Reaction: Raptors 83-Nets 97

Amir has been much less explosive than his healthier self all playoffs. He seemed another half step slower tonight and, worse still, sporting a Z-boesque vertical. That’s a problem for someone who is a defensive anchor already playing the fish out of water role guarding the perimeter.

Ross is still staaaaruggling to get his shot to drop. But there was something of a spark from the sophomore in the second half with a pair of nifty behind the back passes to Valanciunas for great looks at the basket and some much better defense forcing steals and turnovers and helping to contest shots at the basket with his anti-gravity x-a button special ability.

I’ve made a point of noting how similar his numbers looked to a developing Roy Hibbert through the season. It was meant as a compliment then. When I note that Valanciunas’ first half numbers look just like 2014 Roy Hibbert, it isn’t. 0 points, 0 rebounds and 3 fouls in 9 minutes. Hibbertian. He bounced back well during the Raps aborted comeback, but he needs to be as dominant as he was earlier in the series for the Raptors to win. They have too few advantages to work for him to disappear.

The first half saw the natural regression to the mean on shooting percentage for the level of difficulty and physicality on the kinds of shots that Lowry has been living on. Lowry’s shots ate up the front of the rim, the typical tired legs miss. If Lowry’s out of gas, the Raptors bus is running on fumes.

DeMar was spectacular. He took care of the ball, he chose his shots well, he hit his shots and he was a beast in transition. DeMar has had great quarters and halves through the playoffs, but this was arguably his best complete game. It’d sure be nice if someone else on the roster could’ve helped him out in the first three quarters.

For those of you wondering whether or not Tyler Hansbrough would ever play anything close to meaningful minutes in this game, you got your answer. I hope you’re happy. If Hansbrough ever wants to be known as a serious-tough guy instead of a silly-angry guy, he needs to channel his ephedrine-induced rage into action over pouting and close=-faced post-foul talking. Who wouldn’t love to see Hansbrough take a shot a Garnett? There is literally nothing that Hansbrough could do in this series that would endear him more to Toronto fans than tossing a bomb at KG. I’m including him putting up a 30-30 in game 7, and I’m not kidding.

Patterson has been a blessing scoring off the bench when the Raptors have seemed to need it most. Helpful as his 8 points were though, Patterson went cold as the Raptors hit a wall in their comeback at a ten point deficit.

Chuck Hayes was brought in to play a little post defence against Andray Blatche. It’s only a 3 minute sample size, so it’s not as impressive as it could be, but Hayes did manage to put up the all zeroes stat line!

Salmons was better on defence for the most part than he has been in the series so far. He also shot over 50% for the first time since early April. He wasn’t a difference maker, but he wasn’t a negative either, which was nice.

Steve Novak didn’t seem to do a lot himself, but he was on the court for the only stretch of winning basketball that the team played all night. So there’s that.

Vasquez was great in transition, pushing the pace in the fourth quarter and making dividends for it. He made some poor decisions in terms of shot selection and passed up two good shots of his own for bad passes that became turnovers. Not ideal.

Casey emptied the bench early looking for answers, putting 11 different players out there. Brooklyn made adjustments, Lowry and Amir looked tired and/or hurt and Valanciunas got in early foul trouble. I don’t think that this one falls on his shoulders. Having said that, the Raptors need to address the mess that Brooklyn has been able to turn their defence into with their small ball perimeter ball movement. What the Raptors have been doing clearly isn’t working.