It seems as if Bosh is ready to take on a larger role in the Raptors' offense. Woods was looking good too, but he is more of a role player rather than someone who could take over games on his own as a force. Carter is not looking like he's unhappy in Toronto at all, and Rafer is really thriving in Mitchell's offense. Good win, but the Rockets will get theirs back when the Raps go to Houston.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Wizk4nyc15:</div><div class="quote_post">Yeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Go Raps... glad they won, i wished Carter would score a little more but its cool. I didn't watch the game, but followed the play by play on nba.com, it was so boring reading stupid sentences, i wish i had NBA TV, my mom wouldn't pay for it though. But w/e lets go Raps, great stats by Alston, and Woods too. :mrgreen: </div> Carter did more important things like play pretty good defense on McGrady, and he distributed the ball with 6 assists. Good thing that Bosh, Alston, and Rose helped with the scoring.
Carter sealed the game with a nice pass inside to Woods for the dunk. Chuck called it "the dagger." He was very good tonight. He did a lot of the stuff that doesnt show up on the stat sheet.
^ chuck says a lot of things that are really off. They were only leading by 5 or so at that point with like a minute left. Houston could have still got it back but the Raptors pulled through. I was really impressed with the whole Raptors team today, especially Rafer, Bosh and Woods. Yao was not the least bit dominant at all, only for a short stint. He seemed uncomfortable and fatigued. Tracy struggled as well. Vince actually played some nice D on him. I was really impressed with Bosh's play (muscle flex and all). Woods always played excellent D on Yao and picked up some nice garbage points. Rafer was just excellent running the point. Good game by the Raps!
Great game played by the Raps. I thought that Woods played great D versus Yao. A very good performance by the all of the Raps starters today.
all rite the raptors were impressive tonight, espacially swinging the ball around the perimeter. their quick-fire strategy at the start paid off, allowing some easy points and boosting their confidence. what really suprised me was that tmac and yao are not so porductive offensively. given their talents, they should at least combine for around 43 points, yet i see they are not up to it. but then again, team chemistry is lacking and i shouldn't dish houston for the losses. well, the raptors are definatley playing better than last season, but it is still early and we have to see first
The raptors ball movement today was very good, they looked solid in all areas of the game. All I can say (from what ive seen so far) is that Rafer Alston has been a great addition to this team. I'm not judging it on his stats, I'm judging it on how he pushes the ball and his playmaking ability, that no on thought he had coming into this situation. There were a few flaws in the half court sets but that will come with time, also not everything can be perfect. Chris Bosh was excellent scoring 20 pts and adding 7 rebounds, his mid range J looked solid. Jalen Rose had a silent but effective game scoring 17 pts, but the reason why it was silent was because he only went 3-10, but shot 10-10 from the FT line. Vince looked like the same Vince as he was last year, nothing spectacular but a solid game overall, its very safe to say that he will never ever get back to what people call his "normal" self, but I enjoyed watching him today becasue he played very unselfish and really got into the game. Overall it was a great game by the Raptors, the next game is vs. Detroit on Friday.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting urbannomad23:</div><div class="quote_post">oooooohh! they won lol. im surprised! bosh is playing awesome and rafer is gonna be like 13 5 5 this whole season. i luv the kidd! and VC! i dont care if he makes 20ppg as long as he is contributing in the game im happy. now that all the BS is gone! I look forward to this raptors season, and watch out for bonner! he will be a great backup i was watching him, so calm at times and yet so kool. wtf is up with palacio! i dont like that guy period!. lol</div> Huh? From one game, Rafer going to be more like a 13-3-6+ guy in the season, he's not going to be grabbing this many boards every game, just had a lot of oppurtunities today. Good game by the team, they played great team defense, everyone did well, Carter hit his shots, Rafer was nice, and Bosh was killing, driving to the basket and doing his thing. Jalen still looks for the foul too much, he needs to drive in order to finish not to go to the line all the time. Donyell is still a three point chucker, he loves it too much.
YEAH! Good game by the Raps. Since everyone talked about good stuff, i'll go a bit negative.... Palacio hasn't improved much at all. In fact, he may have even gotten worse (if that's possible). I was surprised that Mason Jr. didn't get any playing time...he's a really hard worker. Mo Pete was extremely disappointing....all that "i'm gonna start slashing and driving like before and not settle for the three as much" talk seemed to be just a big lie after watching him this game. I hope he picks it up. Other than that...great game by everyone else. I didn't watch Arujo very close though...was he playing good d for the time he was in? Mitchell took him off so fast after, i wonder why.
Good game by the raptors, good D played by woods, great performance by bosh and good games by alston and carter. Overall they played great.
Araujo looked pretty lost on D. He was aggressive on the offensive boards though. He should get more time as the season progresses.
