3 in the Key – Toronto Raptors Game-Day Preview vs. Celtics

Bargbust -
Would be curious if you could provide the W-L records of the teams these # 1 picks played for as well as their minutes.
Leaning with the guy on previous post who said your info was useless. Useless might be strong but it is definately incomplete.

Hey lay off Bargs already. Anybody ever remember Kobe's 2nd year in the L? I guess not, he sucked beyond belief. But now look at him. And don't forget that the Raptors are FINALLY bringing in a special coach just for him. Notice thats what all the teams with possible allstar talent are doing at the 4 and 5 spots. Ie, Ewing with Dwight in Orlando and Kareem with Bynum in LA. Give Bargs another year before you really critique his game. Like come on he has shown signs of brillians, ie against Philly and he dropped 20 pts including that sick 4 point play. Lets also not forget that the 5 position is no simple task to master. He played the 3 and 4 in Europe where its completely different. Just you wait and see, it took Dirk many years to develope and even Dirk himself admitts that Bargnani will be a superstar in coming years. As for tonights game, its winnable. If you watch the Celtics your starting to see a grumpy Ray Allen. Hes not happy at all being the 3rd option. Much like a tripod, it will fall over with a week leg. Go get em Raptors.

Not useless, just irrelevant in proving bargs is a bust.

I concede there's no way statiscally to make bargs look good at this point. You can compare w-l, only compare to euro centers, and consider that many of those teams with #1 picks built the team around the pick versus the raps who were already built around cb4 but still bargnani has a very serious consistency problem.

Bargsbutt - if your going to post stats, remember that others have likely seen them as well.

It is interesting how old habits are hard to change. Every player when they play man-man Defence cheats to the center when on the weak side. That is fundamental. It is this habit that has killed the Raps against the Celtics because if you back away from Ray Allen out there set up on the 3 line, he makes a very high percentage of those. The same goes Pierce. The Raps need to designate who "helps" and who doesn't.

totally agree, Rt. The same thing happens with cleveland and gibson/jones. There are some players you just can't leave alone under any circumstances.

Lots of stuff in the local press today about tonight's strategies. Sam Mitchell was commenting on the Celtics' hard run-outs on three-point shooters so look for lots of fakes and then drives or pull-ups inside the 3-point line. Sounds like no James Posey tonight which actually could be a big deal - Posey has been a major pain in the Raptors' sides this season.

Couple points that I saw in today's sun:

1. Sam thinks Andrea should spend his summer training with John Lucas and it will help him play tougher....he is also encouraging guys like Jamario Moon, Joey Graham and somebody else who I can't remember to go there.

2. The news out of Houston is good on TJ although still have no idea as to when he will return.

3. Sam has said TJ will not start right away and might not start all season. I think the latter would be a better decision.

4.Doug Smith has said in his blog that he thinks TJ won't be back until after the allstar break

RT I agree with you on the help defence. You cant leave your man too often to help in the middle or Pierce or Allen and Randou or House will get too many open looks and if the shots starts falling it will be a long night for the Dinos. My key to beating the C's is great one on one play, stay with your guy, and Sam should do what he did to Jamario against the Cav's, monitor his moves and tell him when to go with the double team. If Raps stay with the Shooters especially Allen and House and contest their shot we will have a chance. Bosh and KG always average out each other. The most dangerous player tonight will be Pierce because if you go up on him he will blow by you and if you lay off he will nail the jumper, so that is who the Raps have to send the double team on. But I have a good feeling with the extra days to prepare for this game and seeing that the Celtics are beatable (ask Washington) If the Raps get a good start tonight they will pick up the W.....My X-Factor tonight is none other than the Magician himself..Go Bargs..Italians are very resilliant and I know Bargnani is going to bounce back before the seasons end.....Raps4life

"After all many, myself included, refused to believe the hype in terms of Boston’s Big 3 to start the season and felt that Toronto’s depth would win out in the end.

And you know something, I still do in many ways."

Keep dreaming. LOL

I think there's a possibility Boston's peaked early and won't be able to sustain their intensity. Wouldn't put money on it though.

10 pts, 3 reb, 2 assists and only 1 foul in the first quarter....who the hell is this guy? wheres andrea?

Ladies and gents, I present to you Andrea Bargnani. And about the peaking thing, think about this. the last team to win the NBA title while finishing first overall in the League were the Lakers (i think). Big hot shots such as the Suns, Mavericks, Spurs and Pistons have not won the title while being the hottest team. Boston will most likely carry this torch on to these coming playoffs.

I'm half expecting someone to post under the name Boshisabust tomorrow...wow - 5 turnovers? Offence has been way more crisp without CB4 in the game...I'm almost scared to see him come back in. Hopefully though the rest of the team's play opens things up for him. Turnovers are beyond frustrating though...

Raptors Win! Raptors Win!! Wow, how did that happen? I can't believe Allen missed that shot

Great win for the Raps. Now that makes San Antonio and Boston.

Good game for Andrea. He got his offense rolling and the rebounding and assists soon followed.

Can't hate on the victory...one minor thing, is Ray Allen the best offensive rebounder in the league or are the Raptors pretty much incapable of squeezing a rebound. I'm just nit-picking though, good win.

Cisco?...Um hello?

