-The Toronto Raptors are having some trouble scoring these days. The Raps headed into Boston averaging 79 points in their last six games and couldn't even hit that mark tonight against the Celtics, losing 96 to 73. It was an ugly affair as the Celts went up early and never looked back, breaking their five-game losing streak en route to handing Toronto their sixth straight L.
-It's hard to know where to start in terms of recapping this game because everything went wrong for Toronto. Or rather they did everything wrong. The Raps again couldn't put the ball in the basket, shooting only 38 per cent. They got out-rebounded, out-worked, and out-shot at the charity stripe. 16 turnovers didn't help their cause, and even the Raps' normally respectable D allowed the C's to shoot 48 per cent from the field.
-Individually things were just as bad. DeMar DeRozan began to look like he was putting together a nice game late in the second quarter, and he finished the first half with 10 points. However to say he struggled in the second part of the game would be an insult to the word struggled as DeMar put up 1 single point, finishing with 11 on 4 of 16 shooting. Other offensive "weapons" like Leandro Barbosa (6 points in 21 minutes) and newly minted starting small forward James Johnson (4 points on 1 of 7 shooting) were nearly as bad. Even the normally steady Jose Calderon had a mere 9 points and 4 assists.
-The lone bright spot was probably Gary Forbes who had a team-high 18 points on 5 of 6 shooting, all the while getting to the free-throw line 8 times. However considering his role playing back-up to Calderon, a mere one assist isn't going to cut it and far too often he was put in a scoring position because...well...there weren't any other options.
-So now what? Well the Raps head back to TO to face the Portland Trailblazers on Friday, and hopefully get some practice time in. Especially on offense. While the real story to this game was that again, the Raptors simply didn't have near the talent of their opponent to make a game of it, you have to ask some serious questions about coach Dwane Casey's offensive sets. Yes, there hasn't been much time at all to ingrain said sets into the team's offensive thinking, but game after game of perimeter jump shots must have some fans wondering if Bryan Colangelo essentially hired Jay Triano's opposite.