Two games into this Eastern Conference quarter-final against the Orlando Magic, T.J. Ford knew he was struggling. But what amazed him was how quickly and how far his stock dropped.
Now after Game 3, his stock has done a U-turn, through the Air Canada Centre roof, and the point guard suddenly is the toast of the town.
"It’s easy to ride the horse when it’s going well," Ford said yesterday after scoring 21 points in the 108-94 victory the night before. "That’s the easy thing … to stand by them when they’re going well, to give them all the credit in the world. But the hard thing to do is when a guy is not going well, how many people continue to believe in that dude and that he will play well? A lot of people counted me out."
Asked yesterday what got him out of his shooting funk, Ford appeared to hear: "Who got you out of your shooting funk?" and didn’t like the question.
"Why can’t it just be me sometimes?" Ford said, his voice rising. "Why does it have to be someone else? I am who I am. I ain’t changing for nobody. It’s just me, all right? Two games I didn’t play well, somebody said I wouldn’t start. Right? I just went out there and made shots. I made the adjustment. That’s really all it is."
"(The Magic) didn’t guard me the same way they guarded me in the regular season," he said. "Those adjustments you can’t always just figure out right away. So, I hate that it took two games for me to figure it out, but sometimes that is how it is."
Ford says he will explain what actual adjustments he made but not until the series is over.
"I studied too hard to get it, just to give it up," he said.
"We have to space the floor better,” Lewis said. "We have to move the ball better."
Defensively, Lewis felt the Magic lost its composure.
"We were scrambling too much and not rotating properly."
"I ran into Dwight (Howard) after the game and I was messing with him," Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said. "I know him. He’s from my area and he played AAU ball with my cousin. I told him jokingly he better stop hitting my guys. He said: ‘Coach, Dwight is a nice guy. Dwight don’t hit anybody. But Superman will knock the shit out of you.’ I thought that was a great comeback. He’s a good kid. I had to laugh."
"The first five minutes have been very important for both teams and the team that dictates the tempo is likely going to win,” Howard said yesterday after he and the rest of the Orlando Magic huddled for a lengthy video session following Thursday’s 108-94 loss.
"On the offensive and defensive side, we did not play the way we’re capable,” Howard added. "We did the things they wanted us to do.
"We can’t let them dictate how we play. Effort-wise, focus-wise, we have to be better."
"We know what to expect,” Howard said. "Every time (Toronto) hit a shot, a player would point to the crowd and the crowd got going.
"We were able to bring our own energy on the road during the regular season. There’s no reason why we can’t now."
Kapono says his scoring ability returned with a substantial nightly workload.
"It’s really hard as a player to play well in a short amount of time," Kapono said. "If you miss one shot or two shots, you might get benched. It’s a confidence game and if you play and play a lot you feel better knowing you can afford to miss a couple of shots."
Chris Bosh, a guy as happy as anyone to see Kapono draining threes like he did earlier in the season, said he had been on Kapono to shoot.
"There were a couple of times where I don’t know if he wasn’t sure in his shot, but, you know, we knew he could flat-out shoot the ball and most of the time when he lets it go it’s going in. So we encouraged him to shoot the ball and he knows it. He knows he has to let it go."
By hounding Orlando point guards almost every foot of the court on almost every possession, Ford and Calderon were instrumental in setting a defensive tone that was as much a key to Toronto’s Game 3 win in the best-of-seven series than anything anyone did offensively.
"I would just say everybody’s looking at the scoring, but the key for us was how they played defence, how they picked up (Orlando’s guards) and we did a good job of keeping their guards out of the lane," Toronto coach Sam Mitchell said yesterday.
"It’s just trying to make a team start its offence out further. Like they did to us in Game 1, they had us out by the `playoff’ sign (on the court, to start the offence) and you can’t make a pass, you can’t make penetrating passes out there. You’ve got to get to your scoring area before you’re even comfortable shooting the basketball."
The analysts who thought the series might hinge on which team was able to stop the other’s three-point shooters are seeing their case made. And it all starts in the backcourt.
