Quick React: Toronto Take Care of Business, Raptors: 106 – Knicks: 89

Watching him on the court reminds me playing with gumby and pokey dolls, problem is Amir’s ankles aren’t going to bend back. Once Kyle Lowry returns from his back contusion Casey needs to find some games to rest him. A healthy Amir is a priority for the post season.

His offense seems to be back on track albeit not at a level we’d expect. The issue continues to be his defense. Today it was hit and miss and this is facing the woeful Knicks.

An area he’s improving upon is his passing. Case in point he passed off to Amir 2Q while surrounded by several Knicks and passed out of double and triple coverage who were collapsing on him in the post. He still needs to work on improving his positioning in the post. A couple of occasions I noted Vasquez wanted to get him the ball, but he was behind the defender which makes the path to get him the ball more difficult (and resulted in a turnover on one such attempt). Still, involving him early and often is important b/c of his high FG%. Couple that with his improved decision making and ball handling and it should result in consistent advantages. To reiterate what most people have said all season the team needs to make this a point of emphasis in their final games leading to the post season.

Got off to a slow start notching only a turnover in the 1Q. When he returned to the court 2Q he moved the ball better getting a bunch of hockey assists. While DeRozan and Williams both had numerous assists I won’t penalize him for not registering as many as he was often the one spearheading the ball movement.

Had 2 impressive dunks in the first half and seemed to be intent to get JV the ball (more than he has previous games). I held off writing too much about him til later in the game because he has a tendency to have a couple great quarters of mixing up scoring with passing and then that disappears as he returns to iso ball. Today he carried it through the game.

We never have to worry about effort when Psycho T hits the court. Whether he was buoyed by his alma mater (North Carolina) performing well this weekend or if it was just a coincidence his performance today resulted in 9 points and 3 rebounds in the first half alone. Imagine if the basketball gods had gifted him with an additional 2 or 3 inches in height how much more of a force he’d be. His best overall game this season.

When he sailed through the air hitting Alexey Shved it was the Russian’s shoulder his legs made contact with! Not hard to imagine after witnessing that how JJ kicked the ball off the hoop as rumored. His activity was improved today and he made a couple strong moves to the basket. He looked to be more like himself after a couple of questionable outings. Note to Casey: Get him some consistent minutes and THIS is what you can expect.

Watching the combination of Patterson, JJ and Hansbrough on the court 2Q showcased something closer to the defense we witnessed early in the season. Subsequently the Raps built their biggest lead during this period and outscored the Knicks 16 -0 in the paint. His numbers don’t represent how well he played.

The Toronto love affair with Bruno continues as the fans chanted “Let’s go Bruno”. Be nice to see him get a few more minutes and maybe down the stretch we will.

Despite only scoring 4 points by the 3 minute mark of the 3Q he also had 4 assists, so the fact his shot wasn’t falling he at least tried to do something other than iso ball. Was one of his cold days of shooting but he made efforts to involve his teammates (more than normal)

I’ll credit Casey for recognizing the line of JJ, Pyscho T and Patterson had it rolling. However, given these are the sad-sack Knicks shouldn’t he be focusing on getting JV as much time and touches as possible? And just as I type this he puts JV back in the game, He also called time-outs at the appropriate time.