Raptors fucking owned. Fuck the Cavs. I don't see a reason in breaking this win down at all. They had a great season opener. Played very well as a team and if they continue to play like they did last night, they're bound to win over 50 games. We have so many weapons no one expected us to have. Marco, DeMar, Rasho, Jack, Bosh, Hedo, Bargnani, etc.. to much to handle. I say we go top 3 in the East.
top 3 in the east? dont know about that. the cavs were playing on a back to back; shaq was a -25 out there which means he almost cost them the game by himself; and the raps were pumped up in their season opener. plus, its just one game but i certainly like what i saw especially from hedo, bargs, antione wright, demar and marco. btw, caledron, bosh and jack had off nights which means this team can be a lot better.
The cool thing about Bargs is that most nights he won't have a quicker PF on him, simply because teams guard him with their center. That's what's always intrigued me about him. If he can hold his own against centers on defense and rebounding (he's getting there slowly but surely), he can continue to exploit their inability to guard him. I think you're being a bit too hard on Bosh. He didn't start the game great and was missing his jumpshots in the 3rd quarter, but when the Raps were relying on jumpshots and the Cavs came back he was instrumental in that run we made. He took it to the basket, drew quite a few fouls, and brought back the team's focus and intensity. He also had an excellent rebounding effort. Also you probably missed it since you saw the game live, but in the post-game interview with Leo, Bosh acknowledged that he went back to his old habit of taking too many jumpers in the 3rd and he had to make sure it didn't happen in the future. That statement really impressed the hell outta me. I loved Antoine Wright's defense. Can't say too much about his offense, because I don't remember it much. But he did have that one badass crossover move for a basket.
dennis rodman doesnt know what he's talking about, ignore him . players are not machines, they dont shoot well every night but they can control effort and he certainly was a monster on the boards and defensively he was really good, particularly in his help.although, him not driving on shaq really annoyed me and he certainly needs to be more aggressive when he sees a slow footed defender.
I really don't know how you can say Bosh had a bad game. 21-16. Personally, he had a better game than LeBron, cause his team won.
lol, too soon to call that. We did play a Cavs team, that were on the second game of a back to back, and our stadium had the season opener intensity. After our team plays on the road a couple times, it'll be a better indicator. Yea, I believe you are right Chocolove. -------------------------------------- Whatever lol. I was going to go into the reasons why I clearly thought Wright and Hedo's performance were unimpressive. But 1. deception is as stubborn as a mule. 2. Just because Hedo had a lackluster game, doesn't mean he won't have better and more active ones. 3. Wright in that game did not look good. Well, I will discuss this. I agree that depending on who is on the floor Bargs will draw centers. However if Bosh is on the floor with him, a lot of coaches will put say KG on Bargnani and switch Perkins to Bosh (who stays closer to the paint). Or say Orlando, put the C (Dwight) on Bosh, and put PF (Rashard Lewis) on Bargs. Anyway, it was an excellent game by Bargs. Yea, I didn't catch the post-game interviews. Bosh gets some extra calls due to star power that other players wouldn't be able to get, (just like every other star). His actual game on the court was not all that impressive live. I didn't realise he shot 6-17 (probably like 6-19 without a couple of the star calls) Although he had one nice move on Shaq and he blew by him and got hammered before he could reverse it.
Offensively maybe, but Wright took 3 charges and still has to be hurt. Also hit a big three. Also, we won this game with D, also without Evans. Also, almost won the reboudning battle, without Nutso.
He also made some dumb fouls early, and seemed uncomfortable on offense. Obviously it's just 1 game, maybe he'll be more comfortable later on. Bosh often has better games, he won't always shoot 6-17. We'll have to see how Evans does. Will opposing teams stick their PF on Bargnani and just slide the Center to have an easy time guarding Evans?
Probably. Bargnani's shown us that he can exploit the extremes (slower-footed centers and quicker small forwards). It'll be interesting to see if he can ever dominate offensively against the middle ground (power forwards). Before the season, I thought Wright should be the starter. Looks like I was wrong. In extended minutes his lack of an offensive presence comes through. As a bench player, he can be really effective as a defensive sparkplug.
For Bargnani offensively his biggest mismatch is against centers for sure. Centers tend to hate leaving the paint, feeling it's their job to defend it for shot blocking. Bargnani shouldn't be left wide open at the 3 point line. If a center that comes out to defend him, generally Bargs has the speed/stamina advantage against other centers from the 3 point line to the hoop. Personally, I curious if our rebounding numbers will hold up against other teams, that would be a big issue that we've been terrible at and statistically we were solid yesterday.
We gave up a lot of offensive rebounds yesterday, it was very frustrating to watch. So yeah, it's gonna be a problem for us. But for the most part I think we did okay with boxing out, it's just one or two of our perimeter guys need to help grab the ball.
Those the offensive rebounding did suck to start the game, I think that's all Shaq really did well all game, and that was his offensive boards to start. Shaq had 7 rebounds, 4 offensive, And Id bet at least 3 of those were in there first quarter. I remember in the 1st it was 7-2 offensive rebounds for the Cavaliers. After that, it was only 6-5 for them. Shaq not only went downhill from that, but was -25. Bosh was anything but RuPaul with 21 and 16. Shaq was RuPaul last night, this time, impersonating a Championship acquisition.
I've mentioned it before, but the wide-spread emphasis on rebounding should really only be on defensive rebounding. Offensive rebounding isn't as important for teams that are efficient/potent offensively, and there have been championship teams that aren't particularly good offensive rebounders. You absolutely have to clamp down on your own boards though. We should evaluate this team on their defensive rebounding numbers, not total rebounding. I thought the Raps were mixed in that respect. They started off giving quite a few second chances, but improved on that as the game went on. I think this team does have what it takes to hold its own on the defensive boards, though.
Well, we definitely won't ever be a strong offensive rebounding team with Bargnani usually sitting on the perimeter offensively, and Bosh usually 10+ feet away as well. and I agree if we can be efficient offensively, then offensive rebounding is less of a worry. Defensive rebounding is vital though, and has completely crippled us in the past.
I watched the game in 6 minutes today, and one of the plays was Jack Din up Mo Williams for probably 13 seconds and Jack played with him so bad. And forced a bad shot. Jack shot real bad, but played D real good. I just hope we aren't letting ourselves down for a loss tomorrow. A loss Sunday I understand, not tomorrow though.
My thoughts are that the raptors were a much better team than they showed last season and it's not surprising they're going to do a lot better this season.
Well I think a lot of it depends on our coaching and rebounding. I have a friend that always says Triano is a joke signing by the Raptors because they just want to sell tickets for a having a Canadian coach. If Triano is a crappy coach, then we obviously are in trouble. and if we have defensive rebounding woes like last year we could be a pretty inconsistent looking team. Completely relying on our offense.