"When we keep our guys in front of us and we’re keeping them outside the three-point line, it’s easier to adjust," Chris Bosh said. "But when they’re getting into the paint and kicking it out, most of the time there’s not going to be anybody there.
"Most of the time you really don’t think about that, but when they have a straight line to the basket, when they’re driving and kicking and stepping into wide-open threes, that really makes a difference."
"As a shooter, you get your confidence, you make one or two and you get your confidence and then it doesn’t really matter who’s running at you," said Toronto’s Anthony Parker. "But early on, (it’s) understanding where guys are, being aggressive on the traps, getting into the rotations and running guys off that three-point line.
"If you don’t let guys get that comfort level, when you do break down in some kind of defensive situation and they have a pretty good look, they’re not as confident shooting their shots."
Clearly Bryan Colangelo, the general manager who inked Kapono to a four-year, $24 million free-agent deal this past summer, figured the gunner was, to use his word, "underutilized" until now. And when you consider Kapono has hit as many three-pointers in this series (11) as he hit in the pre-playoff run-up of, oh, January, February, March and April, it certainly makes one wonder if the coach stretched the limits of the clipboard.
Kapono, who led the league in three-point accuracy for the second straight season by making 48.3 per cent, has repeatedly blamed meagre regular-season playing time for his woes. (He was, at 18.9 minutes per game, Toronto’s ninth man). Sam Mitchell, who will agree with anything a 61.1 per cent post-season three-point shooter says, nodded his head yesterday.
"Okay," he said. "It’s my fault."
If you’ve watched Kapono in these playoffs, you know his success isn’t simply a matter of increased opportunity. He is playing 29.3 minutes a game, but perhaps he’s playing more, and it’s chicken and egg, because he has been more apt to pull the trigger, more inventive in finding his openings. If you’re wondering why it took him so long to figure out that a pump fake here and a step-back there go a long way, don’t beat yourself up.
"You’ve got to have that, a switch you hit at 7 o’clock or whatever time the game is,” Mitchell added. "That’s the thing I tell our players: We want you to be a nice guy off the court, but when you walk on that court, that switch has got to come on and you’ve got to become whatever you need to become to get the job done."
A three-man weave.
We saw it a few times on Thursday night, one of the few new tweaks to the Raptor offence is a three-man weave with the ball around the perimeter. Think of it as something akin to signature play of the Wizards.
The intent is to get the defence moving and scrambling and the ball going side-to-side.It’s not a totally revamped offence but it is something different they might use three or four times.
Just something to watch for.
Remember when these were going to be the greatest playoffs in the history of NBA playoffs? Well, we better hope things pick up in the second week ‘cause right now, they’re not exactly setting the world on fire.
Sure, there’ve been a couple of good games (the first Spurs-Suns was a classic for all time) but isn’t the over-riding sense right now that things have fizzled rather been on fire?
The numbers don’t lie: Orlando was 9-for-11 from beyond the arc in the first quarter of Game 1, setting an NBA playoff record in the process, but are just 21-for-76 since (27.6 per cent).
And while the Magic still lead the best-of-seven series 2-1, the Raptors have won seven of the past 11 quarters.
It’s a significant development for a couple of reasons.
The first is that Orlando was the best three-point-shooting team in the NBA all year long, converting 803 attempts and shooting 38.6 per cent. The Raptors gave up 619 threes, third most in the NBA, and allowed teams to shoot a comfortable 37.8 per cent.
"We’re just trying to be more aggressive and be more trapping. And I think as a result we’re a lot more aggressive to get to the three-point line and make them shoot tougher shots," Parker said.
"The Golden Rule is you live by the three, you die by three," Raptors point guard T.J. Ford said. "We’ve experienced that this year … you just try to make it tough for people. [Going small] helped last night. It helped us get off to a fast start."
"Some of you guys need to actually come on the road and experience that, instead of watching it from the TV monitor at home," Mitchell said yesterday of the atmosphere of an NBA road playoff game.
"And then you’ll get a feel for the difference. As good as our crowd was [in Game 3], their crowd was equally as tough. Then maybe when you write those stories about how tough it is to play at an opposing arena in the playoffs, then you will have more of a feel for what happened, and just how hard it is to win."
