Cool. It will be interesting to see if the Raps get off to a better start with him in the starting line up. BNM
Re: fourth preseason game derozan had extended minutes because of weems, wright and of course hedo missing time nursing injuries. as for hedo-im concerned as well but he's a vet and im confident he will fit in and hopefully ignite our offense. as for bargnani- im not concerned because i think the kid's defense is improving every day. he actually might be a better one on one defender than bosh. although, his rebounding is still sub par. the dude who really worries me is caledron who simply cannot keep his man in front of him. his porous defense hurts bargani and bosh as well who are lured into cheap fouls on help situations and as a consequence they play conservatively on D creating opportunities for other bigs. its the domino theory and caledron is the cause.
Re: fourth preseason game The Blazers had a similar problem with their PGs getting beat off the dribble last season. That lead to Greg Oden picking up a ton of cheap fouls on smaller players. Oden was out of shape, overweight, not used to the speed of the NBA game and had lost considerable lateral quickness after coming off microfracture surgery. So, he picked up a lot of hip check fouls against smaller, faster players. He simply couldn't beat them to the spot and get his feet set in time to stop their penetration. A lot of smart PGs expoited this weakness and took the ball right at Oden to get him in foul trouble. It sounds like Bargnai is having similar problems trying to cover up Calderon's mistakes. Oden looks much quicker so far in preseason. So, hopefully, that will cut down on these kinds of fouls. Of course, the Raps biggest problems are going to be defense and rebounding. Last season, their biggest problems were defense, rebounding and an incredibly weak bench. Colangelo addressed the bench issue big time, but if anything, your defense and rebounding have gotten worse (at least in the starting unit - Evans gives you a good rebounder off the bench). You have enough offensive fire power to simply out score weaker opponents during the regular season. So, you should win significantly more games than last season. But, you will struggle to stop above average offenseive teams from scoring. Unfortunately, the Raps two biggest weaknesses will doom any chance of post season success. Teams that can't defend and don't rebound well don't win in the post season. The last two times the Raps made the play-offs they lost in the first round for exactly those reasons. In spite of all the off season moves, I don't see how that has changed. BNM
Sixth Preseason Game instead of opening another thread for the sixth preseason game, ill just post in here -easily the worst outing thus far -the raps starters were outplayed by a potential lottery team -belinelli gives u nothing defensively and his three point shot has been non existent so far -hedo is an offensive initiator but defensively he cant keep anyone in front of him -amir was outplayed by pops -pat obryant is really impressing me -caledron is picking up his game on both ends -bosh needs to stop holding on to the ball note about strategy.. the raps defensively are packing the paint and giving up three point shots. that strategy imploded in their faces today as houston outscored the raps 39-6 from the three point arch today.
Re: Sixth Preseason Game Holy crap, that's bad. I know the Raps have had trouble defending the perimeter in the past (got killed in the Orlando, series, for example), but have they actually gotten even worse? I didn't get to watch the game, but just looking at the box score, Houston totally killed you guys from long range. Were they just leaving Battier wide open? No way he shoots 8-9 from down town with a hand in his face. I know Hedo, Calderon and Belinelli are all weak individual defenders, but putting all three on the court together is bound to be a train wreck. BNM
Ariza was hitting everything and miscommunication by the guards. Really, they just couldn't miss, almost regardless of the D
Re: Sixth Preseason Game today it was more about poor defensive strategies than poor individual performances. btw, jose has really impressed me of late with his defensive intensity
Well, at least theyre getting it wrong in pre season. seriously though, we need to get better defending out in the perimeter because thats what causes everything else to fall apart.
