<div align="center">- <font color="Navy"><font color="Navy"> San Antonio Spurs (20-6) vs Toronto Raptors (6-20) TV: Toronto (RSN), San Anotnio (CSN) Radio: Toronto (Fan590) Venue: SBC Center Date: Friday, December 23rd, 2005 TipOff time: 8:30 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-Joey Graham-Morris Peterson-Chris Bosh-Rafael Araujo</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: C.Bosh - 22.1 Rebounds: C.Bosh - 9.6 Assists: J.Calderon - 6.5 FG%: Aa.Williams - 53.3% FT%: J.Calderon - 86.8% 3PT%: M.Bonner - 40.7% Blocks: L.Woods - 1.0 Steals: J.Calderon - 1.0 </font></div> <font size=""1""><font color=""Red"">Key Injuries: None.</font></font> <div align="center"><font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="6">.......</font></font> <font color="Black">The Spurs:</font> <font size="1">Tony Parker-Michael Finley-Bruce Bowen-Tim Duncan-Nazr Mohammed</font> <font color="Black">6th Man:</font> <font size="1">Robert Horry </font> <font color="Black">Coach:</font> <font size="1">Greg Popovich</font> Team Leaders: <font face="Comic Sans MS">Scoring: T.Duncan - 20.6 Rebounds: T.Duncan - 11.9 Assists: T.Parker - 6.5 FG%: R.Nesterovic - 54.2% FT%: S.Marks - 100.0% 3PT%: B.Bowen - 51.3% Blocks: T.Duncan - 2.4 Steals: M.Ginobili - 1.6 </font> </div> <font size=""1""><font color=""Red"">Key Injuries: Ginobili (Sprained Foot)- Questionable</font></font> <div align="center"><font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="7">.......</font></font> <font color="Red">Keys To The Game:</font></div> <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">- Control The Paint:</font> Tony Parker leads the league in points in the paint. Most of Popovic's offensive plays are centred around his guard penetrations, so we have to protect the paint mostly, however, defensive rotations are crucial as well to eliminate the open shots for Finley, Bowen, Barry, and Van Exel. <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">- Offensive Efficiency:</font> San Anotnio are a well organized team on both ends. We can not take quick shots and try to run n' gun with this team. Must be efficient offensively and take good shots. Also, feeding the post would be a good idea to get easy buckets as well as getting the San Antonio's bigs in foul trouble. <font face=""Comic Sans MS"">- Strong Start:</font> On the road against the defending champs, we must come out agressive and have a great 1st quarter. We cannot play from behind with this team. Establish the tone early and show no fear. Absolutly none. Or the Spurs will embarress us. <div align="center"><font color=""SeaGreen"">Game Matchup </font> vs <font size="1">Chris Bosh vs Tim Duncan </font></div> This matchup against Duncan will test Bosh's mentality. Offensively, considering Duncan is slightly banged up, Chris should go hard at him. He can't be intimitated or show any lack of confidence. Defensively, first and formost he has to keep Timmy D off the offensive glass, and constest every shot he takes. I'm not a big proponent of doubling Duncan tonight. This matchup, without a doubt, the deciding factor in this game if the Raps want to pull out an early Chrsitmas miracle. <div align="center"> <font color=""Red"">Say What?! (Prediction)</font></div> We may catch the Spurs looking forward to the big matchup against the Pistons on Sunday, but this is just a tough game. I seriously think it'd take a perfect performance from the Raps to pull this one off, which I don't expect. Raps lose, 84-78. <div align="center"> <font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="6">.......</font></font></div>
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting deception:</div><div class="quote_post">raps lose by 11</div> Lol, I'm not sure if that will work against the Spurs. The Raps will probably actually lose by 11+.
Almost certainly a loss for the Raptors, but I certainly think we're gonna do fairly well considering. I think we will be fired up, o and put a great offrot through most of the game, but still fall short.
Raptors are in this game at the half 46-49 hopefully they can pick it up in the second half. Bonner, James, Bosh and Calderon all having good games. Calderon with 5 assists.
Even though they lost, I'm not really disappointed. They played a hell of a game, and showed some improvement on both sides of the court. There consistency is going to be put to the test by the next few games.
yup, it was a well played game, too bad the mike james lay up didnt go down cause it may have been the difference down the stretch.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting iliv4ball:</div><div class="quote_post">How do i give points?</div> Execuse me?