"It’s a reason why it’s tough," Mitchell said. "That’s why as a coach, when you do have a chance to win on the road, and even though you come up a little short, you feel good about it because you realize just how difficult it is to put yourself in a position to win."
The crowd serenaded the Magic big man with chants of "Superman Sucks" throughout the game, and a derisive "How-ard" chant when he was on the free-throw line. Howard still had 19 points and 12 rebounds, but his six turnovers and 3-for-8 free-throw shooting was a sign of the power of the audience.
"He won’t say it, but I think it’s definitely a distraction, because I mean, he can hear it," Bosh said. "You have different emotions when you hear things like that. You don’t know whether to laugh, to shake it off, to see if that’s bothering you or what. But it does affect free-throw shooting and overall play sometimes."
"Even coaching in that environment [is tough.] As loud as it was, I still feel like my players heard me because they’re listening at me through cheers," Mitchell said. "On the road, you lose your voice because they can’t always hear you through the boos.
"The good thing about it is if you are able to go in there and win on the road, it is a much more gratifying feeling."
"[But] that’s been the great thing about my career — I’ve seen that," adds Kapono, who played sparingly during stops in Cleveland, Charlotte, and Miami before seeing more consistent time last season. "I’ve played once every 10th game. I’ve sat 15 games and then had to start. I’ve never been accustomed to starting and touching the ball and shooting 15 times a game. I feel like my experience has definitely helped me out in that situation, where you can sit on the bench for 43 minutes and then come in and make shots."
Of course, while Kapono blames the playing time for how he was playing, how he was playing dictated the playing time.
"I’m still a scrub, always will be," Kapono says. "I never forget where I came from. I used to be in a suit, barely hanging on. [Shooting's] my skill, that’s what I have to do. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have a job; I’d be back in California surfing."
Bosh, meanwhile, has seen his fair share of defenders in the series.
On Friday, he admitted that the speed with which the Magic have trapped him has often caught him by surprise. And he knows Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy has something to do with it."Him and [New Jersey coach] Lawrence Frank," Bosh said of coaches that draw up good plans to guard him. "They’re great defensive coaches. They have some good schemes on me."
The Magic must defend pick-and-rolls better and take better care of the ball, or they will come home for Game 5 with the series tied 2-2. They need Hedo Turkoglu to get going immediately. The key might be not only containing Chris Bosh, but slowing a deep Raptors bench that was unstoppable in Game 3. Orlando has to keep feeding Howard, but Howard also has to avoid making costly turnovers.
But what has been happening since Raptors Coach Sam Mitchell stopped overthinking and overcoaching, is that the Raptors are beating the Magic at their own game.
The teams are a lot of like — shooters surrounding a star big man (in Toronto’s case it’s Chris Bosh) — but the Raptors’ gunners are hot. And they are better off the bench, with Jason Kapono, Calderon and Carlos Delfino. Those three accounted for 40 of the Raps’ 108 points.
It all starts with defense for the Magic. If they can’t slow Ford and Calderon and cover Kapono in particular, they are going to need their home-court advantage perhaps all the way to Game 7.
This playoff lesson started seemingly easy, but now the real tests are coming.
The Raptors were at least competitive in the two games in Orlando; the Magic weren’t competitive at all Thursday night in Toronto. If the Magic don’t win today, or at least come up with a respectable performance, the Raptors suddenly seize the series momentum.
They still trail in the series 2-1, but the Magic have been chasing the Raptors since the second quarter of Game 2 in Orlando, when Mitchell decided to stick to using smaller players instead of taller players.
He continued to blame himself Friday for not making the right adjustments. Van Gundy can’t make 3-point shots or grab rebounds or prevent passes from landing in somebody’s popcorn, of course. His thing is to arm his players with all the Xs and Os, preparing them to handle everything short of a safety blitz.
"Their smaller lineup certainly creates different problems on both ends," he said. "They’re certainly harder to guard."
Van Gundy hopes Nelson, Keyon Dooling and others can read and talk their way through the screens, and Dwight Howard helps sooner as Calderon conducts the maddening symphony to find shooters.
