Tip In: Toronto Raptors' Post Game - Crash n' Burn

by RaptorsHQ - Archives on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST

Bosh could use a guy flashing to an open spot right about now?

So I asked myself, "If the Raptors won, would I write a huge post about how enthusiastic I was?"

Not in the slightest.

In what I saw as one of the most troubling returns to a pre-Triano game style, the Raptors completely shot themselves in the foot. It just didn't matter who you were on the team, there was just something off about each Raptors' game last night.

If you were Andrea Bargnani, you got to the line 8 times, finished with 20 points, but shot a horrible 5-for-14.

If you were Chris Bosh, you were efficient, scored and rebounded well, but only made 7-of-12 from the free throw line.

If you were Roko Ukic, or Will Solomon, you put Jay Triano in such a position that Anthony Parker had to close out the game in your stead. It's that kind of stagnant offense that simply drives me nuts as it shows that the Raptors simply do not think about each other as a group, nor do they work towards a common goal.

Oh, and then there were the 20 combined turnovers. With everyone except for Solomon and Moon contributing to the turnover-fest, the first reaction would be to say that referee Bill Kennedy simply had it in for the Raptors. While I can say there were a few questionable calls coming from him, a lot of the turnovers reminded me of the Cleveland game earlier in the year, where the Raptors simply refused to cut to open parts of the floor when their teammate was in trouble. Last night, the Raptors stood around dumbfounded at times as their teammate was double teamed and trapped.

When a player gets trapped, the Raptors should be flashing to gaps in the defense so that a pass can be made out of a sticky situation. Instead, for most of the night (and season for that matter) the Raptors would sit around and wait for the player to attempt a contested shot.

Over the course of my lifetime, I've had many different jobs. The one job that I can say emphasizes teamwork more so than many others is the time I spent helping out as a cook and manager in my friend's restaurant. If there's one thing that I took from that job, it's that when a restaurant is running well, the waiters and cooks all work as one to get meals out in a timely fashion. Everyone pitches in to fill in the gaps, and without a word, the kitchen develops a flow.

Laziness, after all, kills teamwork.

Top contender for Mr. Lazy 2009 might go to Jamario Moon. Once again, the evening showed Moon in a poor light as he defended Granger in a lackadaisical effort. If Joey Graham wasn't in foul trouble for the night, Moon might have seen himself nailed to the bench. Emblematic of his effort was a play in the second quarter. While Moon got a basket in the second by laying it up on a drive, his two mistakes on that play almost cost him the bucket. First, he waited for the pass to reach him instead of meeting the pass and the finish was an incredibly soft floater for such an open drive to the basket.

It was then that the Raptors decided to toss three bigs into the game because they just could not find a solution at the SF position. However, our boys had to run zone in order to try and negate the quickness that they would be giving up. Nevertheless, I had to question the move. For one, Bargnani would have far less room to operate in the paint and the Raptors would be unable to close out on shooters as well as would continue to get punished by the cutting Pacers. If I had to venture a guess, Triano implemented this lineup because he simply didn't have an answer for the weak willed Jamario Moon, nor foul-troubled Joey Graham. To me, it was a strategy employed simply to buy time.

But there were several points that one could conclude from the lineup:

1) Jermaine O'Neal is going to take time to get back into his flow of things.

2) Bargnani and O'Neal on the floor at the same time isn't going to work too well because it clogs up the paint.

3) Jermaine O'Neal is now a 20 million dollar bench player.

To me, the most interesting aspect of last night's game was seeing how Bargnani would react to O'Neal's return. It was for the second and third quarters that Bargnani seemed almost out of sync thanks to the interior presence of Jermaine O'Neal. As we've observed, O'Neal's return means another big body in the paint which gives Bargnani less room to operate and drive to the basket. As opposed to Voskuhl or Humphries, O'Neal has a lot of trouble moving in and out of the paint. While it may be because of the lingering effects of his knee injury, I believe that it's simply because Jermaine is not as agile as our other two front court options, which makes crashing the glass from the perimeter much more difficult. By the end of the third, we were staring at a 24 point deficit.

But in the beginning of the fourth, the Raptors went on an 11-0 run to cut their deficit to 13. Parker ran the point for the majority of the fourth and the Raptors managed to get Indiana their fifth team foul with 4:07 to go.

