Raptors Rapid Recap - Houston Rockets 114 - Toronto Raptors 105

by Adam Francis on Dec 31, 2010 10:01 PM EST in Raptors Rapid Recap - 2010/11

-Raptor fans were hoping for a repeat performance of Tuesday night's win over the Dallas Mavericks but it was not to be. Toronto kept this one close, even leading by as many as 14 points early on, but the club ran out of gas dropping a 114 to 105 decision to the Houston Rockets this evening.

-Undermanned again, Toronto came out strong, using the same stifling defense that they displayed against the Mavericks. They limited the Rockets to only 20 first quarter points, and got their offence going thanks to easy transition buckets off said D. However Houston's bench in the second quarter ripped Toronto apart dropping a season-high 42 points on the Dinos. This got the rest of the Rockets going, and Houston never looked back.

-Houston was led scoring-wise by their bench in fact, who had 65 of the Rockets' 114 points. Toronto in contrast had only 23 bench points. Chase Budinger had a team-high 22 off the pine, but Courtney Lee, Patrick Patterson and Brad Miller all had double figure nights, and changed the tone of the game in the second Q.

-For Toronto, their leading scorer was also the team's biggest good news story of the night. DeMar DeRozan was unstoppable scoring a career-high 37 points on 12 of 21 shooting. He got some help offensively from Linas Kleiza who had 17 points and 12 rebounds, and Amir Johnson (14 and 11), but overall there just wasn't enough juice in the tank for the Raps, and Houston's depth eventually wore Toronto down.

-The effort was there in this one, something Toronto fans can be proud of, but it's tough to keep playing undermanned night after night, especially with a Raptors' club that's low on talent to begin with. The Raptors' next game is Sunday back at home against the Boston Celtics so no rest for the weary. Sonny Weems and Andrea Bargnani both sound like they're close to coming back, but no word on Jerryd Bayless, who made a go of it tonight before re-tweaking that already fragile ankle.

A big Happy New Years to all of us from the HQ and thanks for another great year!

See you in 2011...

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Comments

Alabi must be pretty bad

If by playing him,say 5 minutes, the coach feels he will set the team back too much.

by raptball on Dec 31, 2010 10:19 PM EST reply actions

re Alabi

Raptors were still in the game at the end, in the last 2 mins, Alabi would be of no help in scoring which was the main problem, shooting only 41%..

by Johnn19 on Jan 1, 2011 12:04 AM EST up reply actions

No one seems to have noticed that Calderon was 3 rebounds away from a triple double.

DeRozan played extraordinarily well, and part of that is because his jumper is finally going down, although he didn’t shoot much from outside of ten feet against Houston. He shot 4 of 10 from that range, but one of those was the three with 4 seconds left. The biggest beneficiary of Bargnani being out looks to be DeRozan. He’s averaging 21.2 ppg in games without Bargnani, although that’s obviously skewed by the 37 point game. Still, he’s scored at least 16 points 11 times this season, and 4 of them were in games that Bargnani didn’t play.

Ed Davis struggled (although he still grabbed 7 boards in 21 minutes, but Davis has not played well against big, strong front lines. His biggest weakness is his lack of strength, which is obviously something he can easily work on. Expect him to struggle against Boston and Chicago, but play well against Cleveland and possibly Sacramento.

Tim W.
The Picket Fence

by Tim W. on Jan 1, 2011 3:44 AM EST reply actions

I believe

the increased production by DD is a matter of personal growth more than anything. Maybe Andrea’s absence let DD take on more responsibilities so he learnt he can actually do make plays. Point is DD increased production should still be there when Andrea is back.

by renato on Jan 1, 2011 5:53 AM EST up reply actions

Incuraging signs

I just finished watching the game on league pass, and I watched with mixed feelings, for one side I see great improvements out of DD, Kleiza and JC, on the other side it is with a bit of regret that I think of this season as of one that could have been..

This team never had the chance of hitting at full cylinders as it has plagued continuously by injuries, yesterday for example how much would have Andrea been able to help in those stretches in which they weren’t able to buy a bucket (and hence putting lots of pressure on the D which CAN’ T bail you out continuously if you do not score) other times, during the season we have been missing production from the three, or from the 2 ( before this DD stretch of good games) and even from the one before the duo of a rejuvenated JC and Bayless came to play.

Reality is we have been enjoying a good production from every spot (plus a very good bench) at times, unfortunately, each spot was producing well but not capable of making it up for the lack of production at the others due to injuries.

Maybe this is a blessing in disguise and we have a much better team in the making than we thought of, a team that, when at full strength will be able to provide to it’s supporters better satisfaction in 2011
Happy new year and bet wishes to the Raptors fans for 2011

by renato on Jan 1, 2011 5:50 AM EST reply actions

What exactly could this season have been? At most, this team is a 30-35 win team. Really not something to regret not reaching.

And while Bargnani would have helped the team on offense, he would have hurt it on defense, so it’s debatable whether he would have had an overall positive impact (as can his presence in the lineup in any game).

This season is about development, not wins. And for that reason I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far.

Tim W.
The Picket Fence

by Tim W. on Jan 1, 2011 2:35 PM EST up reply actions