Quick Reaction: Wizards 91 – 94 Raptors

Quiet night offensively (not his usual dominant first-quarter self) but did a solid job on the boards.

That pump fake and lean into Dudley to draw the foul in the first quarter bugs me – mostly because I hate that the NBA rules deem that a foul.

He’s really struggling with this shot right now, but he’s allowed some slack. He was far and away the best perimeter defender the Raptors had tonight, and it’s only a matter of time until he starts knocking down the 3 consistently.

He was immense in that last second scramble to close out the game with a crucial block on John Wall.

Shades of last season – Valanciunas gets the ball down-low early, scores efficiently, and then barely gets touches throughout the game. The offense needs to involve him a little more.

Didn’t look comfortable guarding Dudley (who gave the Raptors more trouble than he should have) far away from the basket.

His best play was when he threw the ball at Gortat’s face.

Not his best offensive output (maybe Mr. Lowe in attendance gave him the jitters), but played solid defense and moved the ball fairly well.

It seems harsh to blame him for that Dudley three in the last minute, but he did collapse when Biyombo had already gone to help.

I’m really not understanding why ‘DeMar DeRozan #NBAVote’ isn’t more of a thing. He’s been ballin’ out of his mind in December and his shot selection is ubber impressive. His huge offensive burst tonight was mildly quiet, as he scored 15 of his 34 points from the line – another sign of his will to attack the rim.

Bad, very bad.

Turnovers, weak fouls, bad shooting.

At this point I’m willing to put him starting as the four to see if playing alongside Valanciunas in the first unit helps him regain his form consistently.

At the beginning of the month I wrote an article basically shredding Terrence Ross up and calling his contract completely untradeable.

I am genuinely happy that he’s shut me up. At some point in the past few weeks Terrence Ross woke up, and started playing basketball. He’s attacking the rim, crossing people over, and hitting threes. Well done m’boy. Last week I was HALF in on you, now I’m about 75% in on you.

Like, I had decided this was going to be an A+ in the first quarter – without caring what happens the rest of the way. His energy really set the tone, his rebounding was otherworldly at times, and his free-throw shooting was efficient enough that made his inside-touches fruitful. At one point he even displayed some footwork under the rim en route to a layup.

I mean, it’s all about will. Three Wizards would stand underneath the rim and look at a missed shot while Biyombo decided he was just going to go up and get it. Super impressive.

Still in his mini funk. The good news is that with a full-roster, it means CoJo will be less paired with all bench units on the court. Prime example: DeRozan played a lot of minutes with the 2nd unit tonight. Things let getting paired with better players should be conducive to get CoJo back to his best.

I liked his rotations tonight. As I mentioned earlier, he now has the luxury of playing more balanced line-ups. The all bench line-ups are offensive zeros, so it’s great that he’s been able to mix up the line-ups and play DeMar extended minutes with the 2nd unit.