Linas Kleiza, who has done well as the starting small forward, only made it through half the practice, but wasn’t about to say anything was wrong or that the 40 plus minutes he has averaged of late are a problem.
“It’s better to feel tired than rested (from sitting on the bench),” Kleiza said with a smile.
Kleiza said finally being healthy after a number of nagging injuries dating back to his busy summer with Lithuania and a growing comfort zone alongside Calderon is leading to his strong recent play.
Not that he wasn’t at least a little bit concerned when his shots weren’t falling.
“Of course, when you don’t play too well, the team doesn’t do too well, of course you’re down on yourself,” he said.
“I’m not going to stand here and say: ‘Hey I was happy with the way I played.’ All you can do is work hard and try to improve the things you need to improve. I’m healthy now and turning the corner, good things are ahead.”
Triano also sounded pleased with Kleiza’s production.
“He had no bounce when he was hurt (and) if you don’t have bounce in the NBA, you’re going to be in trouble, guys are going to exploit you,” Triano said.
“We’ve played him a lot of minutes the past couple of games and it has paid off.”
With Weems shooting blanks and not doing much defensively on the boards, a change to the starting lineup needed to be made and Kleiza has stepped in and filled the void after mixed results as a starter earlier in the seasaon.
“We just weren’t really pleased with the way we were getting starts to games,” Triano said.
“We were very young. (We) thought we’d change things up a little bit and maybe we would get a little better.”
It is not to diminish Linas Kleiza’s return to full health or his reinsertion into the Raptors’ front line as logical explanations for him putting together two excellent outings over the weekend, but there is one other significant reason: Jose Calderon.
There seems to be a some kind of bond between Calderon, the veteran Raptors point guard whose return dovetailed with Kleiza’s resurgence, and the forward who averaged 26 points and 11 rebounds in games against the New Jersey Nets and Los Angeles Lakers.
It comes from their age, a common knowledge of the game and Calderon’s ability to know who needs shots when in Toronto’s offence.
“He’s a very good point guard to get everybody involved, get the team going,” Kleiza said of Calderon after the banged-up Raptors had a quick workout Monday at the Air Canada Centre. “He’s not necessarily the flashy one who’s trying to go out there and score but he just runs the team well, he knows how to pass the ball very well and when he’s on the court, he makes a big difference.”
That difference has been alarming for Kleiza, who had 26 points in each of the weekend games and led the team in rebounding both times.
“This is the way he plays, this is way I know he plays from when I played against him with the national teams, when he was in Denver,” Calderon said of Kleiza, whom he knows well from a handful of Spain-Lithuania matches over the years.
“He can do a lot of things for us — he can play on the post, he’s shooting the ball really well now. . . . When you’ve got someone playing who’s hot and is shooting the ball very well, you try to look for him a little bit more, sure.”
Toronto’s next opponent will arrive on Wednesday in the form of the Detroit Pistons and the Raptors will be expected to send out at least five healthy players onto the Air Canada Centre floor.
Judging from Monday’s practice – if you can call it that – that will be no easy task.
“I’m prepared,” Triano said when asked the inevitable question if there was enough healthy players to go around to get any meaningful work done at practice.
The coach was holding in his hand a sheet of paper that contained the names of the walking wounded.
“No Amir [Johnson], no Jose [Calderon], no Andrea [Bargnani], so Sonny [Weems], no Peja [Stojakovic], no Reggie [Evans],” he said, stopping short of adding no hope to that list.
To make matters worse, Triano said Linas Kleiza, who starred in Sunday’s 120-110 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, could only make it through half the action Monday before sidelining himself to rest.
By the coach’s count, that left him with 7 1/2 available bodies to try to run a productive workout, a difficult proposition to be sure.
But it’s not quite as bad as it seems. While Stojakovic (knee) and Evans (foot) are out indefinitely, the others are expected to be able to play against Detroit.
A day later, and DeMar DeRozan was still marveling at some of the moves Kobe Bryant showed him on Sunday afternoon.
The Lakers beat the Raptors 120-110, with Bryant burning DeRozan, his former student at basketball camps, three times in the first half. Bryant finished with 20 points in 28 minutes.
“Yeah, he always surprises,” DeRozan said. “I got something else I can try to steal. You don’t know how to defend him. If you think you have an idea, he’s got a counter to that. That’s the toughest part.”
Chris Bosh was without a doubt the franchise player for several years and became beloved by the fans who loved his playfulness and his passion. Bosh made several All-Star appearances while with the Raptors and was putting up numbers that received minor consideration for the Most Valuable Player award.
Everything changed when he left for south beach. Bosh left on terrible terms with not only the fans but with the organization as well. Both Bosh and the organization exchanged verbal blows using different media and the wounds have not fully healed.
So far this season, the Raptors have been close in almost every game but, have not pulled out many victories as their 9-17 record would reflect. The Raptors have struggled to find an offensive game without Bosh and have been very poor on the defensive end.
But, there is hope. Because the future is bright and even now, the Raptors have the right tools to turn this ship around before it sinks. Here are the reasons I believe they can do it
The Toronto Raptors have announced that forward Peja Stojakovic has returned to New Orleans to get a second opinion on his swollen knee.
Once those results / opinions are known, Stojakovic will either join the Raptors in Memphis for their first game after Christmas (Dec. 27) or simply return to Toronto for further treatment and rehab with the Raps medical and training staff.
