The Raptors lose to the Bulls. Nay, get blown the *&^% out.
 | Amir Johnson, PF 26 MIN | 3-7 FG | 1-1 FT | 4 REB | 5 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 8 PTS | -6 +/-He’s thiiiis close to being about as effective as Tyler Hansbrough. I have no doubt that he’ll soon have a popping 14 points, 12 rebound game where he’ll finish everything and play great defense. The point, though, is that for this team to be any good those kinds of games need to be the norm, not the exception. Tonight, he was usually mediocre against a frontline that demanded a lot. |  | |||||||
 | Terrence Ross, SF 31 MIN | 4-13 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 2 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 9 PTS | -7 +/-It’s not that Ross is a bad defensive player, it’s that he’s a terrible one. Getting back-cut by Mike Dunleavy (who now completely looks like a lizard) twice in four minutes wasn’t bad enough, so he topped it off by shooting blanks from three in a manner so passive that you might think it’s a training camp shootaround. On a positive note he once dribbled the ball without turning it over. |  | |||||||
 | Jonas Valanciunas, C 24 MIN | 0-1 FG | 5-6 FT | 6 REB | 0 AST | 1 STL | 1 BLK | 1 TO | 5 PTS | -13 +/-The Raptors may as well stroll him out on the court like Hannibal, because that’s how I feel he plays: constricted. Constricted by the spacing, constricted by the scarcity of screens set for him, and constricted by his own confused mind as he struggles with just what his role on his team is other than to “play hard”. He’s had good offensive games against the Bulls, but that usually was a product of him getting hot on the mechanical possessions allocated to him at various points in the game. Tonight, he didn’t even get that. | | |||||||
 | Greivis Vasquez, PG 37 MIN | 5-15 FG | 0-0 FT | 4 REB | 6 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 11 PTS | -9 +/-Here’s a guy whose effectiveness is inversely proportional to the structure around him, which is the reason he has generally been OK in Dwane Casey’s offense. As a starter, he’s performing better and we even saw him operate out of the post today against the smaller Brooks, which was something new. Of course, it didn’t work as the Bulls soon adjusted and coaxed him into shooting the shots they wanted him to shoot, but let’s celebrate the little successes. |  | |||||||
 | DeMar DeRozan, SG 37 MIN | 8-14 FG | 8-10 FT | 7 REB | 3 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 2 TO | 27 PTS | -23 +/-Tried to do the “right” thing by driving at Snell and Dunleavy, but when the defense knows that’s your plan and the rest of the team is struggling, they’ll gladly concede points to you as long as you’re trudging through mud to get yours, and you’re not creating for others. DeRozan had a decent enough statistical game, but overall impact was low because the Bulls showed him different looks (show-only, double early, funnel) which meant that he was so absorbed in producing offense for himself, that he didn’t enough in him to consider others. Slow-clap, but it was doomed from the start. |  | |||||||
 | Tyler Hansbrough, PF 19 MIN | 1-3 FG | 4-4 FT | 3 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 1 BLK | 0 TO | 6 PTS | -4 +/-He’s like a baby ram. Played hard, was a bit part of that meek fourth quarter run, but most of all desperately needs a new haircut. | | |||||||
 | James Johnson, PF 13 MIN | 1-6 FG | 0-1 FT | 2 REB | 1 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 2 PTS | 0 +/-Played a bit in the first quarter, got benched even though Mirotic seemed like a good matchup for him, and then came back in the fourth quarter to remind us that he’s still on the team. How Dwane Casey hasn’t figured out a set role for a hard-working, talented, defensive-minded player this late into the season speaks to just how Casey has no idea how to work rotations or manage players. |  | |||||||
 | Patrick Patterson, PF 25 MIN | 7-11 FG | 0-0 FT | 5 REB | 1 AST | 2 STL | 1 BLK | 0 TO | 17 PTS | -14 +/-Good spell in stretches, but like every other player it seemed, got killed by Mirotic by either closing him out too hard, or not closing him out at all. There was a spell in the second quarter where he showed his dribble-game after the catch, which can be effective if cultivated. Unfortunately, he’s taken a step back this year by making his game more narrow and valuing the three-point shot much more, instead of expanding it and adding moves going to the basket. |  | |||||||
 | Landry Fields, SG 2 MIN | 0-0 FG | 0-0 FT | 1 REB | 0 AST | 0 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 0 PTS | +3 +/-Ha..would you look at that… | | |||||||
 | Louis Williams, SG 25 MIN | 1-9 FG | 4-4 FT | 3 REB | 2 AST | 1 STL | 0 BLK | 0 TO | 7 PTS | -12 +/-Off-shooting night, which means he was worthless to the team. He compounded the team’s misery by playing shoddy help defense, cheating up top, and other than a couple nice passes on a drive, was hard to watch. | | |||||||
 | Dwane Casey I can’t figure out one thing this team does consistently well on defense, and there are 13 games left in the season. Our defensive identity is that we don’t have one, and we’ll blow which way the wind does. We can’t track shooters, we can’t close-out, we can’t fight through screens, we can’t make over/under reads on point guards, we get back-cut through simple misdirections, our rebounding positions are off due to the amount of scrambling we do, we can’t stop dribble penetration, we haven’t developed any semblance of interior defense…we suck. | | |||||||
Three Things We Saw
- Mirotic killed us. It was weird because the Raptors had Patterson, Valanciunas, Vasquez, Ross, DeRozan, James Johnson, and Amir Johnson all guarding him at various points/sequences in the game. It was almost like they didn’t have a plan on how to guard a versatile player like that. Come to think of it, Mirotic combined all that’s good about Ross, Patterson, and James Johnson into one.
- The Bulls shot 58% in the first half. How does that even happen? For a whole half? This is a team that’s missing Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler? I mean, how?
- Join the RR 3on3 tournament. It’s more fun than watching the Raptors.
