Matched up yesterday against the Raptors’ own big addition to the paint, former Indiana Pacer Jermaine O’Neal, Brand was a physical presence, tying for the team high in rebounds with nine, while contributing 10 points.
Brand, like O’Neal, is a guy who changes a team’s complexion by himself and O’Neal, who saw enough of Philly pre-Brand, says his impact cannot be overstated.
“He gives them a post threat,” O’Neal said. “Obviously, they didn’t have that last year, but they’re a big driving team. This year, it is more of a throw it in and cut type of offence. It helps them because he can rebound and score in the low post. They are a lot better than they were last year.”
And while O’Neal readily admits he is not quite up to speed yet with his own game or with the Raptors system, he too makes his team bigger.
The question is: Which addition is going to have the bigger impact?
O’Neal’s game never really got going until the second half and, then, only in spurts. He finished with nine points and six rebounds.
His best moment came in the third quarter when he got the ball in the high post and made a definitive move to the basket past the Sixers’ Sam Dalembert and finished it off with a dunk.
“Cardio-wise I felt pretty good,” O’Neal said. “I’m never a guy who lacks confidence. I just haven’t found my rhythm. I’m still struggling shooting the ball and making moves. As soon as I get it in my mind just to go get in the low post and not pass every other time, I will probably get into my rhythm a lot faster. I’m not concerned about it because I know I will get it back. before the regular season.”
The Raptors have been waiting for a Moon sighting, a sign from the team’s projected small forward that inroads were being made.
It arrived yesterday afternoon during Toronto’s exercise in tedium against the visiting Philadelphia 76ers, the Raptors’ opening-night opponent when NBA games begin to matter.
Even Sam Mitchell noticed Jamario Moon on the floor, a fact not lost on the head coach when he addressed the media in the aftermath of an 85-79 loss.
“That’s just how he has to play for us,” Mitchell said of Moon. “He has to be that X-factor. He has to be the guy to do all the little things and (yesterday) he did it.”
“The pressure is always on me,” Moon said. “I’m always going to play like I’m trying to make the team.”
Barring something completely unforeseen, the Raptors will go with the starting rotation of O’Neal, Bosh, Moon, Anthony Parker and Jose Calderon.
Calderon isn’t exactly the best on-the ball defender, but he’s playing at such a high level that any defensive deficiency can be tolerated.
Parker will do what he always has done during his previous two years in Toronto, capable of dropping 20 points on any given night and playing hard.
The Bosh/O’Neal tandem continues to evolve and against the Sixers, O’Neal wasn’t as reluctant to shoot.
O’Neal’s fitness level needs upgrading, but he looked quicker and more decisive when he caught the ball in the post.
Once he establishes his turnaround jumper, O’Neal should take plenty of pressure off of Bosh.
And then there’s Moon, Mitchell’s X-factor who will be a factor, provided he plays with energy and defends.
Proving once again that an eight-game pre-season is more about teaching and learning that it is about winning and losing, the Raptors found out a few things about themselves that will be pointed out in the workouts still to come.
O’Neal and Bosh looked okay but far from great, the defence was all right but hardly playoff-calibre and the second unit that finished the game struggled at times, all of which will give coach Sam Mitchell something to bark about at practice today after singling out some backups in need of a tutorial.
“Some of them struggled but that’s a good thing,” said the coach. “It was a learning experience for some of them; I left them out there for that reason, to learn.”
Mitchell never names names, but he did have Will Solomon on the court in the dying minutes along with Hassan Adams, Jamario Moon, Andrea Bargnani and Kris Humphries. Solomon may have had 12 points and six assists in 24 minutes but he was hardly as crisp running the offence – three turnovers is a testament to that – as he has been.
“It’s a good opportunity (today) for me to teach and let us learn from it,” said the coach.
O’Neal can use some learning as well. While he did get extended to 25 minutes and had nine points and six rebounds, he’s still got some work to do at both ends of the court.
“Cardio-wise, I felt pretty good,” he said. “I’m never a guy who lacks confidence, just I still haven’t found my rhythm. I’m struggling shooting the ball and making moves.