Bargnani, once again was a key cog in the Raptor's offense coming down the stretch. Heck, he even managed to close out on Troy Murphy in a life-or-death defensive play to cause a turnover. However, the margin was just too large to overcome and a series of defensive break downs allowed the Pacers to close out the game.

As we look towards the upcoming game against the Suns, we've talked a need for a trade, and whether the Raptors should attempt to scrap this season in lieu of attempting to get a high draft pick, or to make minor changes and hope that it's enough to turn around this season and make our team into a contender. We're seeing this season unravel before our very eyes and unfortunately, I can't see our Raptors pulling off a win against the team-that-Colangelo-once-built.

VICIOUS D

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Comments

Something needs to be done. Something needs to be done now - not even to improve talent, just to improve the chemistry and effort levels, or this team will self-implode

by sigg on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

I like the trade proposalo f Shawn Marion for Jermaine Oneal then once marion conract is done dump it, sign someone else, not sure what the spare parts on the miami side to match up (any ideas) salaries. Would like to get a draft pick somehow. Any thoughts?

by ChathamRaps Fans on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Regarding the post from yesterday, I am still on the fence for whether they should start over or just make an adjustment or two. Primarily, I think moving Oneal and kapono would be a good start.

by McGateway on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

JO for Marion looks good for us - but my WORST fear: Miami uses all of its 2010 money that it gets from JOs contract to steal Chris Bosh.

by Gillen on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Camp days are coming to a close !!!
After 4 losses in a row,now the Suns,Hawks ,and Pistons.
Dry dock the boats we are done.
I loved JO's cockiness,and his added toughness to our lineup,but with Bargs coming to forefront,I cannot see the need anymore...but outside of the Marion talks,who else would want to eat a contract that size?
I'm not entirely sold on Marion.
Do we make an honest to goodness attempt at getting our bigs some help?
One thing is for sure,this team needs help.Oh!!! repeat,repeat,repeat

by d279 on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

3/4 players in the NBA travel every time they get the ball and it's not called. The ref yesterday decided that professionals should know how to keep their pivot foot nailed to the floor before they dribble the ball. Bargnani & Kopono take note. NBA refereeing sucks badly because of their inconsistency, kind of like most of the Raptors.

by melon on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

In a trade of O'Neal and Marion there is a difference of $3.562 Mil. Going to http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/trademachine doesn't help unless it's a 2 for 2.

by Richard on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

At some point you just have to stop worrying about the outcome of games this year and try to find a reason to be enthusiastic about this team in the years to come. The team is a losing team, more likely than not destined to finish several games under .500, so as a fan of a team in that situation how do we proceed to enjoy ourselves even when we know victory is unlikely. It's time to focus on individual performances, to look for player by player improvements and take solace in the fact that perhaps being very bad now helps in becoming very good in the near future. Today I woke up wondering if I'd rather be a fan of a team like Philadelphia, whose team is what it will be for several years but with max players who've reached their ceiling and likely won't be leading the team to a championship, i.e. a lot of B calibre pieces making A calibre money or a team like the Raps, where even though they are bad, the needs are evident in the positions easier to remedy (i.e. we have good young pieces at the point and big positions, and the chances of getting a solid contributing wing player through the draft are higher than at the positions the Raptors already have very good quality talent at). We just have to accept something was tried this year that didn't work but I don't see this as a perpetually losing team going into next year. Colangelo knows he has to do something but he doesn't strike me as someone who, realizing a mistake will rush to a decision that proves another mistake. The saving grace of the season is that Bargnani and Bosh are WORKING. Not too concerned about 2010 until it gets here. Where was Boston in 2006/2007. Shifts in power are sometimes dramatic, but even the most pessimistic of us must admit we have quality pieces to realize such a shift even as soon as next year. I like following teams that establish a winning legacy, if this bad year is the cost of realizing such a team then so be it.

by Interloper on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Interloper is wise beyond his years. I agree that we should take solace in the fact that Bosh and Bargnani are finally working. How nice it would have been if we could have made that move for Gerald Wallace... but then again, hindsight is always 20/20. Also, who's to say that O'Neal didn't make a significant contribution to the development of Bargnani?

I like the Marion trade if only because he will provide some of the attributes of a player at the 4 position that we lack such as rebounding. He is not your typical 3 and, who knows, in a similar way that O'Neal helped Bargs turn the corner, Marion might even help Graham develop a little... Pull the trigger if you can, BC.

by Flying J on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Marion and Haslem

for

Oneal and Graham

works for salaries, would help the Heat dump Marion and get Oneal's expiring contract back, improve their interior for the short-term. Not sure if they'd give up Haslem though.

by benjibopper on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Ya wait til next year......lol

Starting to sound like leaf fans!!!!

just kidding?????

by Davl on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Vicious D,
at the end I am not sure that 20 points with 14 shots is something I would regard as a bad performance, maybe some statistic guru could help me out here.

