Raptors need to find their swagger in Game 3: Arthur | Toronto Star
“All of our shooters, it’s important that they come out with that swag, that confidence. Next shot. Next play . . . You’ve got tot have that kind of belief, when everything else, when everyone is (saying) doomsday, it’s basketball. You’ve got to have that belief, no matter what it is, that you’re going to get the job done.” So confidence, then, is what you’re saying. “I don’t sense any give-in or give-up from anybody,” Casey said. “Like I told them, if you’re not going to Washington to compete, don’t come out to the airport. We’ll get you a nice meal back here in Toronto, in a restaurant, to watch it on television. But nobody stepped forward, so that meant that everybody on the plane is ready to go to compete.” That’s how bad Game 2 was, people; it was challenge-your-manhood bad. If you need to talk about having confidence that much — and make no mistake, Casey does — then you saw something pretty awful on the tape. But beyond the need to execute basketball in a whole pile of different ways, the Raptors need to commit, and stay committed. They didn’t in Game 2, so the Wizards got to chirp.
By the end of the game, Wizards veteran Paul Pierce was laughing on the court. The 37-year-old has become an unexpected factor in the series, having scored 20 points in Game 1, and serving as a perimeter-oriented power forward that confounded the Raptors on the defensive end again in Game 2. Confidence has not been a problem for the Wizards. “They think that we’re some punks,” guard Bradley Beal told the U.S. broadcast at halftime on Tuesday. “They think they can push us around. But we’re not rolling.” Pierce, as he left the court at the end of the game, reportedly yelled at the crowd: “I don’t want to go through customs no more.”
Raptors adopt “must-win” mindset | TSN
At least off the court, this team hasn’t lost its confidence, they’re not hanging their heads. On the court however, that’s been a completely different story, as the Wizards have pushed them around in just about every way you can think of. Washington has out-rebounded the hosting Raptors by 30 in the first two meetings, including 14 on the offensive glass. They have doubled, blitzed and pressured Toronto’s all-star backcourt of DeMar DeRozan and Lowry, limiting them both and completely taking the latter out of this series. No one else has stepped up enough to make up the difference. On top of it all, the Wizards have acted the part. They’re talking trash and backing it up. “That’s all the game of basketball, whether it’s playoffs, whether it’s preseason, whether it’s a regular season game, whether it’s going up against your rival opponent, there’s always trash talking,” Patterson said. There’s always explicit language, there’s always pushing and shoving, there’s always a physical nature of the game. It’s just the competitive part of the game. And we embrace it, they embrace it, if you’re an athlete you embrace it.”
Raptors face near must-win in Game 3 against Wizards | Toronto Sun
In the moments after a Game 2 demoralizing beatdown by the Washington Wizards, opposing coach Randy Wittman took the podium and talked about what was required to finish off the Toronto Raptors. Like every coach in the history of sport, with few exceptions, he took pains to ensure he didn’t provide any bulletin-board material for the still-reeling opponents who went from favoured and owners of home-court advantage to more or less vanquished in the matter of four days. The series isn’t over, the snore-inducing Wittman contended. From here on out every game is only going to be tougher, he insisted. It’s very hard to win four games, he continued. This was a message to his own team as much as for media purposes — but it was also about the most hopeful thing said involving the home side all evening long.
Wizards will try to avoid letdown in return to Washington | Toronto Star
If Porter and Wall continue to hit their shots, it’s going to make it exponentially harder for Toronto to climb back into the series. Stopping Wall and Beal in transition and limiting the impact of Nene, Marcin Gortat and Paul Pierce are huge, but the Raptors know they can’t stop everything. “That was the difference in a lot of their offensive possessions, John Wall (was) making his threes, Otto Porter made his threes,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said Thursday. “From a defensive standpoint, you’ve got to live with something. There are certain things they’re doing that we have decided to live with. “Now the game of adjustments, what do we do next to compensate for what they did well offensively against us. That’s part of the playoff process, but the one thing we can’t do is go in with a lack of confidence.”
Wizards want to sweep Raptors | Toronto Sun
NBA players have complained from the day the Raptors arrived on the scene in 1995 about the inconvenience of having to go through customs, a daily occurrence for any traveller who needs to cross the border. That’s not going to change, but Pierce’s declaration spoke to the urgency the Wizards must now embrace. They know they’ve got the Raptors on the ropes and they know how important it is to go for the jugular Friday night in Game 3. When a team is down, players of Pierce’s ilk understand there’s no room for complacency.
