<div align="center"> - <font color="Navy"><font color="Navy"> Toronto Raptors (0-2) @ Detroit Pistons (2-0) TV: Toronto (TSN), Detroit (WDIV) Radio: Toronto (Fan590), Detroit (WDFN-AM 1130) Venue: The Palace Of Auborn Hills Date: Saturday, November 5th, 2005 TipOff time: 7:40 PM Eastern</font></font> <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> <font color="Red">Starting LineUps</font> <font color="Black">The Raptors: </font> <font size="1">Mike James-Jalen Rose-Joey Graham-Chris Bosh-Loren Woods</font> <font color="Black">6th Man:</font> <font size="1">Charlie Villanueva</font> <font color="Black">Coach:</font> <font size="1">Sam Mitchell</font> Team Leaders: <font face="Comic Sans MS">Scoring: M.Peterson - 17.5 Rebounds: C.Bosh - 11.0 Assists: J.Calderon - 6.5 FG%: R.Araujo - 75.5% FT%: M.Peterson - 100.0% 3PT%: J.Graham - 50.0% Blk: C.Bosh - 1.0 Steals: J.Calderon - 1.5 </font> <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="6">.......</font></font> <font color="Black">The Pistons:</font> <font size="1">Chauncey Billups-Rip Hamilton-Tayshaun Prince-Rasheed Wallace-Ben Wallace</font> <font color="Black">6th Man:</font> <font size="1">Antonio McDyess</font> <font color="Black">Coach:</font> <font size="1">Flip Saunders</font> Team Leaders: <font face="Comic Sans MS">Scoring: R.Hamilton - 28.0 Rebounds: B.Wallace - 11.0 Assists: C.Billups - 10.0 FG%: C.Delfino - 100.0% FT%: R.Wallace 100.0% 3PT%: M.Evans - 100.0% Blk: B.Wallace - 2.5 Steals: R.Wallace - 1.5</font> <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> <div align="left"><font color="Red">Keys To The Game:</font> <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">-Interior Defence:</font> Detroit just has too much power inside for any team in the league. With Rasheed and Ben being very active underneath the basket, the Pistons don't lose much when they go to their bench and bring the likes of Anontio McDyess, Dale Davis and Reggie Evans. This will be one of the toughest tasks the Raps interior players face all year. <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">- Rebounding:</font> There isn't much to say here. After getting owned by an average New Jersey frontline on the boards (outrebouned us by 14), only god knows how can a rotation of all this interior power will do against us on the glass. Everyone on the floor must be committed to rebounding; that's when pride kicks in. <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">- Backdoor Cuts:</font> After watching few of their games in preseason and in the beginning of the season, Flip has inserted more backdoor cut plays to maxmize the quickness of his perimiter guys in Prince, Rip and Billups. Must keep our heads at all times. Expect Sam to go with the zone often to eliminate defensive blow ups.</div> <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="6">.......</font></font> <font color="Red">Game Matchup:</font> vs Rasheed Wallace vs Charlie Villanueva Two similar players. Rasheed is a far more superior defender which will probably give the rook some difficulties when the two are matched up. On offence, Charlie has to be confident and do what he does best. 'Sheed will play him physical and body him up for rebounds, and CV has to keep battling him all night, like he did against the Nets. Defencively, put a hand up in every long range or fade away shot Wallace hosts up. Charlie has the quicknesss to match up with Rasheed and it's a matter of playing intelligent basketball. I don't expect Villanueva to own this matchup, but I don't think he'll get outmatch that badly either. <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> <font color="Green">The X-Factor:</font> Richard Hamilton What a start for the season this guy is having. Not only did bust out in a 37-point performance on Wednesday night agains the Sixers, he drained a the game winning buzzer beater at Boston Friday night with 0.8 secs on the clock. Rip seem to be flourishing in Flip Saunders's open offensive system. Mo and/or Joey got their work cut out for them. He is the best in the league at moving without the ball and going off the screens set by the Piston bigs. Help defence must be aware at all times and switching on screen and pick and rolls would be a legitimate option considering we don't have a guy to match his quickness. <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> <font color="Red">Say What?! (Prediction)</font> This ain't going to be pretty. Let's leave it at that. <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> </div>
Doesn't this bring hope, the Pistons game against the Celtics was electrifying, how many possible game winning shots were there, wow.
