Raptors Rapid Recap - Utah 113 - Toronto 87

by Adam Francis on Mar 24, 2010 9:27 PM EDT in Game Day

-To probably no Raptors' fan's surprise, after barely beating the Nets and Wolves, the Toronto Raptors were thoroughly thrashed by the Utah Jazz tonight, 113 to 87. The boos were out early in the first quarter as the Raptors got down by over 15 early, and could do little the rest of the way to stop the bleeding.

-Chris Bosh had 20 points to lead the Raptors but again it felt a bit hollow. At times looked like he'd rather be anywhere than in a Raptors' uniform and there were still many more jump shots than "rim attacks." Antoine Wright had 15 in one of his best outings in a while, and Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon had 12 and 10 respectively.

-The main problem this evening? Why defence of course! Outside of some brief periods of effective zone D, the game marked one of the most egregious displays of defence that I've ever witnessed as Utah got anything they wanted on O, and shot nearly 50% from the field.

-The Jazz were led by the combo of Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer who both finished with 18 points. Williams was huge in the first quarter, eating Jose Calderon up and shredding the Raptors "defence," which led to the giant hole that the Dinos could never climb out of. He finished with 16 assists in a complete domination of the point guard match-up.

-Between the effort level early, the bizarre coaching decisions, the lack of defence, and oh...Hedo not coming out after half due to "the flu," this was yet another disparaging loss to say the least. Perhaps not quite on the OKC or Atlanta level, but right up there with Sacramento and too many others to count this season. There's little doubt that if this team doesn't figure out how to fix it's leaky defensive damn quickly, they're going to find themselves looking up at Chicago in the standings, and out of the playoffs.

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Calderon = Pylon

Should have started Jack and/or Wright and put them on Williams.

by B.C. on Mar 24, 2010 9:36 PM EDT reply actions

JT doesn’t care for match ups once he’s decided on his teams, by the time they’re looking up at Chicago, Jose would’ve done enough by him for the bench return

by Scores on Mar 24, 2010 9:55 PM EDT up reply actions

Turko-Flu

New expression for taking a night off.

Formerly known as “jumper’s knee”.

by B.C. on Mar 24, 2010 10:24 PM EDT reply actions

Postgame

Tell me I didn’t hear Jay say “I felt like the effort was there”. Unreal.

by Mistafitz on Mar 24, 2010 11:10 PM EDT reply actions

LOLLLLLLLLL

by HDave on Mar 24, 2010 11:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Triano's Bizzaro World

I heard that as well. Either he is dishonest or deluded.

Can somebody please give Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu some Red Bull.

by Turksucks on Mar 24, 2010 11:53 PM EDT up reply actions

PG change

Amir misses JC on the 2nd unit… he’s been not too effective since the PG change. JC continues to be torched by starting point guards.. Jack looks more comfortable as a starter too.. T_T

by xUnKnOwNx on Mar 24, 2010 11:10 PM EDT reply actions

The stupid thing is I really didn’t think that Calderon played himself onto the starting unit so much as they made the change to make it look like they were serious about shaking things up. If they were really serious about shaking things up they would start Rasho, Weems and Wright in place of the stiffs on the starting unit who are too lazy to get rebounds.

by McGateway on Mar 25, 2010 7:12 AM EDT up reply actions

McGateway finally somebody who sees it like I do

by Davl on Mar 25, 2010 8:22 AM EDT up reply actions

Regression

I know that as a fan it is natural to call out certain players but for me it is very curious how a team who has played some very good basketball this year can actually go backwards. I have coached amateur teams for many years and I have never had a team regress. Typically, teams improve to a certain level that may or may not be good enough to be the best but not then go backwards.
This may indicate that the way to construct a winning team is to sign players only after you have done some type of assessment to determine that they have pride as a driving factor in their lives. That is probably impossible to do but it seems clear that this team is made up of players with very little pride. They are soft, rich and lack pride. What else could it be?

by RT... on Mar 25, 2010 7:53 AM EDT reply actions