Starters Pg: Caledron sg: Derozan sf: Turk pf: Bosh c: Bargs Pacers Pg: Ford sg: rush sf: Granger pf: troy murphy c: Hibbert notes: first meeting for jack against his old team and of course marks the intriguing matchup between old teammates- ford and caledron. also, beli and wright are making their return from injury tonight. prediction: raps win 111-98 and the girl...
she's smart, she's an actress, she's rich and she's sexy= every dude's fantasy game notes -rasho has usurped sonny as the designated chucker -jack is playing a solid floor game -same with caledron -derozan looks disenchanted on the bench -hopefully we cant rest the big names in the second half for the bobcats on a back to back pacers -tj needs to stop fading away on his shots and attack the basket, he's one of the quickest players in the league and manages to squander it all with his passivity
He shot 6/9 which is a good percentage though. Jack shot really well as well. 7-7 FG, and an unusual 3/3 from 3. Bosh on the other hand shot 26% (5-19), while everyone else shot 66%. Btw, the guy that I said didn't impress me in the first game, and you thought he was so great, well he continues to be mediocre, he shot his usual 25%, and is shooting 30% on the season. Obvious liability on the offensive end.
I didn't watch the game but at one point we were up by 18 points and yet DeRozan only played 10 minutes...
bosh forced it, he needs to realize that he has to incorporate his teammates and if he wants to look for a point of a reference, look at his olympic teammates (wade, bron, melo, d howard) who never force it. notes -horrendous defense, although, there was nothing u could do on granger other than be much more physical on him -jack had a terrific game, dare i say flawless on both ends -triano needs to establish a more consistent rotation cause some of the guys seem puzzled when they are taken out of the game, particularly the guards -we need to play amir at least 15 minutes a game because no one else on the team does what he does (i.e. hustle and play defense)
Whenever I see Antonie Wright I think he looks like Jalen Rose on the court. Not in style, just in appearance. Tall, thin, headband... don't remember if Rose had the sleeve. It wouldn't be a season without the annual beat-up on coach O'Brien. We've hammered him more than any other coach, IIRC. It seems no matter what team he coaches we just light him up every time.
Melo forces it plenty. I've seen him have some really horrible games from him. Lebron sometimes forces it, but usually because his team's coaching isn't too great. Bosh really looks great because of the star calls he gets now. In his rookie year if he pulled off those same moves he wouldn't get half the calls he does now. Agreed, he's kind of small compared to say Bargnani or Bosh, but he tougher than either of them. DeRozan has potential though, it's his first year in the league, he still has things to learn like all rookies and get the jitters out. Wright hasn't shown me anything to have confidence in him, although you seem to love the guy.
And yes, Bosh does lead the league in FTA (11.8 per game). There are only 17 other players in the NBA to even average 6 or more FTA per game.
Does anybody think AB can keep up the pace he has set? 17/7 would be a great season for him. His shooting %'s are good as well.
every star forces, its part of their job description to assert themselves, however, look at their assist numbers compared to bosh's. or better yet look at KG's assist numbers in minny where he was the number one option but he still managed to put up 5, 6 assists nightly. and the sobering truth is that bosh's surrounding cast might better than lebron and wade's offensively, defensively is of course a different question. derozan has potential but so does gerald green. ive stated this previously but let me reiterate it for u- he has no handles, no shot, suspect lateral quicks, undersized a bit for his position and doesnt do anything exceptionally well at this point. wright has been injured all season but the does something that no other wing player for the raptors do- he actually plays defense or at least tries to. and on nights like this when a wing is scoring at will, u insert wright and ask him to be responsible with his shot selection on the offensive end.
ab has had a bad stretch, although, that might the lingering effects of his flu so to answer your question- he's an enigma and no one really knows.
Hard to say. He got off to a great start - scoring >20 points in 4 of the first 6 games and was shooting the ball very well. Since then, he appears to be regressing to the norm - scoring > 20 points in only 1 of the last 9 games, shooting percentages, scoring and PER all in steady decline (but still the best of his career). The one encouraging thing is that while his scoring and shooting percentage have decreased, his rebounding has been much better recently (averaging 9.3 RPG over the last 4 games). That's a good sign, because in the past if his shot wasn't falling, he didn't contribute anything else. Looks like he may have found a way to help the team when he not shooting well. While 7 RPG isn't great for a starting center who plays 34 MPG, and it's a bit inflated due to the fast paced style the Raptors play, it's definitely an improvement. His TRB% of 11.4 is still quite bad for a 7-footer, but at least it's not historically bad like it has been in the past and and the first time in his career it's been above 10.0. And, as I said, it's been improving lately. Hard to say if he can keep this up over an 82 game schedule. He's sailing in uncharted waters right now. Early in the season he was averaging over 20 PPG and had a PER above 20. Now both are back down around 17.5. The question is will both continue to decline, or can he maintain, or raise them over the remainder of the season. If he can do the latter, it will be a big improvement over his previous three seasons and a significant step forward. BNM
Yeah it's hard to predict especially with the rotation kind of in flux with Johnson, Evans, Nesterovic and Pops getting sporadic playing time.