“I think as soon as I get it in my mind to go score when I get in the low post and not look to pass every other time, I’ll probably get my rhythm a lot faster. I’m not concerned about it, I know I will get it back before the regular season. I just have to keep chipping away.”
Struck some of us in the fourth quarter that they really oughtta limit the minutes they have Bargnani and Humprhies on the court together. I know Sam’s said he would mix and match his bigs all the time and wasn’t worried about which two were on the court, Bargnani and Hump are the weakest pair in both rebounding and scoring. Not to mention defence.
I’m pretty sure when things get going for real, you won’t see them together for any extended minutes except in the case of dire foul trouble.
Not sure how many times we saw Sixer guards split the trap on the high or side screen and roll but everyone on the coaching staff noticed and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be topic No. 1 at practice today.
The starters – Bosh in particular – have been doing a fine job in a defensive scheme that seems much more aggressive than last season (probably the result of having O’Neal to anchor under the basket) but the rest of ‘em looked terrible at times Sunday afternoon.
That’s got to get fixed.
Asked a member of the staff if the young point guard was available Sunday (Ukic had been bothered by some bruised ribs, I’d been told) and, yes, it was just a DNP-CD.
Think that might have had as much to do with Sam letting Solomon work through some tough times in the fourth quarter than anything. Sam didn’t mention any specific names in his little post-game chat but did say he left the group on the floor in the fourth as a learning experience.
Philadelphia, fresh off a red-hot close to last season and buoyed by the off-season signing of Elton Brand, showed that the Raptors have some serious holes to fill.
Most of them Sunday came in the form of cracks and crevices in the Raptors defence as Toronto spent much of the afternoon trying in vain to prevent a parade of Philadelphia ball handlers from making their way to the paint at will.
As a finishing touch, high-flying Andre Iguodala’s exclamation-mark dunk that put the game out of reach in the final seconds makes the point: Isolated at the top of the key against the much slower Jason Kapono, Iguodala simply rocked back and forth until he got the lane he wanted and made it to the rim unimpeded to put Philadelphia up by six with 12 seconds left.
It was hardly Kapono’s fault. There are few defenders in the NBA that the 76ers guard can’t beat 1-on-1. But not one teammate came to his aid — a theme repeated all too often.
“We didn’t play good defence,” said Kapono, who had his best shooting day of the preseason, knocking down 6 of 10 shots including two three-pointers for 14 points to lead Raptors scorers. “We’re trying to find our cohesiveness, it’s not easy.”
Most of the optimism surrounding the Raptors in the buildup to the regular season has centred around the acquisition of Jermaine O’Neal to shore up Toronto’s interior defence and rebounding.
But as a roster such as Philadelphia’s shows, the Raptors remain a team with just average athleticism among its perimeter players.
But there was one fleeting moment that made the Philadelphia 76ers’ 85-79 exhibition win over the Toronto Raptors (2-1) feel like the genuine article.
It came early in the third quarter, with the pace as fast as it had been all game. Elton Brand, Philadelphia’s major off-season acquisition, grabbed a rebound over Jermaine O’Neal, Toronto’s major off-season acquisition. Brand then gathered himself and threw down a two-handed dunk over O’Neal, hanging on to the rim a little longer than necessary in celebration.
Indeed, Philadelphia exposed the Raptors on several cuts on Sunday afternoon.
Newcomers Will Solomon and Hassan Adams were among those exposed by the quickness of the 76ers guards.
“My message to those guys is as a player you have a tendency, if you’re having a bad night to let that affect the other things you do on defence,” Mitchell said. “You can’t do that. You’ve got to communicate. You’ve got to talk. You’ve still got to carry out your assignments because it can never be about you and how you’re playing.
“I don’t know who is going to make more of an impact,” Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks diplomatically told reporters. “Both are going to make an impact because Jermaine O’Neal is an excellent player. And put [him] with Chris Bosh and the other people around them – they’re already good – so it makes them a little bit better.”
