Quick Reaction: Nets 100, Raptors 112

Chaos player brought chaos. There’s a weird trend of late where the Raptors have struggled with Johnson on the floor, and I wonder if that might be because he’s better suited to helping Joseph with ball-handling in the second unit. Didn’t think he was bad, Joe Johnson just kind of “got his” early on.

Didn’t really provide much, which is fine. He’s not always going to be a great matchup play, and there really wasn’t anyone for him to guard except maybe Lopez. He’s always fun, even when not doing a whole lot.

Definitely didn’t think he was as bad as some were making it seem on Twitter. He had a few nice defensive possessions helping snuff out dribble penetration, and he was the victim of Lopez nailing some long twos. Still, not his best outing at either end, and he was decisively outplayed by Lopez. At least he worked his tail off on the glass, and he continued his recent trend of making a few decent passes.

Did our tweets get annoying at any point? Did Matt Devlin’s yelling of HASHTAG NBA VOTE at any point? Who cares? He deserves the starting spot in the East and if there were ever a night that stood as an example, a masterfully efficient night when the team needed it in a major way is it. Kyle Lowry Over Everything.

There have been games of late where Lowry or DeRozan or both struggled and others picked them up. This was not one of those nights. DeRozan got a bit pull-up happy late but was mostly terrific on offense, roasting Nets wings who weren’t up for the challenge (all of them).

Wasn’t at his best defensively or on the glass but brought it at the other end, really giving the Raptors a necessary boost, particularly as they began to pull away in the 4th. He’s seeing a ton of fourth-quarter run of late, which tells you how much faith Casey has in him.

Some solid production off the bench when it was needed. It might have been the loudest 12 points ever, with three transition dunks and a huge momentum three in the fourth.

Looked terrific in his 46 seconds. Not, like, his play, he was just looking good.

On a night Valanciunas didn’t quite have it, provided some nice minutes in support. For those wondering, he still guarded Lopez the same way Valanciunas did, surrendering long twos, but Biyombo’s a little quicker to close and that (or random variation) helped. Nets doubled hard off of him on pick-and-rolls, as usual.

Not his best outing, which is a departure from how he’s played of late. A few of his shots came on late save-the-clock drives, and he did well to distribute otherwise. Steady is the word with Joseph.

Was forced into a rushed corner three as the shot-clock expired. Hardly fair to judge him on that, but it was an unsightly miss.

Thought his rotations were mostly solid and it’s tough to blame him for Lowry’s minutes (40) when the rest of the team struggled for so long. As explained below, I don’t really criticize in this case for not tweaking the defensive system for a single game against the Nets, but I might be giving Playoff Casey too much benefit of the doubt. A few nice, quick-hitting plays for easy offense early on and then early again in the third.