I hope for your sake that you’re reading this because you didn’t spend your Friday night in watching last night’s Raps game against the Grizzlies. If, on the other hand, turnovers, bad basketball and Jordan Farmar are your thing, then this game had it all for you.
Memphis isn’t in as bad of shape as the now D-League New Orleans Pelicans, but they are a team that lacked depth before they traded Courtney lee and Jeff Green and lost Mark Gasol, Mike Conley and Mario Chalmers for the season. They’re plucky, but the grit and grind identity opposing teams would find when they came to Memphis has turned into more of a foul and whine reality from Matt Barnes, Tony Allen and Zach Randolph.
Having said that, between an onslaught of sloppy turnovers and a troubling lack of intensity from the Raptors’ bench, the Grizzlies found themselves up at halftime. It was apparent that the Raptors were the much better team and never felt like the game was out of their control despite spending most of the game trailing. It was taking all of the Grizzlies efforts and a very mediocre, on and off one from the Raptors just for the Grizz to fend off repeated Raptor’s runs to cut the lead. Rumors of Lance Stephenson’s demise appear to be, if not greatly, at least generally exaggerated. Old Man Carter still has game and Mumford, Martin and Green—the Memphis bench unit that I’m positive you’ve never heard of, battled hard and hit shots.
But in a poorly played game from the Raptors, whenever someone on the team would step up their play for a few minutes of time the Raptors would take over. Lowry hit a series of 3s in the first half to keep the Raptors in the game and help ease fan’s anxiety about his shooting woes. Norman Powell exploded during a couple of minutes in the third quarter, making several plays in a row, including a dominant dunk leaping off of two feet off a cut in several Grizzlies player’s faces. Two possessions later Powell stormed towards the hoop in transition and was fouled hard by Matt Barnes, who had no interest in seeing consecutive highlights from the rookie. DeRozan was the next man up after that, carrying the weight into the fourth quarter as he started getting to the line repeatedly on his way to 27, 6 and 4. Finally, it was Terrence Ross engulfing the Grizzlies in flames in the fourth quarter that put the Raps ahead. Ross hit 4 fourth quarter 3s for all 12 of his points.
The exception to the rule of streaky Raptors play last night came from Jonas Valanciunas, who had a consistent, beastly game inside. The play down low was overly physical, and amongst the battling Valanciunas was clearly dictating terms. His shot wasn’t falling, but he owned the boards, got to the line repeatedly, put up 7 blocks and consistently fought his way into whatever space he wanted with 11 points, 14 rebounds, 7 blocks and 3 steals.
If you’re looking for good omens heading into the playoffs, you’re focusing on the win, Lowry’s improved shooting, Powell’s continued streak of impressive play and the Raptors ability to close out games as a positive. You’re ignoring the fact that Lowry played 36 minutes in the first night of a back-to-back against a sub par team, the Raptors couldn’t have had a sloppier first half and the bench unit looked largely incoherent at times. It’s 51 wins though, which seems like an absolutely crazy thing to say with games still left to be played. On to San Antonio.
