Linkage - Feb 26
The return of T.J. Ford arrived the moment he touched the floor to begin last night’s fourth quarter.
This wasn’t a case of Ford playing second-fiddle, looking to pass or finding his legs.
This was Ford pre-injury problems, attacking the rim with abandon, pushing the ball in the open floor, finding his teammates and directing them to their proper spots.
With Jose Calderon struggling, this was Ford’s time to deliver and re-establish himself as a front-line player.
More than anything, Ford delivered the Raptors to their 102-98 win over the Pacers in a game short on style points.
Jamario Moon was given the hook for Carlos Delfino. Kris Humphries was then inserted to provide some kind of rebounding presence, followed by Rasho Nesterovic.
In total, 10 players saw the floor for the Raptors in the ugliest 12 minutes one will see.
"Jose’s played a lot of minutes and he’s been unbelievable but we need them both," Mitchell said after Toronto ran its record to 31-24. "It’s a change of pace for our basketball team; you have to play them differently. When T.J. comes in the game, he gives you a different look and when Jose comes back he gives you a different look. They make our team go."
"I think the whole game, I was just trying to continue to build on what I did (Sunday)," said Ford. "Just try to continue to stay focused. I know it’s important for the second unit to come in, just try to bring some energy, just try to play extremely hard and if we have to change the tempo, change the tempo.
"As a group, we’re all building our confidence."
Although Delfino made things unnecessarily close by committing a silly offensive foul with the Raptors up by five with about 50 seconds left, Toronto did execute well down the stretch. Ford was able to grab both his offensive rebounds in the final two minutes and Toronto defended well in holding Indiana to just 21 fourth-quarter points.
"You’re proud of your team for finding a way to win a basketball game," said Mitchell. "It wasn’t pretty, we’ve got some guys tired, rightfully so. … I thought our bench played unbelievable tonight.
"We just gutted this one out, this was a tough game."
This year’s difference between the two conferences has some thinking of how things could change in a dream world where the league messes around with its playoffs with frequency.
Having just the division winners qualify and then going by record without regard to seeding has been proposed. So has a "cross-over" when it gets down to two teams in each conference.
I had to rub my eyes late in the second quarter last night. I swear I saw a play where Anthony Parker curled off a screen, made a pass to Jason Kapono who was curling off a screen, Kapono got to the rim, missed a layup and Chris Bosh had a put-back dunk.
Haven’t seen that much motion in one Raptor offensive set all season. Didn’t see it again last night but at least now we know they can do it.
The Pacers started a smaller lineup to emphasize a running game.
"Our game plan had been set for [forward-centre Jeff] Foster to start," Bosh said. "So we had to change our original game plan.
"We knew with the change they made that they were going to try and come out and run us out of the building. But after we got going, getting to the line was key. When a player like T.J. comes in, he can really speed things up."
"I think now we have a second-team punch with T.J. getting in shape and getting into rhythm," Delfino said. "It opens things up for us offensively and it sure can change our game as the second team."
Is it any coincidence that T.J. Ford and Jason Kapono seem to have pretty good chemistry on the floor? I don’t think so. Ford is a high I.Q. basketball player and consistently pushes the envelope when it comes making plays and creating opportunities. He uses his speed to get into seams – sometimes to create them — and has the court vision and skills to deliver the ball in surprising ways. Kapono is a high I.Q player who is great at finding space on the floor and reacting to his teammates. He lacks only the foot speed to create that space on his own. But with Ford making room, Kapono looks to be the guy on the second unit he is best at taking advantage of them.
After the starters fizzled, Delfino and company got hot in the second quarter. Even Kris Humphries played a part in the comeback to erase Toronto’s 11-point first-quarter deficit.
Humphries scored five points during Toronto’s 10-0 run to start the second quarter. On Sunday, newcomer Primoz Brezec had taken most of Humphries’ usual minutes.
And all-star three-point shooting champion Jason Kapono, nearly dormant in the Raptors’ mix, also got into the act, mostly thanks to Ford. The point guard hooked up Kapono with a beautiful behind-the-back pass in the second quarter leading to an easy layup. Kapono converted, and went on to score nine points in the first half, more than he had in any of his previous five outings.
Both teams lost double-digit leads during the game. The Pacers blew a 13-point lead when they were outscored by 19 in the second quarter. The Raptors returned the favor by squandering their 10-point third-quarter lead by letting the Pacers take a two-point lead in the fourth quarter.
Toronto used a 13-2 run midway through the fourth quarter to take a 97-88 lead with 4:10 left. Carlos Delfino, who was 6-of-7 on 3-pointers, scored seven of his 23 points during the run. All-Star Chris Bosh led Toronto with 24 points and 10 rebounds.
