You might have seen the play by now, here’s a really crappy Vine if you need a reminder:
Casey was asked in his press conference if he had considered putting the team’s best perimeter defender, James Johnson, on Evans. Casey’s response:
We did. Greivis did the best job, other than that last possession, of all our guys during the game, that’s why we stuck with Greivis on him.
He did a good job of containment, making him score over a big body. I thought he did a good job other than the last play. Guys like that [Evans], one-on-one playeres going to make plays. We had talked about putting James [Johnson] on him.
This makes me a little more angry than before. I can accept him forgetting to put a better defender than Vasquez on Evans, whether it be James Johnson, DeMar DeRozan, or the nearest usher, after all we all make mistakes and need to be given a break.
BUT, he specifically considered having James Johnson guard him, and then dismissed the idea!
Casey was contemplating doing the right thing and then some part of his brain said: “Naah, Greivis can do a better job than James. Better go with him.”
Aargh. There are so many things about this game that you can pick apart, Ross’s play, Valanciunas being benched again, lack of structured offense, and most of all, whatever happened to our defense? It’s like our winning ways were entirely due to the adrenalin rush of being so efficient at one-on-one offense, and now that that well has dried up, we have nothing to hold us together.
The ironic part of all this is that our foundation as a team is supposed to be our defense, and I’m struggling to come up with one thing we do well on that end. The Raptors are 22nd in defensive rating, 24th in rebounding, and the only thing they do relatively well is force turnovers where they’re 11th in the league. However, they’re terrible at scoring off of those turnovers so it becomes a moot point.
