I never thought I’d utter the words “Boy, this team is missing Reggie Evans”, yet here I am. Everything I’ve written in the “Bad” section so far this season (well, most things) could have been fixed with some more Reggie, and this game I find myself writing them again. A tough loss to an undermanned yet still relatively powerful Orlando Magic team will hopefully send the Raptors brain trust back to the drawing board. The time is fast approaching when “We need time to gel” is not going to be an acceptable excuse any more. Especially when the problems we’re having don’t appear to be chemistry-related, for the most part.
The Good
Where else to start but the sterling play of Chris Bosh. 35 points, another 16 rebounds, and some fiery play to dtry and bring the fickle ACC crowd back into the action. He’s now averaging 31 and 15 over tha first 3 games and is playing like he wants to win every game by himself. As yet he’s not showing signs of being frustrated with the lack of effort from some of team-mates, which could be a good or a bad sign. Nobody expects CB4 to average those numbers over 82 games, but if he can show that sort of effort the team will be just fine…once they figure out the kinks.
Antoine Wright was a huge difference-maker in this game. When he came into the game in the second quarter, the Raptors were getting obliterated by the outside shot. Wright changed the tone of the defence and made those shots difficult, and it’s no coincidence that the Raptors’ run happened while he was in the game. Again in the third quarter, the Magic started to pull away and Wright came in. The Magic turned the ball over on the next two possessions, leading to Raptor baskets. DeRozan hasn’t been bad, but Wright is making a strong case to start.
Despite an invisible first half, where he just didn’t get into positions where he should be getting the ball, Andrea Bargnani came on strong in the second half. He finished with 26 and, had he been fed the ball consistently in the fourth, may well have brought the Raptors to the finish line. The Raptors are going to need a more consistent effort from Bargs if they want to be considered a threat this year, and by that I mean a threat throughout the game. He can’t disappear for whole halves at a time, no matter how strong he comes back.
One thing that did get rectified from the Memphis game was the overpassing. Instead of passing up the open shot to try and find a nicer open shot, the Raptors took shots where they were comfortable. For a team of good jump shooters (for the most part), this should happen more often. You can tell from Bosh’s two 3-pointers that the open shots were being taken, and as long as they are falling there’s no reason to stop.
A lot of people are down on the point guard play so far. I’m tempted to agree to a point (as you will see below, and the pun was not intended), but today I saw two things from Calderon that encouraged me. The first was that his passing to people in the paint has got better, and he found both Rasho and Bosh in some great positions in the first quarter. That pass was one of the things that Calderon seemed afraid of last year (pushing the ball upcourt being the other) as he did everything he could to avoid turnovers. The second is something he’s stopped doing that used to drive my crazy. Three or four times a game, José would penetrate into the paint, turn the corner and dribble right back out again to the top, head down the whole time. It made no sense to me and it almost always led to a late-clock scenario. I haven’t seen it yet this season, and today when he got into the key he was looking to score. Long may it continue!
The Bad
Almost everything in this section is linked. It all starts with the Raptors’ inability to stop teams from scoring from outside. Throught this game the Orlando shooters had a field day, whether it was on drive and kick plays from Jameer and J-Will, on the inside-out plays where Dwight Howard drew double-teams, in transition where nobody bothered to pick up the shooters on the wings, or on poor rotations during help defence. Some of this can be put down to players still learning their roles, but most of it is just bad basketball sense.
That led to career nights for two, well, scrubs. JJ Redick may be pushing the definition of “scrub” a little, but he had a career-high against us and looked like an all-star, something which I can guarantee has never been said of him. Ryan Anderson is a lot closer to the designation, having had a decent but not outstanding rookie year in New Jersey. Anderson hit five threes and was made to look like a dangerous scorer by our defence, which was slow to realise he could hit that shot and slow to pick him up. Toronto has a reputation for giving up these nights to lesser lights (remember Desmond Mason going for a perfect night? Ramon Sessions tearing us up?), and against a team missing 3 major pieces it’s a more egregious error. Dwight Howard did not beat the Raptors, and that makes this one harder to swallow.
All through the pre-season and the first 2 games this season, Devlin, Sherman Hamilton and Leo were waxing lyrical about what a great signing Jarrett Jack was, and how the point guard situation in Toronto was so much better with Jack as the backup instead of Ukic. Now anyone who’s ever read a Lansdell blog before will know that I was and still am an unabashed Roko Ukic fan, so this stance rankled with me from the start. To see the way José and Jack (especially Jack) have started REALLY calls that opinion into question. Jack has shown me, well, jack. He hasn’t scored, he hasn’t made great passes, he hasn’t provided a different look or a higher tempo when he checked in. He hit his first 3-pointer in the third quarter today. Not of the game, of the SEASON. Defensively he’s somewhat of an upgrade, but Jameer Nelson was an equal-opportunity torcher today. Calderon is looking like a guy who hasn’t played in 6 months, and Jack is supposed to be the contingency plan in that situation. When do Banks, Douby or Belinelli get a look?
You wouldn’t have known it when watching the game, but Toronto actually out-rebounded Orlando. Why isn’t that in the Good section? Well, I would trade the +4 rebound differential for some defensive rebounds when the game was on the line. The D would be good enough to force a miss, only to see Howard or Anderson or Barnes scramble and get the ball back. That hurts.
Finally, there was no killer insitinct in the Raptors this afternoon. No knockout punch. So many times Toronto pulled within 7, 6, even 4…but they let it slip. They couldn’t get that one last stop or that one extra basket to make it a one-possession game, and Orlando always seemed to have an answer to stop Toronto’s runs. Quite often, that answer was a three from Redick, Anderson or Nelson.
The Ugly
Can I give it to Reggie Evans’ suit? Dude makes millions of dollars a year and always turns up looking like he’s cougar-hunting.
In all seriousness, the one play that really told the story of this game was early on. The Magic missed a shot and Ryan Anderson got 2 putback attempts against 3 Raptors, and kept the ball alive long enough that it looked like he might just end up with it. Simply put, Anderson wanted it more and put everything he had into getting it. He didn’t, but the effort was something we’ve only seen from Bosh this season.
That’s all from me folks. I’ll be back for Wednesday’s game against Detroit. Stay cool, rock hard.
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