Didn't get to see much of the game except the end, Duncan had a little cheating in there too with his push on Bosh. It's not really a dissapointment considering who we were playing.
Consistency??? This game is probably one of the better Raptor performance so far this season. Even though they lost, the Raptors actually looked like a professional basketball team tonight. They played as a team, contribution from many players, and finally a decent game from Jalen Rose. All the rumours of him being traded might have given him a reason to play harder. Maybe he's trying to show other teams that he's still capable of playing decent basketball. However, playing against the Spurs team thats without their starting swingman (Ginobli), I actually thought they could have their first 3 game winning streak. This Raptor team is still very inconsistent. Chris Bosh seems to be the only one with any kind of consistency. And Araujo was horrible as usual - collecting 5 fouls in 12 minutes . And Charlie Villanueva didn't do much with his 14:23 minutes of play time. The Raptors are playing against the Detroit Pistons on the 27th, I wonder if the Raptors will come out ready to play?!
I love how Jack and Leo always say this, yet it's such a lie. In the game, Jack was saying Jalen was "taking good shots" today, that's why he was doing better. Please, he was just shooting the same shots except this time they were going in. Pull up jumper with hand in the face from the top of the key, fadeaway jumper over a double team, driving against 2 guys and forcing it up and in over the C are not "good shots". These are shots he's just not been making before. It annoys me when they do that, if a guy makes them it doesn't suddenly become a good shot, just a bad shot they made.
It was a good game I did watch the entire game but I seemed the Raptors had one of there best performances of the year not dissapointed in the loss since they are the champions.
We've played well in SA in recent years, I'm too sure how we fared last year there, but the previous year under KO, it came down to last second shot, where Marshall missed a wide open 3. The Raps don't make a good enough effort to give Bosh the ball. We over dribble too much, and when we do get Bosh the ball, he's usually too far out from the basket, which results to a jumpshot or turnover. We need to be better at executing pick and rolls with James/Calderon/Rose & Bosh. Better yet, Sam should just come up with some actual plays. We also didn't use CV effectively. One other thing, I would of liked to see Aaron Williams in the game guarding Duncan. He played for a few minutes, but most of the time we had Bonner? and Hoffa (picked up stupid fouls against him) guarding him. Aaron Williams isn't the greatest player, but I'm sure he would do a better job on Duncan, who creates oppturnities for everyone else on the Spurs. <div class="quote_poster">Quoting og15:</div><div class="quote_post">I love how Jack and Leo always say this, yet it's such a lie. In the game, Jack was saying Jalen was "taking good shots" today, that's why he was doing better. Please, he was just shooting the same shots except this time they were going in. Pull up jumper with hand in the face from the top of the key, fadeaway jumper over a double team, driving against 2 guys and forcing it up and in over the C are not "good shots". These are shots he's just not been making before. It annoys me when they do that, if a guy makes them it doesn't suddenly become a good shot, just a bad shot they made.</div> lol yeah, that ticks me off. He takes the exact same shots as he was before, and now all of sudden since they're going in, they say he's also taking good shots. Anyone see when Jack was talking about putting Bosh over JO in the starting lineup for his All-Star team? How bias can one get. Bosh is having a better season than JO, but JO's team is clearly doing better, but he still gives Bosh the starting spot. THEN, he goes on to talk about puttin Dirk over KG as starter in the West because HIS Team is doing better than KG's. Does that make any sense? Dirk is having a better season than KG, so he could of just said that, but he goes on to say that his team is doing better than the Wolves. If he's going to use that as a factor in determining the starters, shouldn't JO be starting over Bosh? Total hypocrite.
Bosh wasn't even playing better than JO individually. JO's current numbers are: 22.5 PPG | 10.6 RPG | 2.3 APG | 2.5 BPG | 47.9% FG | 37.3 MPG Before his 34 point game he was averaging 22.0 PPG. <font color=""Navy"">Bosh:</font> 21.9 PPG | 9.5 RPG | 2.6 APG | 1 BPG | 48.3% FG | 38.3 MPG
I think Sam Mitchell's defensive system has helped in lowering Bosh's blocks, our rotations are poor. Also Bosh was doing the whole take charge thing for a while, and maybe because of his increased offensive role, he doesn't want to waste too much energy going for swats all the time. What dissapoints me is that I was expecting him to become a 2 BPG guy...