The Sixers’ signing of Brand has been generally acknowledged as the No. 1 move in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, but O’Neal could be nearly as significant to the Raptors. Still, neither team is anywhere close to that projected improvement at this point.
“All in all, I think we saw a little bit of them,” O’Neal said of the Sixers. “You really can’t take a whole lot from it because obviously they played some [reserves] extended minutes. But we kind of got an idea of what they want to do, and they kind of got an idea of what we want to do. I’m sure both teams will be a lot stronger on the 29th of this month.”
That, of course, will be the regular-season opener in the Wachovia Center.
There was a ‘moment’ early in the game went Jamario Moon drove to the rim and Elton Brand brought him down with a hard, hard foul which was somewhat unworthy of the preseason and something you see in Game 6 of a playoff series. Moon got up and knocked the FTs down but Brand had sent the message: no easy baskets against Philly. None of the Raptors stood up to Brand or took issue with the hard foul (see, we’re pussies) but maybe they were right in doing so, I don’t know. I just wanted to see a reaction. Any reaction.
Chris Bosh said yesterday that he was ready ‘now’ for the season but as is evident by yesterday’s game, the Raptors are far from a well-oiled machine on either end of the court. Jermaine O’Neal is rustier than a coffin nail and Chris Bosh doesn’t know if he should drive, defer or post-up in any given possession. If you add up Bosh’s 1-5 FG and O’Neal’s 3-10 FG, throw in a little -14 in the rebounding department and its surprising that this one was even close. Our top three scorers came off the bench with Kapono, Willie and Bargnani chipping in an efficient 14, 12 and 10. The worst thing that can happen to the Raptors is Bosh and O’Neal offsetting and preventing each other from having good games.
The Raptors’ starters looked pretty good on the afternoon. While they didn’t shoot well, the trio of Bosh, O’Neal and Moon represent a formidable rebounding force for opposing clubs and in fact, those three accounted for 21 of the 37 rebounds against Philly. Add in the fact that Jose had an efficient nine points and four assists to go with two steals in 24 minutes, and Anthony Parker, while only hitting on two of his eight shots, did a good job on D with four steals, and it was pretty clear who the tone setters were on Sunday.
However the bench was another story.
Yes, they made some nice plays at times and scored in a fairly efficient manner, but defensively things looked pretty grim. On numerous occasions Toronto got stuck trapping too high on screen-and-rolls resulting in open dunks by the Philly bigs under the basket, as their defenders were still stuck out on the perimeter.
As well, the rebounding effort just wasn’t there.
Andrea in particular made me shake my head at times as he had one rebound in 26 minutes, a simply unacceptable stat even for preseason play. On two separate occasions, Bargs simply let his man overpower him to grab a rebound and we’re not talking Reggie Evans type overpowering here; it was more like “sorry about getting in your way for that board, here you go Mr. Miller!” That type of effort can’t happen come October 31st and the entire bench is going to have to step things up.
So here we go Sixers vs Raptors. This is not going to be exciting and I think both teams have been made aware of the fact when we start for real this is the team they will be against. So I think it makes sense to think we are not going to see a lot as far as set plays and coaching genius in this game. So I expect a wide open game that will not look anything like the game that we are going to October 29th.
It was an opportunity for the Raptors to make a statement against a division rival, one who’s off-season improvements have been on par with what the Raptors did (get tougher in the paint). From this bloggers perspective, the only statements made were that Young/Iguodala/Green/Miller can have their way with the Raptors wings/front court. Don’t fool yourself, this Sixers team is much better then what we saw today. In all fairness, so are the Raptors.
Mitchell continued to play the bench significant minutes again. The time might be better served to get O’Neal/Bosh more time together, to really work on the hi/low post dynamic we’ve heard so much about. Both our forwards didn’t show much tonight, call it what you want, I’m blaming it on this being a pre-season game. I would still like to see some focus on this pairing during the remainder of the pre-season, can’t afford to work this out when the games count.
With two preseason games under their belts, the Toronto Raptors are looking like a team which is definitely improved over last year.
