Gasol’s skill-set would be a welcome addition to Raptors roster – Sportsnet.ca
In Marc Gasol the Grizzlies have one of the best passing big men in the game, and, who knows, he may even be available at some point this season.
Imagine how much better the Raptors passing game might be if they had, say, a player like Gasol— or Gasol himself— playing centre?
It will be a fun— or painful— sidebar to Friday night and hard to ignore whenever Ibaka holds the ball and the other nine players on the floor come to a standstill, or every time Valanciunas bulls his way through traffic as his teammates can simply watch. The contrast at the other end with Gasol is threading backdoor bounce passes to cutters left and right will be hard to ignore.
Clearly Toronto is managing, regardless. They depart for a trip through the lower reaches of the Western Conference on a four-game winning streak and in possession of the fourth-best offensive rating in the league, behind Golden State, Houston, and Cleveland.
Meanwhile the Grizzlies are struggling mightily, having lost 12 of their last 13 games, a slide that precipitated the firing of second-year head coach David Fizdale and sparkied rumours that the veteran-laden club, coming off their seventh straight playoff appearance, could be thinking rebuild.
Marc Gasol will be a ‘bigs’ test for Raptors | Toronto Sun
With the league trying to preserve its players, there aren’t as many back-to-backs as there has been in the past, the days of playing four games in six nights proving too taxing and forcing teams to rest their marquee players for nationally televised tips, which is not good for business.
For the Raptors, the business at hand begins with Marc Gasol, an elite centre and clearly the centre of attention in Memphis.
Gasol hasn’t been shooting the ball well. He got slapped with a $15,000 fine when he dropped the f-bomb during a TV interview following a win over Minnesota, the first for Memphis following 11 straight losses.
On Wednesday night in New York, his right knee locked up and he left the game against the Knicks with roughly five minutes remaining in the opening half, awkwardly landing following an attempted block.
Gasol has a high basketball IQ, can play inside and out, the offence runs through him and he’s very good in his decision making when he’s away from the basket and asked to make the proper pass.
Casey confided that part of Thursday’s practice involved more ball- handling from the team’s bigs, namely starter Jonas Valanciunas and backup Jakob Poeltl, who would later be interviewed by a visiting news outlet from his native Austria.
Even the combined skills of Valanciunas and Poeltl can’t match up with Gasol, who is a finished product, but today’s bigs, given how the game has evolved, need to be able to facilitate an offence from the top of the circle, step out and make threes and in general make good decisions with the basketball.
Raptors meet the Grizzlies in Memphis: Preview, Start Time, and more – Raptors HQ
Trap Game
Few games in the upcoming schedule have more potential to be a trap game for Toronto than Friday evening in Memphis. Typically, the Grizzlies have been the grittiest team in the league over the last seven seasons, and this year is no different. It’s just a way of their nature to be hardworking and competitive as hell. When you lose as many games as Memphis has over the last month, guys start to get desperate and especially motivated.Before defeating Minnesota last week, Memphis almost stole a game from the streaking Cavaliers, before getting out to a big lead in the first quarter against the Knicks on Wednesday. The point is, despite their bad rankings in various offensive categories this season, the team will always have a bite and can really do damage if their opponent isn’t diligent with their lead.
Rewind to Tuesday night at the ACC: Toronto played at about 50 percent of their ability and never managed to put the boot on the Suns’ throat until there were about three minutes left in the game. If it weren’t for Phoenix’s complete ineptitude on both ends of the floor, they might have worked their way back into the game. Toronto cannot afford to lose focus at any point in Friday night’s matchup.
GBB Five Questions with Raptors Republic – Grizzly Bear Blues
Who on this struggling Memphis roster worries you most heading in to tonight’s game whose name isn’t Gasol or Evans?
I’m not sure if other fanbases know this, but my son William Lou created what’s called The Gerald Henderson Award, which he gives out on his podcast after every game. Basically, the Raptors are so well known for “Random Player X on Struggling Team Y” going off on them, there’s a nightly nod to one. The easy answer with Memphis is Dillon Brooks, because there’s nothing that would grate fans more than an unheralded Canadian gem falling through the cracks to another team and then killing the Raptors. I’m a really big fan of Brooks’ potential as a role player, so while I’ll note the bias here, he’s my pick.