Jose Calderon is the TRUTH!!!!!!!!!

and I don't know what Sam said to Andrea before the game but he came to play

Genius coaching I think, seemd like bosh just played center, bosh handled whichever big was under the basket and the offense ran through bargnani.

Could be wrong though bosh looked tired, KG is a load. Either way, best win, best game of the year.

Beating the Celtics was important for the Raps. Forget about the offensive rebounds, forget the fact that Celtics took about 20 more shots than us- we got the win on the road against one of the best teams in the league.
Hope this relieves Bargnani of the pressure he has been feeling. Nice to see him play like we all know he's capable. A second half contribution from him and TJ can give the RAPS a huge push over our competition.

nice win, for sure. but the fact that the raps had to do it with impeccable 3 point shooting, doesn't leave me with the greatest of feelings.
also, that has got to be the quietest 23 points bosh has scored in a long time.

but I guess that's the potential of bosh and bargs on the floor at the same time. (even though only 1 was playing like he should. and it wasn't bosh. imagine both playing at the top of their game?)

dreamz...

nah, TO did not play at their best yet. Kapono, Humps and Moon were largely non-factors, Bargs and the whole team can still improve rebounding, JC can move his feet a little more on offence, Bosh could have tried to penetrate more (had too many 12-foot jumpers still IMO).

Yet they STILL beat Boston. For the rest of the season, TO still has room to improve, while Boston is pretty well at the top of its game. That was playoff atmosphere, and I bet TO will be the dark horse no one wants to play come that time. Boston, they are a known entity. Does anyone know how good Toronto can be?

It's true that Delf really helped shooting 5-5, but he seems to get streaky. But when its not him its Kaps or AP. That's the luxury of having 3 of the top-ten 3-point shooters in the league: go with the hot hand.

BTW, I think Sam did a great job in this game.

sorry - JC move his feet on DEFENCE. Rondo et al blew by him at least a couple times.

For clarification: I am not the same person as Bargsbust. Along these same lines, while I feel Bargs was the wrong choice/a bust, (I was advocating for Rudy Gay the first time I saw him play at UCONN) I am not presenting these stats just because I hate him--rather I think the stats bear out that he is a huge disappointment, that's all. We're all b-ball fans here, right? What's wrong with a few numbers?

Great game tonight. So . . . here are the winning percentages in the first two years for the aforementioned players:

(thanks axl for letting me know you've seen these stats before--you should have posted them instead of keeping to to yourself.)

Ewing: .290
Daugherty: .444
David Robinson: .315
Danny Manning: .315
Pervis Ellison: .327
Derrick Coleman: .407
Larry Johnson: .463
Shaquille O'Neal: .562 (!!!)
Chris Webber: .438
Glenn Robinson: .364
Joe Smith: .407
Allen Iverson: .327
Tim Duncan: .705 (!!!!!!)
Michael Olowokandi: .182
Elton Brand: .198
Kenyon Martin: .481
Kwame Brown: .451
Yao Ming: .543
LeBron James: .475
Dwight Howard: .439
Andrew Bogut: .420
Andrea Bargnani: .561

So, there is certainly a valid point to be made that he's on a better team through 1.5 years than most (overall average: 41.4% or about 34 wins) However, has their "goodness" really prevented him from getting minutes or is this more the product of his rebounding, defensive etc. deficiencies. I would argue the latter.

If he shoots like he did tonight, then he can certainly cover his butt in other areas. (by the way--Rudy Gay had 20pts, 8rbs; another ho-hum day at the office for a real first overall pick.)

To the person who said Boston was at the top of their game....they certainly weren't today. They have the best defense in the league and have not given up more than 100 points in 2008. They certainly can make massive improvements on defence after this game.

AP summed it up best....they can beat anyone, anywhere....however they can lose to anyone, anywhere.

After the bucks game we'll have two huge games against the Wiz who just got blown out by the cavs....the cavs are on a roll and are 9-1 in their last 10.

Provided there are no major injuries looks like the raps won't have to play the pistons or celtics in the first round.....the only other team I woudn't want to play is Cleveland.

The east is really a joke two teams well below .500 making the playoffs while in the West Utah is 6 games over .500 and cannot get into the playoffs...

if theres one thing we learned from today's game its that you can judge a draft 1 or 2 years after it happens.....especially when you draft a big man or a pg....and when they're from overseas.....

lets wait and see....

I think Brandon Roy will be the best overall while Gay, LA and Bargs will battle for runner up

"top of their game"

at 33-7, I'd say Boston is at the high end of their cycle. I am guessing that here on out they do not continue playing .800 ball. They will probably end up at around 650 to 700, with mid fifties in wins, but they may have peaked. TO, I think, they have nothing but upside. Like last season, let's turn it up a notch - but consistently. And no more injuries. In that instance, Boston has been very lucky, wondering when that streak is going to end?

Great game. I'm holdin my breath that nothing happens to Calderon. I thought I read somewhere that Delfino had played point and maybe Sam should give him a try.

Judging by that stat Bargs is the 3rd best pick out of that group. His team missed the playoffs the prior year, won their division the next with him as their top pick.
Guess stats really don't tell whole story.
You still didn't show minutes per game, which I think if you averaged it out per 48 minutes you would have a better read.