Brezec was happy to get out of both Charlotte and Detroit. He believed Bobcats coach Sam Vincent had not been honest with him, and he didn’t see a second of playing time with the Pistons.
It could be different with Toronto. He scored 11 points, hitting all five field goals, in 13 minutes in his debut on Sunday. He didn’t play against the Pacers.
"Everyone knows I’ve been a great guy and worked my (behind) off," he said. "I never take shortcuts. I’m just looking for a fair chance.
"I think this is my final stop in the NBA. Hard work has to pay off."
If there is such thing as a sophomore slump in the NBA, there is little evidence of it in 2008.
Of the top 10 second-year scorers in the NBA this season, nine have improved upon their rookie years. Only the Toronto Raptors’ Andrea Bargnani is scoring less (slightly, from 11.6 to 10.3 points per game).
I’m mildly amused at his desire to stay in Toronto “long term” — he said the exact same thing when he arrived in Detroit from Charlotte. Maybe he’s sincere, or maybe he’s just really worried about being a free agent this summer.
A better team would have beat the Raptors tonight, at least it seemed that way to me. The Pacers came out gunning in the 1st quarter; got out hustled by the Raps B-squad, clawed back in the 3rd, and made a game of it in the 4th.
I know what you’re thinking…rebounding killed the Raptors. Usually you would be right…surprisingly not tonight. The Raptors outrebounded the Pacers 46-39. This game was this close for two reasons:
- The Pacers had about 15 WIDE OPEN LOOKS FROM THE PERIMETER.
- The Raptors turned the ball over 17 times.
In the first half, I thought Mitchell did a great job getting the right players in to change the pace in the second quarter and grab the lead. He went small to defend against Indiana’s perimeter shooters, and he made a point of benching Jamario Moon for missed assignments. (In fact, at one point Moon jumped off the bench as he thought his number had been called and Mitchell basically chest bumped him right back to the bench as it had been Ford who Mitchell wanted to insert into the game.) However in the third quarter he made some puzzling moves rotation-wise and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t try going really big to force Pacers’ coach Jim O’Brien to adjust. Tell me a line-up of Primoz, CB4 and Andrea wouldn’t have been interesting, especially coming off the game Brezec had just had? Nothing else was working, and considering how small the Pacers were for most of the night, I thought going big might have really given Toronto the push they needed to close things out much earlier. On top of this, I couldn’t understand the need to rest CB4 for so long at the start of the fourth quarter considering how little he had played against the Knicks! Maybe Mitchell was confident that his troops would figure things out in the end but I wasn’t and the end result was a match that was way too close for fans’ comfort.
He brings energy and toughness and knows how to rebound. He is a glue guy and it is too bad that he probably won’t play this year. So to cheer the guy up we at Cuzoogle decided to send him to the Oscars to help make him a star. Just think if he had been cast in many of the Oscar winners this year? That would make up for having to listen to Darrick Martin tell him what he would of done on endless plays. Get better soon Garbo and for now enjoy these photo jobs.
Would you feel better knowing TJ had missed 3, 2nd half layups and was 6-14 at the time?
But that’s TJ. He’s allegedly working his way back in, which tonight meant hoisting up more shots than anyone on the team. He played more minutes than Calderone (who was mostly invisible) and he did what TJ does down the stretch. Hold the ball for TJ time.
I’m officially concerned. Mitchell has got to get TJ working with the system. And when he does it will be a beautiful thing. But the last 3 minutes of the game if TJ and Jose are both in, let me suggest Jose at the 1, and TJ at the 2.
2.) Jason Kapono: 28.6% FG, 1.3 PPG, 0.7 Reb, 1.0 Ast, no three’s
Is this the curse of the 3pt shooting champ? In three games over the week, he only attempted one three and missed it. His playing time was cut considerably, and I don’t know why. He doesn’t normally do much on the court other than spot up, and when he is not even doing that he is virtually useless.
Toronto tried to take advantage of Indiana’s small starting lineup by force feeding the ball to Bosh in the post but he shot just 2-9 from the field in the first quarter while committing two turnovers. Both Bosh and Toronto Coach Sam Mitchell complained several times that the smaller Pacers were holding on to Bosh prior to him catching the ball and then fouling him when he shot and from my vantage point courtside that did seem to be the case (check out the Notes from Courtside for more details about this). The Raptors committed seven turnovers in the first quarter.