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Raptors developing good habits for young core with new style of play – Sportsnet.ca
On the whole, the Raptors are averaging 23.6 assists per game, which ranks fifth in the NBA. Last season they were infamously dead last in that category. What’s more, the team has been successful in moving the ball while the players are far more active on any given offensive possession. In short, there are far fewer plays in which a player (like DeRozan) dribbles out the shot clock trying to create a shot for himself. The Raps are seventh in the league in field-goal attempts in which the shooter had the ball in his hand for two seconds or less.
These are all positive signs for what the team hopes to accomplish. But just because it’s working so far, Ujiri remains wary of his team getting too comfortable, a problem he identified when first clarifying what, exactly, a “culture reset” entailed.
“One of the things when I said ‘culture reset’ was complacency. We can’t be complacent. We’re not good enough. We’ve not done anything to be complacent. We haven’t achieved anything. The goal is a championship and to build towards that. Not to make the playoffs, or be at the top of the East. Last year there was a level of complacency — from all of us … We have overcome that, and need to go out and challenge and compete.”
There’s still a lot of ball to be played, he warned, adding that the 2017-18 Raps still are “not anywhere close … [but] in terms of progress hopefully, slowly, we continue to build as a team and individually as players.”
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Summer workouts helped Raptors’ second unit build quick chemistry – TSN
A quarter of the way into the season, the Raptors’ second unit has been a revelation, the unexpected strength of a team that improved to 15-7 on Tuesday. They haven’t just been good, they’ve been historically good. Toronto’s bench is outscoring opponents by a league-best 11.3 points per 100 possessions. Over a full season, only one team (the 2011-12 Chicago Bulls) has produced a better bench net rating in the last 20 years.
With Dwane Casey employing an expanded rotation for much of November, eight different players have made regular contributions off the bench and, outside of Miles, they’ve each been in the league for less than five years. What they lack in experience they make up for in familiarity with each other and the team’s new system, which they all credit to the time they spent together over the summer.
“I think it translates a lot,” Norman Powell told TSN earlier this week. “When you spend time with guys you see their sacrifice and struggle with the game, you’re able to connect, become closer. You start to care for one another and want to see each other do well and succeed.”
“It just helped that we were all together,” said Pascal Siakam. “We had those little camps in L.A. and stuff where we were all together, just hanging out. We just enjoy each other’s company. So it’s easier on the court just to play, because we know each other.”
In mid-June, about six weeks removed from last year’s second-round playoff elimination, most of the Raptors’ young players reconvened in Toronto to begin a three-month-long off-season training program, the bulk of it held in Los Angeles and Los Vegas.
They spent the first half of July in Vegas, where the NBA hosts its annual Summer League. Soon-to-be sophomores Siakam, Jakob Poeltl and Fred VanVleet participated, along with Alfonzo McKinnie, who was working to make the club. Powell, Delon Wright, Lucas Nogueira and Bruno Caboclo had graduated from Summer League but were all around the team, as was recently drafted rookie OG Anunoby, who was still recovering from a knee injury.
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Five surprising stats from the Toronto Raptors season so far – Sportsnet.ca
This piece could’ve been entirely built on surprising Anunoby stats. How about: 22 games played (a.k.a. 100 per cent NBA attendance).
Or: 10 starts.
Or: 41.7 3P%.
Anunoby wasn’t supposed to be recovered from ACL surgery in time to start the season (a major reason why he fell to the Raptors in June’s draft), and he wasn’t supposed to be much of a three-point shooter either — he shot just 31.1 per cent from the shorter college line in his shortened sophomore season.
“The biggest key to Anunoby’s ability to find an offensive role at the NBA level will be his jump shot, which is somewhat of a question mark at this stage,” Jonathan Givony of Draft Express wrote before the draft.
But while his quick recovery and better-than-expected long-range game have both been noteworthy, his mature shot selection and new-age-NBA offensive mindset stand out even more.
Anunoby has taken 109 shots in his rookie year, and 105 of them have come in the immediate basket area or from three. That’s in stark contrast to the Raptors of recent years, who were so often blasted for taking low-percentage long twos.
His shot chart is a prototypical-three-and-D-man thing of beauty
Podcast – The state of the Grizz w/ Keith Parish – Locked On Raptors
In Episode 242 of Locked on Raptors, Sean Woodley chats with Keith Parish (Fastbreak Breakfast) to discuss the state of the Grizzlies ahead of tonight’s match-up in Memphis. They touch on how things have changed since Dave Fizdale’s firing, the future of Marc Gasol, Chandler Parsons sorta kinda getting back on track this year and the Grizzlies’ inability to identify and develop young talent.
Did I miss anything? Send me any Raptors-related article/video to rapsfan@raptorsrepublic.com