The Raps and Wizards are playing mind games. | SportsonEarth.com
Pierce scored a team-high 20 points in the Wizards’ overtime win to open the series, and afterwards talked about embracing the villain role and doing anything necessary to give his team a mental edge. “He’s got the psychological momentum from last year,” Bloom said. “And now he’s pushing it a little further.” As a member of the Brooklyn Nets last season, Pierce keyed a Game 1 comeback win in Toronto and blocked Kyle Lowry’s would-be series-clinching attempt at the end of Game 7 to advance to the second round. The Raptors are more frustrated with their play on the court at this point than anything else. But after Game 1, Greivis Vasquez put an end to any more questions from the media regarding Pierce. “He’s a Hall of Famer who knows what he’s doing,” Vasquez said. “We give him a lot of credit. He’s got everybody’s attention. We don’t have any trash talkers in our locker room. Let him do the talking, and we’ll see at the end who wins the series. We give him a lot of respect. We’ll see what happens.” This series may not become a drawn-out psychological affair, especially if the Wizards finish the sweep this weekend with two home wins. But as we get deeper into the playoffs and the difference between two teams over a seven-game series shrinks, players and coaches will continue to search for that mental advantage.
Raptors need to share to survive Wizards scare: Feschuk | Toronto Star
Either Toronto’s role players are failing miserably at beating the Wizards. Or Lowry, DeRozan and Williams, showing little faith in their teammates, are failing more miserably by avoiding the correct pass and attempting to single-handedly beat the blanket coverage. It’s not working for Toronto, any way you slice it. Lowry, DeRozan and Williams are shooting a combined 33% from the field in the opening two games. Lowry alone is a dreadful 5-for-20. And nobody else on the squad has stepped up to punish the Wizards for doubling Toronto’s top-three scorers. It’s been ugly to watch. But the Raptors, at least, seem aware of the error of their ways. “With us, typically we start off early, we move the ball, we share the ball, we play great defence, we build up a lead. Then, I don’t know, something happens,” said Patrick Patterson, the slick-shooting forward.
Wizards expect series with Raptors to become more difficult, even up 2-0 | Washington Times
Washington expects the series to become more difficult. Toronto will be fueled by desperation after losing home-court advantage. All-star point guard Kyle Lowry has been shackled by fouls, and his influence over the series, so powerful when he is on the floor, has been stifled by those whistles. Wall is able to dominate his backup, Lou Williams, and Beal is able to handle former Maryland star Greivis Vasquez, who ends up as a pseudo-shooting guard when Lowry is out of the game. Messages from each team were unified on Thursday. The Raptors called Game 3 the proverbial “must win.” The Wizards were back in chilly Verizon Center, fighting overconfidence that could come from turning the catbird seat into a full recliner. “We can play better and we’re going to have to play better,” Wizards coach Randy Wittman said. “The experience always helps. I think going through what we did last year, winning the first two games in Chicago and coming home, Chicago brought the fight to us in Game 3. That’s going to be no different [on Friday]. Toronto’s going to bring the fight.”
Bradley Beal, John Wall winning the back-court battle for the Wizards | The Washington Post
“I’ve been saying it all year long: As they go, as we go,” Pierce repeated. Beal and Wall were dismal from the field Saturday but accumulated 15 rebounds and 14 assists to complement their stingy defense and refused to curb their aggression despite shooting 11 for 41. The stubborn assertiveness proved vital Tuesday, when they relentlessly attacked the Raptors’ defense instead of succumbing to traps and went berserk on offense. Wall posted 27 points and 16 assists to become the first player since Steve Nash in 2006 to compile at least 25 points and 15 assists in a road playoff game. Beal’s career playoff-high 28 points on 12-for-21 shooting were the most he’s scored since late December. “It’s a guard’s league right now, and in Washington you have two of the best guards playing,” NBA TV analyst and Hall of Fame point guard Isiah Thomas said in a phone interview Thursday. “If they’re at the top of their game and they continue to play at the level that they’re playing offensively and defensively, they definitely can go far.”
Wizards taking out Toronto guards | Hang Time Blog with Sekou Smith
The Raptors ranked third in offensive efficiency in the regular season. But through two playoff games, they rank 14th. Their offense was much better in Game 2 than it was in Game 1, but not good enough to keep up with their defensive issues. The problems on defense aren’t getting fixed overnight. The Wizards will continue putting Jonas Valanciunas in situations where he has to move his feet, and he will continue to not move them quickly enough. The Raptors ranked 26th defensively after Thanksgiving, and they’re probably not going to flip the switch on that end of the floor. So if Toronto is to give themselves a chance in this series by winning Game 3, they have to start looking like a top-five offense again. And to do that, they have to unlock their guards. It’s no secret that the Raptors’ offense is guard-heavy. DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry and Lou Williams were not only their three leading scorers by a wide margin, but also their leaders in usage rate (the percentage of a team’s possessions a player uses while he’s on the floor), with another guard – Greivis Vasquez – ranking fourth. The Wizards know this. The Toronto guards are the head of the snake, and that’s where Washington’s defense has been focused.