"That’s as good a pick-and-roll game in this league outside of Steve Nash," Van Gundy said.
The Magic gave up offensive rebounds [for 20 second-chance points], made turnovers and committed other defensive lapses that left shooters such as Jason Kapono wide-eyed and wide-open.
I love hoops as much as anyone and still can’t bring myself to watch the Magic-Raptors series. It’s like the NIT of the NBA playoffs. Does the winner even matter? They should call it "The NBA-TV Invitational" and give the winner a trophy that’s sculpted into the shape of Rick Kamla’s face.
After having nearly 48 hours to get rid of some built up frustration it will be interesting to see how Howard and Orlando’s coaching staff react to the strategy the Raptors used in Game 3. If Howard is able to shoot a better percentage from the free throw line or if Orlando’s perimeter shooters are able to draw Toronto defenders back out to the perimeter, it wouldn’t shock me to see Orlando regain control of this series and head back to Orlando up 3-1.
However, if Toronto is able to keep Howard out of the paint or if the fans continue to get into his head and he continues to miss free throws, it seems the Raptors will have magically found the kryptonite to the NBA’s version of Superman.
Now ya see why having most of this series put on NBA TV was a bad idea? This might just be the best first round series in the East that doesn’t have a James in it. The Raptors are a quiet good team, that’s more or less an afterthought as a result of their location and nothing more. Sam Mitchell’s a pretty good coach and that international team that’s posing as an NBA unit, can play. SVG’s no playoff novist, but he had best figure out what’s up in a hurry. Last thing he wants is to have a team that played his boys very close at home going back to Orlando with a chance to come back North ready to advance to the second round.
The problem for us is that the Magic are trending downward and the Raptors are trending upward. But I’m not worried. We were due for a crappy game, and I fully expect us to leave the Air Canada Centre with a win tomorrow night. We aren’t going to brick our three-pointers forever, no matter how noisy the crowd.
The Raptor fans were reminiscent of those movies of small-town basketball when the entire populace converges on the local diner to welcome back the high school team that just lost in State. They were raucous, among the loudest home fans these playoffs, and they helped will their Raps to a critical Game 3 win that once again gave hope that Toronto could win this series if it can hold court.
But, you might say, they still have to WIN A GALL DANG GAME ON THE ROAD!!!!
The frontcourt did its job, but they couldn’t match the Raptors’ balanced scoring, paced by Jose Calderon (?) and TJ Ford (!), not to mention the legitimately insane Toronto fans. See what happens when the Canadian dollar is winning? They all celebrate. They celebrate a lot.
Toronto on the whole though is a team just good enough to lose, and that’s what gonna happen every game in Orlando. It’s too bad, because their crisp-passing, in and out style is far more pleasing to the eye than watching Hedo Turkoglu launch a three only to have Dwight Howard catch it in mid-air and dunk it through the floor. They’re heading back to the drawing board, and Orlando may improbably be heading to the Conference Finals, where we thought they would be in December and then concluded they had no chance of reaching by June.
The guys behind us didn’t even stop yelling during the game, not even for one second. Well, they sat down and took a break during half time (they needed to get more beer) .. but otherwise, they were on their feet, yelling, screaming, calling names, singing, and spilling beer on my seat.
On one play in game two, all five Toronto defenders collapsed into the paint when Howard caught the ball; I’m guessing that not too many players in NBA history have faced a quintuple-team. The Raptors won game three in Toronto after holding Howard to 19 points, 12 rebounds, numbers that would still be good for almost any other big man in the league.
But the Raptors have to see blood in the water. They damn near stole Game 2, when Chris Bosh’s potential buzzer-beating winner harmlessly clanged off the rim. And now, with their red t-shirt clad hometown fans going bonkers and surely planning to amp up the noise factor even further Sunday afternoon, the Raptors know for sure now that they can play with the Magic, that they can even this series up, and that they can, in fact, rely on each other to step up, a confidence that has been lacking in recent weeks.
Yep—these Toronto Raptors aren’t dead just yet.
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Ford still is Mike James with more speed and less court vision… and that didn’t change due to game three.
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