While it too early to start planning the parade route (like some Leafs fans are doing after the Buds defeated the Stanley Cup Champ Red Wings in their season opener), there are some good signs from Raptorland.
Lets have a look at the top ten positive signs so far:
Video:
http://nba-tube.com/sixers-vs-raptors-oct-12th-2008/
http://nba-tube.com/jose-calderon-blows-by-philly-oct-12-2008/
http://nba-tube.com/calderon-to-moon-for-the-dunk-oct-12-2008/
http://nba-tube.com/jermaine-oneal-post-up-against-dalembert-oct-12-2008/
http://nba-tube.com/andrea-bargnani-1st-quarter-highlights-oct-12-2008/
While dumping T.J. Ford for Jermaine O’Neal was the right idea, it’s hard to envision the Raptors taking a big leap in the East. That’s because O’Neal has had no interest in battling in the low post, no interest in rebounding in crowds, and no interest in playing physical basketball against physical opponents.
Instead of finding a way to shore up a team-wide lack of muscle, the Raptors acquired the brittle, injury-prone Chris Bosh—Version II.
Jose Calderon should excel without having to look over his shoulder at Ford, but now Toronto has a gaping hole at the backup position. Also, while Jamario Moon and Anthony Parker are capable defenders, neither of them are able to reliably get their shots off in a crowd. In fact, Toronto’s roster is littered with defenseless shooters like Andrea Bargnani and Jason Kapono.
If O’Neal is so overjoyed to be out of Indiana that he plays with passion, power, and energy, then perhaps he can team with the ultra-athletic Bosh to provide a dangerous frontcourt duo. Still, when Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, even perhaps Orlando start shoving the Raptors around, will they have what it takes to push back?
New Raptors announcer Matt Devlin is no Chuck Swirsky, which might please basketball purists who thought the Swirsk was over the top. But watching Raptors games will be a lot less fun for the rest of us
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Just a reminder that today is the last day of Linkage here at AltRaps. We will cross paths down the road, so don’t fret. In the meantime, check out Arsenalist for his fantastic daily updates, RaptorsTalk for some of the best postgame talk around, and if you feel like talking about Raptors ball in between those things, check out the AltRaps forums to chat with guys who have followed this team since the opening tip at SkyDome.
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Related posts:
Take a look at this trade—> http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=1981~2456~3030~556~3190~308~2759~2010&teams=9~28~23~4~28~23~23~4&te=&cash=
It could be possible and every part cover their needs
Sacramento: get rid of the big contrat of Brad Miller and continues his rebuilding with 3 expiring contrats and 2 young players
Chicago: Creates the space for Rose to starts and adds a big man in the middle, possible their weekest position. Plus, cut about 4 millions of cap space
Raptors: Get their true and proven lockdown defender at the three and add a legit and young scorer at the wing (Potentialy better than Delfino)
Golden State: Add a great PG to play along Monta Ellis (who’s not a PG, is a SG) and create space for Anthony Randolph and Brandan Wright.
The great thing about this is that almost every player is in the trade market right now
Any ideas?…
Lovely….bring in even more money to handcuff us. Colangelo would probably approve it right away.
I do like the trade, just not sure anybody takes a flyer on Joey. Not even as cap fodder.
Scotts last blog post..toronto raptors linkage – oct 6
I would not make that trade if I was the Raptors’ GM.
I’d have no interest in acquiring either Nocioni or Bellinelli for this team with the other players on the roster right now.
Unfortunately, Jermaine O’Neal’s $21 mil per season contract and the Raptors stated intention to not exceed the League’s Luxury Tax Threshold are going to be a pair of albatrosses around their neck for the next two seasons.
khandors last blog post..To those in Raptorville who might be more inclined to listen now
Is someone going to take over for this site?
Everything okay, Scott?
Spudzs last blog post..The Satanic Verses | Salmon Rushdie
Scott is gone.. he said he would stop on Monday. I’m just wondering if anyone has taken over here.. is “altraps.com” going to continue? Has the “Linkage” been moved elsewhere? Do I need to change my homepage to Cuzoogle?