get out the salami and cheese mama! THIS BALL GAME IS OVER!!! and raptor bball is back and it's better than ever. good game by a good squad. raps play defense and get win number 1. fuck yeah.
The Swirsk lives on! lol, awesome season opener. That thing I wrote in the preview about this game having the potential to lift the spirits of a skeptical fanbase? I feel it right now. I saw nothing in training camp and preseason to indicate this team could play this well this quickly. Props to Smitch (wtf am I saying?).
Kapono was killing the sixers from the outside...but he is about as useful as boobs on a nun on the defensive end. I still have memories of the playoffs versus the magic...I can't remember how many times he was beat off the dribble. My only problem with not giving Graham any more minutes is this...He did everything right. He took the ball to the hole. Rebounded well. Didn't take bad shots. If you do everything you're supposed to do and do it well, but still get nailed to the bench...its a bit disheartning!
Just got back from Montana's and sick fucking game! What a difference O'Neal makes. I also loved that we had so many half-court sets. We got the ball down low and had amazing ball movement. The refs had some horrible calls, but we stayed with it. This was one of the first times in years I felt so much confidence in this team. 1-0 baby and we can only go up from here!
Oh I agree completely, and its one of the reasons I thought naming Jamario the starter after preseason wasn't a great move. Fact is, you've got two talented but flawed SF prospects who are both about the same age. With our shortened rotation, you kind of have to wipe the slate clean on everyone and reward players according to what they've done this season. Graham's looked more determined so far and, although Jamario didn't look terrible out there tonight, Graham's produced better too.
Yeah, I hope as the season progresses Graham will see more time if he keeps up thegood play. Also I know JO is just getting settled and its the start of the season but our rebounding wasnt very strong this game. It's something to work on i guess
The positive with that was that it underscored how impressive our defensive play was tonight. Philly needed a ridiculous rebounding effort to make it an 11 point game. Bosh, O'Neal, and Bargnani created a legitimate wall for penetrating guards and you could see it in the way they settled for 3's as the game progressed. A player like Iguodala would've carved us up the past couple seasons, but he was kept in check today. Our defensive positioning and pick and roll D was so much crisper than last year and there weren't too many situations where a player got a wide open look. If we had grabbed half of Philly's offensive rebounds, this would've been a complete blowout.
What did the JO Bosh get like, 44 points and 19 rebounds? Pretty sweet. I had to work tonight but got to listen to the game on the radio. Sounded pretty good. That Philly team is good but still pretty young.
-23 on the boards... -9 free throw attempts... 0 free throw attempts by anyone but Moon/Bosh/O'Neal... I'm inclined to say the Sixers lost rather than the Raptors won, but at this point in the season, whatever way we can get it is good enough.
I'm curious to the difference after the first quarter of those stats though. Cause 2nd to 4th is when we won this game.
The defensive stats show how Toronto won this game. Philly shot 35% from the field today and, despite not being a good 3 pt. shooting team, attempted 20 threes (making only 5). They had way more offensive possessions than us because of the rebounding discrepancy, but our D made sure they didn't capitalize on second and third chances by forcing them away from their gameplan.
sixers couldn't get rolling and some of that was our defense but the sixers are goinng to get a lot better when iggy and young start clicking. raps played well apart from the atrocious rebounding. people wonder why moon starts? it's because he's supposed to win those athletic loose ball catches that we were losing tonight. we forced the sixers, a young team, into a sloppy game. we were the veteran side and we stuck shots as they missed down the stretch. everybody had a positive impact for the raps - from joey to andrea to roko to JO. and CB4 dominated. above all else chris is the key when he plays like this he's going to give us a chance to win almost every game. that's the nature of the team. he has his way and uses his teammates to wear you down. get back and play d - stick shots. that's it. i think we've got a shot. i love that rotation. AB comes off the bench. joey and kapono come off the bench. roko and bosh (JO) come off the bench. then the other big and jose come back on. it's tight - guys know their roles - and it's versatile - we should be creating more mismatches than we are reacting to them. JO actually didn't look great today and he was still a force in this game. same goes for AB. now that is what should get raptor fans excited as we look ahead to the next game. when we get this rotation firing on all cylinders, watch out.
Joey did play good off the bench, but i just hate when he hits his first shot he tends to think hes the first option everytime down the floor and gets the Lamond Murray Chucker Disease. But Great game, very slow start but once they got the gitters out the Dinos looked SCARY! Love it! I miss Chuck though. no salami and cheese, no you can ring it up from downtown..., no sick, wicket, and nasty, no onions, etc all we get is "Rockin and Rollin" lol