Pistons by 5+ IF the Raptors honestly want to have a chance on winning this game they have to do the following: -Rose has to act like a leader..a vet..and pass the ball..he should stop shooting..if he continues doing this babs should make the line-up: Woods/Bosh/CV31/Graham/james - Bosh has to step up and get inside and be more aggressive - Give Jose a LOT of minutes! - Get better defensively
Pistons should win by 20+ but they should of won by double fiqures last night as well. Although this one is at least at home.
If the Raps play D like they have the last few games, the Pistons will annihilate us by at least 20 pts. If Bosh doesn't step his game up, then the Pistons overmatch us in every category.
There will be two Jalen Rose's we could be seeing after his ugly performance last night. He will either come out making most of his shots or missing most of them. Either ways, he'll jack up a lot of shots to try to prove the critics that he's all about winning. Chris Bosh has been shooting poorly the past two games, and he'll find it hard to pick up his scoring touch tonight against three great post defenders. Jose Calderon should get more minutes and when he's on the court, let's have Mo Pete waiting in the corner for those open threes again. There's no way the Raptors can find it in them to win this one, but it will depend on their competitiveness if they want to pull off the upset. This team just came off one of their worst losses in history and the players might have that fire in them to set things right against the Pistons. That being said though, it'll be hard. Pistons by 17.
End of the first quarter... 38-22 for the Pistons CB4 has 8pts, 3rebs. Calderon has 6pts, 1reb and 4ast. Rose is still shooting too much Prince has 13 pts RIP has 10
Well we lost... no suprize. But the thing i really hated was jalen's shot selection. If were gonig to get blown out at least let the rookies have their shoots. We're down by like 30 in garbage time and Jalen's still trying to pad his stats... Ok one more thing... Is Mitchell coaching on auto pilot this year or is it just me ?? Last year he would actually get up yell and seem into the game.. this year every clip they show of him he's sitting on the bench looking like he's taking a break ... I dunno what's up with that..
Sometimes, I wish Kevin O'Neill was our coach because he was a great defensive minded coach. It is a sore to watch this team try to play defense.
omg worst game ever Raptors played HORRIBLY noone passed to each other and were just selfish this does not look good ..i was actually looking forward to this season but by the way things are going
No surprise in the game, but I was thinking the raptors cold have atleast chipepd away at the defecit a little bit(jus ta little). I think there are gonna be some shakeups needed, either something with the roster or the rotation onthe floor. Nothing drastic, just something with the minutes. something.
Why were Mo' and Jalen playing so late in the game? If Rose was playing that late, why not play Chris at some point the 4th? Matt Bonner should have played the fourth, but for whatever reason he didn't. Graham should have played until the end, but he didn't. Weird. The only bright spot from the game is Calderon's performance. BTW, did anyone see Aaron Williams fingers? That was some nasty ish. ||||| /||| <-Thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky.
I didnt expect much from the raptors in this game and they even dissapointed me. Jose Calderon ended with 43 minutes, why dont the raptors just start him, he seems to be doing good in every box score and every time Sherman Hamilton say's anything about him on Raptors TV its a good thing.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Buckets:</div><div class="quote_post">I didnt expect much from the raptors in this game and they even dissapointed me. Jose Calderon ended with 43 minutes, why dont the raptors just start him, he seems to be doing good in every box score and every time Sherman Hamilton say's anything about him on Raptors TV its a good thing.</div> Jose is gonna be starting before the season is over. I really don't care about the loss, it is the pistons after all, but what's up with mitchel's player selection? Play rose, peterson, and calderon, but not bosh?
