@ Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON 7 pm ET, CBS February 20, 2010 Projected Starters R. Foye J. Howard M. Miller A. Blatche J McGee Key Reserves A. Thorton, N. Young J. Jack D. Derozan H. Turkoglu A. Bargnani R. Nesterovic Key Reserves A. Wright, J. Calderon Key Matchup vs. Girl of the Game [video=youtube;y7tP01bQ9Sc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tP01bQ9Sc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tP01bQ9Sc[/video]
rasho will eviscerate the inexperienced wizards frontline. interestingly, jarrett referred to rasho's performance as "remarkable" because he believed the game was about rhythm and obviously u cant establish any rhythm at the end of the bench- and i tend to agree with that logic.
well all the above wouldnt be possible or meaningful without jack taking over the game- that was impressive!!!
such a nice victory, old raps would have folded but guys like Jack and Wright have really changed our attitude
Didn't see the game... happy to see another W. Aside from Hedo and Bargnani's somewhat unreal contract extension, I think Colangelo has done a remarkable job with this team. So many good pieces. Depth is just so important in this league. Credit to Triano too who is still very much a young and mistake-prone coach but has brought the team together and seemingly changed the culture of the franchise in doing so.
i actually dont mind barg's number anymore, although, effectively making him untradeable by making him a base year compensation player is confounding to me. and hedo's contract is just not regrettable, its inexcusable. btw, i agree with chocolove- wright and jack were difference makers last night.
I don't mind Bargnani's contract at all because though it is high, when you look at LaMarcus Aldridge, he is making $65 mil in the same span.
Was at this game. It actually got really loud towards the end. I thought it was just me, but a couple of our journalists pointed out the same thing. For some reason, the crowd started doing the wave in the 3rd quarter. That was kinda weird. Jack and Bargnani basically won the game for us. The Raptors had no offensive rhythm and were getting torched defensively with 5 minutes left in the game. Jack came in the game and single-handedly resuscitated our offense. Bargnani decided to bail out his guards with some excellent help D (best I've ever seen from him). It was pretty crazy how they both picked it up at the exact same time, but it really bailed out the team. After the game, I couldn't help thinking that this was a 25 point win if the team decided to try before the last 5 minutes of the 4th. Bargnani was abusing Blatche in the post in the first quarter. He'd set up down there, back him down pretty effectively, and nail that turnaround jumper. If he the shot wasn't there, he was passing out and creating open shots. Eventually, he subbed out for a rest and we never set him up down low again. That really confused me. Bargs has a tendency to get really passive offensively. If you let him, he'll drift around the 3 pt. line, setting picks, and passing the ball away if he doesn't get an open shot. It's less of a problem than it used to be, but it's still there. I thought the logical solution to this problem would be to set him up downlow again. Make sure he touches the ball and takes advantage of a matchup we knew he could exploit. Even if the Wiz had doubled him and denied a good look (which they were doing on the perimeter), he could easily have created good looks with his passing ability. The key would have been to make the ball run through him. Instead we'd post up Amir Johnson and Reggie Evans, neither of whom have any ability to create for themselves.
I'm reading Bosh will play against the Blazers, so that's a plus. Great win and so far, I must say, very impressed with our team. No one predicted how well we're doing and I can't wait till we make a run.
