Reaction: Raptors 96, Hawks 86

NO-NO-NO-NO- NO-NO-NO-NO- NO-NO-NO-NO- NO-NO-NO-NO to an Amir Johnson knee injury. I may have started to throw things and pace across the room in panic when he hit the deck holding his knee. Looks like he’s ok. Amir put up a 6-8-1-3-1 stat line that was a lot louder than it looks. He played a few less minutes after playing 50 on bad ankles friday night. There is such a notable difference with this team when anybody but Amir Johnson is playing the PF spot.

Ross’ legs looked tired as everything from outside was coming up an inch or two short. He needs to put the ball on the floor and drive from the corner past the rotating defender closing out to try and find some rhythm. He responded to his justified benching early by coming back in to the game and immediately hammering a huge dunk into his 2013-2014-highlight reel. Ross then disappeared from relevance for a long stretch before Casey uncharacteristically put him back in for the key end of game push. He responded well and contributed to the team’s late comeback.

Valanciunas’ jubilant response whenever he actually gets a foul call to go his way is indicative of how the whistle has worked for him this season. That shouldn’t last for long because he is going to spend an awful lot of time shooting free throws in his career with the kind of offensive rebounding he does. He went to the line 5 times and hit 9 of 10. If you have any complaints about 13 and 13 from your center, you’re not going to get any audience for them from me.

Kyle Lowry put the team on the back doh’. Lowry’s first half numbers weren’t overwhelming, but he was one of the few Raptors who at least brought his full effort and intensity on both ends. Kyle Lowry embodied the late comeback and sealed it with a beautiful steal off the inbounds pass for a breakaway layup to seal the win. He always works hard, plays physical and delivers. How is Kyle Lowry not the most overwhelmingly popular athlete in this city?

DeRozan came out like he woke up 20 minutes before the game and was still waiting for the coffee to kick in. Made a nice pass out of the pick and roll to Ami for a dunk to wake up, which is a big heads-up play for him. DeMar had Schroeder on him and everyone else cleared out for an iso. Instead of fading away for a jumper he posted the much smaller guard up and scored an easy bucket. That’s exactly what we want to see from him. He vacillated back and forth between the good and the bad DeMar on the offensive end for the rest of the game. Luckily, the bad DeMar logged in for the 3rd quarter while the good DeMar showed up for the 4th to help the Raptors close out and win a game they ought not to have had any business winning.

Hansbrough is so consistently over-aggressive when he gets a chance to roll to the rim or put up his own shot. Easy big fella. Energy and aggression can be good things, but we need a little less Anakin Skywalker and a little more Ob-Wan Kenobi control from ‘The Big Effort’ if he’s going to be helpful beyond rebounding. Hansbrough grabbed some tough offensive rebounds in traffic and got fouled. That’s his game. It isn’t pretty or high profile, but that’s what it is.

Give Credit to Hayes for contributing in a shifting role on a night with musical chairs lineup shuffling. He put in a couple of weak-side put back and fought for position on backdoor lay-ups.

John Salmons came in to the game and the world didn’t collapse in on itself. Take note and find sanity, Raptors fans.

Landry Fields lives! Well, briefly.

Steve Novak actually had a good defensive possession, wrestling for the ball with Elton Brand and forcing a jump ball. Let’s celebrate the small victory here.

Vasquez destroyed Schroeder, putting his shoulder past him and getting to the unguarded rim at will. He continues to create offence off the bench, but he needs to reign in that 3pt shot when it isn’t dropping and he isn’t wide open. Ray Allen he is not. 0 for 5 from 3, he is.

Nando De Colo hit a 3-pointer! That’s fun. He countered it with a pair of bad passes directly to the wrong team in the first few minutes of the 4th quarter. Let’s chalk it up to Nando still getting acclimated to a new offence and hope it improves.

Casey tried what he could to get his team to wake up. He benched half the team at one point or another, shuffled through a dozen different line-ups and yelled at just about anybody who would make eye-contact with him. It’s obvious that Casey is driven as crazy by this team’s lackadaisical approach to the first 3 quarters of the game against lesser-billed opponents. The reality is that he isn’t the one to blame for that. At a certain point the players need to be held accountable. The coach is the leader, but making him the scapegoat isn’t helpful.