Man, I'm loving this new up-tempo style that Mitchell's got us playing. I was a skeptical about our offense in the pre-season but after tonight it's safe to say that we are a hell of a lot better offensively. No more of this KO style, slow paced snooze fest of a ball game. The positives for tonight: - Bosh was extra impressive. He's looking super confident (the arm flex!!) and was looking to attack the bucket as soon as he first touched the ball. - Woods played great D - Carter played great unselfish ball - Alston pushes the ball extremely well and can also hit the jumper when needed The negatives: - Our bench was unimpressive to say the least. Other than Marshall (who had a tough night guarding Yao), everyone else is a huge question mark. But for some reason, I think Palacio may flurish with this new up-tempo style offense. He had stints where he was playing good ball, so I guess we'll have to see if he can improve his game. - I was hoping Araujo could come out and play 10+ minutes but it's still clear that he needs to spend more time observing the plays and learning the game from the bench.
just saw the game now. i was working so i had it taped for me very happy with what i saw. what i saw was: rafer playing some awesome ball in every facet of the game. if he continues to play like this, all the talk about raps over paying for him will go away pretty quick. if this is a sign of things to come, id say he's worth every penny loren woods who i was pretty worried about defensively, played really well. very surprising. i hope he can stay motivated and keep it up cant wait for the next game against detroit. gonna be a tough game, but im anxious to see my raps back in action.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting dunksworth:</div><div class="quote_post">The Rockets are a much better team than the Raps</div> i dont think their that much better of a team. alstons much better than ward raps + 1 t-mac's much better than rose even vc is much better than Jackson raps + 1 bosh is a bit better than taylor(for now) raps + 2 yao is much better than woods raps + 1 marshell is even with howard.......raps + 1 and i think TO has the ability to mesh well. I honestly dont think the Rockets have it in them...i'm predicting an 8th seed season...maybe even out of the playoffs. t-mac's not a great team player, and i dont think Yao is all the hype would have you believe. he's one of the best centers in the league...but thats not saying much. the league is void of any good centers. he's still only a 16 and 9 man....and he's not as good a blocker as he should be i predicted raps would win easy
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting og15:</div><div class="quote_post">It was Tmac vs Vince, not Tmac vs Rose, Carter is the SG, and Rose is the SF.</div> not according to the starting line up. the official starting line up, had rose in the back court and vince at the 3
Great game for the raps as a team.. rafer alston's passing.. i cant put into words how good he was passing.. hitting everyone.. keeping the tempo up.. its clear he was the best addition to the team... loren woods played a great game defensively... just have to see if he can be consistant.. as far as carter... lets be honest ppl.. ok he played good unselfish ball.. but did anyone notice any time he tried to take it up he got closed off?... his ability to penetrate is very VERY BAD.. i was very disappointed to see him unable to blow past the defender even once... .. hopefully he will get more opportunities... but he would not take it strong.. and wen he tried he got forced into doing something stupid.. hopefully someone other than me saw... bosh dunk on yao after the whistle.. hahaha that was funny, and also bosh ripped a shot out of the air wen a whistle was blown "get that garbage outta here" haah, vince blocked tmac.. haha.. umm palacio needs to move to the 2 spot as his passing ability is very bad in comparison to rafer.. but he can penetrate (better than carter from what I saw yesterday, carters so slow its not funny, i dont know whats going on... oh well he developed his shot for a reason...)
I was at the game last night and here were my observations <ul> [*]Rafer is good, probably the best Raptor out there in terms of getting any kind of offense going. Anytime the Raptors were standing around on offense, he would penetrate and find the open man. Ran the break each and every time. Didn't matter if he had no Raptors running with him, he still ran. Rafer gives the Raptors something they never had since the days of Muggsy and Mark Jackson.......a true point guard. [*]VC looked timid but played intelligently. Every field goal he had came off of a jump shot. He did try to drive but was always converged on when near the basket. He made the right pass every time the defense's did that. Once the defense lay off of him playing the pass, it should open up the basket for him to attack. Good solid play from VC. Also, he played damn good defense on Mcgrady. Always contesting his shots. He did get burned a couple of times but overall he played T-Mac pretty well. [*]Jalen is still Jalen. Thank god he isn't running the point for the Raptors. He is a born scorer and you can tell every time he touches the ball that he wants to shoot it. [*]Milt Falacio sucks, I can't be anymore specific than that. Every time he touched the ball or came into the game, everyone in the stands was wondering why the hell he was on the court. They ran one play where they TRIED to post him up on Tyronn Lue, you could hear the ACC mutter something under their breaths when that happened. Running post plays for Milt? That can't be a good sign about the Raptors bench. [*]Chris Bosh is the Man. Other than Rafer he was the guy making things happen for the Raptors. He seems more focused and more intense since last season. Can't wait to see how his season pans out, so far, he's lookin like the real deal at 20 years old. [/list]Overall the Raptors played pretty well as a team. Good ball movement and they actually set EFFECTIVE screens for each other. The offense just looks more fluid than last year. The defense can be worked on a bit more. They shadowed Mcgrady with two players every time he tried to come off of a screen and it worked. Who would have thought Loren Woods would contain Yao? Personally I don't think Woods can maintain this play for the length of the season but stranger things have happened. Good win for the Raps, nothing to get too excited about. The Rockets don't seem to be playing well together yet, the first real test for them is coming up against Detroit.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">VC looked timid but played intelligently. Every field goal he had came off of a jump shot. He did try to drive but was always converged on when near the basket. He made the right pass every time the defense's did that. Once the defense lay off of him playing the pass, it should open up the basket for him to attack. Good solid play from VC. Also, he played damn good defense on Mcgrady. Always contesting his shots. He did get burned a couple of times but overall he played T-Mac pretty well.</div> Yes, I was surprised, sometimes I had myself saying move your feet Carter or don't be flat footed, but through the whole game he played good defense. He's always been a pretty good off the ball defender, but he was playing good D on the ball yesterday. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Milt Falacio sucks, I can't be anymore specific than that. Every time he touched the ball or came into the game, everyone in the stands was wondering why the hell he was on the court. They ran one play where they TRIED to post him up on Tyronn Lue, you could hear the ACC mutter something under their breaths when that happened. Running post plays for Milt? That can't be a good sign about the Raptors bench.</div> Thank You!
