftime down 57-49.
Jay Triano must have requisitioned DeMar DeRozan to at least let his teammates know that he was in attendance and the young man took it to heart. He dropped 19 in the third quarter against the likes of Barnes and Brown. The Raptors went into their often-used 2-3 zone and much to one’s surprise, the Lakers had a tough time figuring it out, especially the “3” part of it. They committed turnovers which lead to points and the Raptors managed to cut the lead to 73-68 with 5 minutes to play in the third. Shannon Brown then hit two momentum-killing threes, the latter of which extended the Laker lead to 84-76 late in the third quarter. It’s hard to complain when you put up 30 against the Lakers in a quarter, but I have to say that the offense wasn’t as team-oriented since DeRozan was pretty much going at it on his own. The stat that reflects this is that after getting 10 assists in the first quarter, the Raptors only managed 10 for the rest of the game.
By now the bigs were having real trouble dealing with LA’s size and the word ‘fatigue’ was being thrown around a lot by Jack Armstrong. Ed Davis was looking like a boxer fighting for his life in the 9th round, and Joey Dorsey’s hustle and guile could not overcome the sheer length of the LA frontline. It was always going to be tough, even with Barbosa doing all he can to spur the offense and inject some energy on the other end. His buzzer-beating three at the end of the third cut it to a 7 point lead, and rekindled faint hope of a comeback.
A realistic chance at making this one close evaporated fairly early in the fourth when Barbosa (3-12, 11 points) missed two good looks from three, Dorsey committed a turnover, and the Raptors sent LA to the line because they simply couldn’t defend their inside-out and intelligent passing game. It was a fifteen point lead at 9:52 and from here on out it was going to be impossible.
All in all, a decent effort from a short-handed team. Jose Calderon (20 points, 12 assists) deserves special mention, take a look at his shot-chart, that jumper is on target. Wild take: Trade him. His trade value is sky-high right now and who knows when he’s going to get injured next, strike while the iron is hot. It’s definitely not the move to make if you’re trying to rack up wins this year, and it will also hamper the development of Bayless who can learn a lot from Jose, but hey, it’s an option.
Ed Davis will be a decent player in this league, I like his motor and how he goes after every shot, he had 3 rebounds in 17 minutes and could have had more if it weren’t for his timing issues and a couple balls bouncing off his hands. You can see that the lack of conditioning and training camp gets to him at time, and the banging he received took a bit of a toll on him physically. Triano reached out to Alabi who will only be remembered for being turned around on a ball-fake by Shannon Brown. The interior defense and activity-level by the Raptors bigs in the first quarter was perfect, after that it seemed to dip and I’ll give the Lakers credit instead of slagging on the Raptors.
Just like most of the Raptors games this year it was an enjoyable one to watch. The Raptors are 7th in the league in pace and have played entertaining team-basketball for most of the season, even when Bargnani is dominating the ball. They’re on pace for about 29 wins right now, the eight seeded Sixers are on course for 33 wins and a playoff spot. Yes, it’s that kind of year in the East and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that if the Raptors play like they did last night, they’ll actually have a shot at returning to the post-season in a rebuilding year. In a sense, that would be truly remarkable.