Moreover I wanted to share with you some interesting statements from a very recent interview from Maurizio Gherardini that I am translating for you:

...If Andrea will keep playing this way it will, of course determine (nb, not influence, determine)our future choices. We will of course need time to assess JO's conditions and obviously, in the meantime we will observe Andrea's capability to perform consistently at high level and that will drive our choices, but the improvements we have seen up till now are encouraging....

which would suggest to me: no JO trade is imminent as we have to verify whether the reason we brought JO here (Andrea under performing) still remains or not.

To be honest, I guess it is much more simpler sit here and judge than having been and being in BC shoes. He exchanged CV for TJ because Calderon was not seen as a good PG than exchanged TJ for JO because Andrea seemed lost and all of a sudden Andrea "gets it" (irrespective of why you think he got it just now. Which means that two of the most important trades BC has performed have been made redundant by internal development, forcing him to make choices for further changing the roster setup.

by renato on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Phoenix preview will be up in the am along with some other thoughts but for now, hope everyone's been huddled around this afternoon's college games on ABC and CBS...lots of players we'll be talking about come draft time are in action including Clark, Henderson, Aminu, and others like Terence Williams and Greg Monroe.

by Franchise on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Same old story, athletic SF eats our wings for lunch.

Nom Nom Nom Nom.

by Bedhead on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

you guys know about the London Knights from the OHL? They are from my hometown, and since the Hunter brothers took over, they are consistently playoff-bound, and in the hunt for conference / league titles. Bear in mind, at junior level, the longest you have a kid for is about 2 or 3 years. You constantly have a changing team, and teams often go through rebuilding processes. Not the Knights. Year in, year out, they compete.

That has whetted my appetite as a fan. I simply do not have patience to wait for a "rebuilding" process. I honestly think that Rogers and co do not have sufficient management tools to make this work.

Ricciardi has been saying for years that the Jays will compete, and every year they come up shorter than before.

And now I have to endure the same thing with the Raps?

Win. At the end of the day, that's all that matters. Win, or go home. The Raps do not have a killer instinct, much less a winning attitude. Love 'em or hate 'em, Lebron, Kobe and KG have the greatest desire to win. You can see it in the eyes, in the way they take over when the game is on the line.

And we have Jamario Moon. Yahoo.

by gerry on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

LOL , Look at this stat line.

In 5:24 seconds, Josh McRoberts of Indiana managed to:

Miss two shots.

Commit two turnovers.

Get assessed a technical foul.

AND COMMIT SIX PERSONAL FOULS!

I’m not saying that’s the worst single-game performance of all-time but when they get around to making that list, McRoberts has to be on it.

Astonishing. Simply astonishing.

Quote from doug smith

by JOHN on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

even as a hardcore camp A'er I have to say this loss was all about effort and desire... not even one blocked shot? moon out of position all night, nobody helping, everybody getting beat and beat easily... ouch... don't they know the season is on the line??

by axl on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Ref or no ref we were horrible for the 2nd and 3rd quarters. I turned ir off half way through the 3rd.

We are really missing Calderon. That, by far, is what this team is missing.

by Tinman on Jan 17, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions

Renato - No, I don't think it's a horrible game, and he was pretty good in ways the Raptors needed him to be good, but it's just that everyone had some pretty horrible stats in some way or another. It's gotta be about efficiency too, and if you toss in Barg's turnovers, it was a pretty nasty night on top of the good stuff. Just staying that a lot of players had a night like that.

And I have never been a proponent of Jermaine O'Neal. I'm thankful for his leadership and teaching Bargnani how to be a real center in this league, but I've never liked his contract, and never liked the fact that O'Neal cost us the very reasonable value contract of Nesterovic. Nothing to do with Bargnani, but I think that at this point, I'd rather have Voskuhl and Hump in the game rather than O'Neal simply for the fact that Bargnani has less room to work with when O'Neal is in the game. In fact, the same goes for Bosh, which means that I'm more of a proponent for this possible Miami trade than against.

by Vicious D on Jan 18, 2009 12:00 AM EST reply actions