No game thread, so i thought i'd start one. Eventhough the raps lost, i was pretty pleased with the way most raptors played tonight. Pape sow absolutely killed it. He had 15 rebounds (8 offensive) and 13 points. Andre Barrett playeed pretty good aswell. Mo-Pete and MIke James were terrific (James didnt jack up shots this game). However, Charlie and Joey had a horrible game. Joey just looked lost, and Charlie was just not getting anything in.
uggh you beat me to it .. i'll just repost what i wrote here... No defense classic all the way to the finish. It was entertaining to watch - but it really highlighted how badly we need Bosh on the floor to be competitive. Very Brief Game notes: 1) At one point Mitchell had Mopete playing the 4.... Interesting.... 2) Pop Sow had a great game... I know he had career highs but that was more a product of the type of game it was. I was way more impressed with his athleticism and how much more composed the guy is now when he gets a board. That dunk he had in the 4th was huge... 3) CV3 left with flu like symptoms (2-10 on the night). Didn't really get to show his stuff out there. The Suns seemed to match up with Charlie really well with all the lanky 3-4 players on their team. Marion played good D on him from what I saw... 4) One thing that was apparent from watching the game was that while we did put up a lot of points we played right into their plans. Phoenix has a good team offense and we have a bunch of good offensive players. Barrett and Calderon are both good at moving the ball but their isn't really any kind of flow throughout the team ... guys don't move on offense either because they don't expect to get the ball or they are just too lazy ..
We sank ourselves into a hole early on and just couldn't get back. Tonight really showed how far off we are from Phoenix and a great team played a great game. Everytime we made a run the Suns were always able to make some big shots and then some stops. Our help defense was terrible tonight, and the Suns just used it to their advantage, swinging it around and finding the inevitable open man on the perimeter. We tried to go small against them and as a result got beat up on the defensive boards. I don't see why we didn't play Hoffa or Lang as Diaw and Thomas can't have handled them down low. We didn't even try to post Charlie up most of the time. Instead, we tried to beat Phoenix shot by shot and they made more than us. I don't really know who to blame tonight, it's just one of those nights where you have a pretty good game but still manage to look bad. The defense was terrible, though there's no one to pinpoint to besides Mitchell.