Toronto Raptors Must Dig Deep or Continue Obscurity | Tip of the Tower
But as Gilbert Arenas said so articulately, soft? I wasn’t expecting the Raptors to still have that tag attached to them. This year, we had hoped to turn a corner with the return of Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough [a nickname he earned from his days at North Carolina, and a moniker he has successfully carried to his career in the pros], and James Johnson, a guy who was on every highlight show in North America for absolutely destroying one of the best and toughest post players in the game in Andre Drummond back in November. All seemed well, and I was convinced we had turned a corner. Then the last two games happened, and I find myself both cursing, and praising the name Paul Peirce.
Op-Ed: Is the Raptors defensive system breaking down the players? | Digital Journal
The quickest resolution starts with trading Terrance Ross – when Demar was injured he had his chance to demonstrate his potential and failed. He’s been invisible both playoffs he’s been in. He’s still a young talent, he has skills and value. It would also involve trading Bruno to a team that has a NBA development team and a proper program to develop him. Sadly, Amir Johnson appears to be on the down slope of his career. If they can’t negotiate a suitable contract for him to come off the bench he should be let go. Finally, Fields’ horrible contract should not be renewed. Moving Fields, Ross, Caboclo, maybe Amir, and likely this year’s draft pick would allow the team to bring in a veteran starting small forward (through trade or free agency) that would allow the head coach to use a less taxing defensive structure. It would also give them the space to add 2-4 true veteran players with playoff experience and pedigree. That’s the quickest path for the Toronto Raptors to succeed. The longer path involves keeping coach Casey, and Ross. Developing Caboclo, even though the Raptors lack a minor league affiliate, and hoping that draft picks develop into players before the back court of Lowry and Derozan begin to age, or move on. In short, President Masai Ujiri’s future in Toronto likely will be decided by the moves he makes as soon as the Raptors off-season begins. Hopefully, they turn things around and he gets a brief reprieve from these tough decisions.
Maybe Dwane Casey is right about James Johnson | Raptors HQ
To be fair to Johnson, he wasn’t the only player who contributed to the Raptors cataclysm in the final two and a half quarters on Tuesday. As has been mentioned, Lowry got into foul trouble, Greivis Vasquez did absolutely nothing worth shimmying about and Williams added to his poor playoff shooting totals (5-13 FG; 0-4 3FG). Still, Johnson’s stat line of 4 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists for a -14 in seven minutes was gruesome. His play highlighted many of the reasons why he probably isn’t the magic elixir for the Raptors against Washington. Based on the skills that he brings to the table, and how those skills mesh with the rest of the team, there’s a case to be made that Johnson hurts rather than helps the Raptors in this particular match-up.
Game 1 was disappointing for both John Wall and Bradley Beal, who struggled all night offensively. They shot a combined 27% from the field despite taking nearly half of Washington’s shots, only to be bailed out by the clutch play of Paul Pierce and the rest of the Wizards. Game 2 however, was a completely different story. Wall had one of the best games of his career with 26 points and a whopping 17 assists (a franchise playoff record), while Bradley Beal aggressively drove to the rim all night and chipped in 28 points of his own. Toronto will be playing desperate tonight, so Washington will need its two brightest stars to have a repeat performance to hold them off. A little more trolling from Paul Pierce would go a long way too.
NBA Playoffs: Raptors vs Wizards, Game 3 Preview | K8O Nation SportsZone
This might sound like a broken record, but if the Raptors want any chance to win this series, Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan have to coexist and play great basketball. DeRozan was able to have a much stronger game than he did in game 1, but Lowry did not improve whatsoever. Lowry actually suffered a right shin contusion toward the end of the game which has made guard play even harder for the Raptors. If Lowry isn’t healthy enough to compete with the likes of John Wall, the Raptors will not win this series. The other guards have to step up as well. The Raptors are guard heavy, and teams know that. Not only does Lowry, Williams, and DeRozan lead the team in scoring, they also lead the team in usage rates. The Wizards have built their game plan on shutting down the guards and it has worked to perfection so far. The Wizards are playing aggressive defence on the Raptor guards, not allowing them any breathing room to operate any kind of offence. You really get a sense of the Wizards defence on the guards from the photos below.
I can haz yo linkz??! rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com