In his pregame standup, Coach O’Brien talked about the pressure that Toronto puts on opposing defenses: "They’re the number one three point shooting team in the league…Calderon and T.J. Ford use pick and rolls on 80-90% of their possessions to free them up to get inside or to roll somebody else inside or to isolate Bosh 10 feet away from the basket. Against all teams, whether teams are defending us or we are defending against the Boston Celtics or Toronto Raptors, we just cannot allow deep penetration. The more deep penetration that they have, the more that draws your people inside and puts you into a scramble mode on the perimeter. A real key for us is right at the point of the pick and roll: we have to get that ballhandler under control with our big guy and then our guard has to really bust it to make sure that he gets back in front of the guy so that he can prevent his man from penetrating so that everybody can match up and hopefully be set to play against the three point shooters."
Only seven NBA teams have shot better than .400 from three point range for an entire season but the Raptors seem likely to become the eighth. In fact, they are on pace to post the second best single season three point shooting percentage since the NBA began using the trey in 1979-80 and they have a shot (no pun intended) of breaking the mark set by the 1995-96 Charlotte Hornets (.428).
Jason Kapono plays a big part in their long range bombing. The two-time defending Three Point Shootout champion also ranks first in NBA history in career three point field goal percentage with a .467 mark, leading Steve Kerr (.454), Hubert Davis (.441), Drazen Petrovic (.437) and Tim Legler (.431). Kapono scored nine point against Indiana but did not attempt any three pointers.
Although the Raptors are a defensively challenged team they go into these hounding defensive sequences where they pressure the ball handler, trap on the baseline, collapse on the big men and actually come out to make the rotations. The second quarter and some stretches in the fourth were great examples of this. However, it’s hard to maintain that sort of a defensive effort across four quarters because of the sheer toll aggressive defense takes on the body. That’s why you see a Jekyll and Hyde effect with the Raptors defense. We’re a middle of the pack defensive team (11th out of 30 D-Rating) with some gaping holes on the perimeter which will undoubtedly come back to bite us. Jamario Moon’s defensive game has regressed, he’s falling for simple up-fakes, isn’t following the scouting reports and is too concerned with providing help. Murphy, Granger and Dunleavy all took turns undressing Moon on simple moves. It didn’t come back to bite us but a case could’ve been made that Joey Graham deserved to get some run based on Moon’s poor effort. Sam is by his own admission an “equal opportunity hater” and Moon definitely deserved some hate today.
Have you ever went into a nice restaurant, expecting a nice meal, only to have some of the food and it tastes like someone took a pickax to it? You still got full, which was the most important thing, but you know it was pretty darn ugly.
The Raptors entered Conseco Fieldhouse with many advantages. With their team fairly well rested thanks to last night’s rout of the Knicks, an Indiana team with their share of injury problems, and a fairly Toronto healthy lineup, the Raptors would have little to no excuse for losing this game. However, a game full of sloppiness and overactive referees with their blown calls left a bad taste for everyone involved. But, a win is a win, and an ugly win some nights is better than a beautiful loss at the end of the season.
Carlos Delfino contributed 23 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including six baskets from beyond the arc, as Toronto’s reserves put up 55 points.
"When he gets hot, he is going to let it go," Bosh said. "He has done a great job all year.
"He also does a great job on the defensive end. He just helped us out a lot."
"It is hard for anybody in the NBA to match bench for bench," Pacers head coach Jim O’Brien said. "That is a formidable group and it speaks to their depth that those players come off the bench."
Okay back to Raptors basketball. I did not watch the entire game partly because of the hockey slant but also the atmosphere in Indy was horrible. Were there any fans there? How far have the Pacers fallen when they are last in the NBA in attendance. Rik Smits where are you brother?
The game lacked pretty much everything I look for in sporting event except for the final outcome which was a Raptor win. They played like garbage but they got it done and that is what a good team does.
The first quarter was about as bad as the Raps have looked lately (I did not see the Knick loss). Thankfully the second quarter was exceptional and it was enough to get the win.
How many ways can the Raptors beat the Pacers? In earlier games this year, Jose Calderon scalded the Pacers, then Jason Kapono couldn’t miss, coming off the bench to destroy the Pacers. Monday night, Carlos Delfino and T.J. Ford came off the bench to nuke a solid effort from the Pacers and propel the Raptors to a 102-98 win over the Pacers.
Now I fully understand why TJ Ford is highly rated and the completely different dimension he can bring to the Raptors that Jose Calderon cannot. The quicks are always there, but Ford showed a nice mid-range game to go along with the break-neck pace. Real impressive.
Feb 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
two things about the raptors really bother me:
1. moons shot selection…errr..everytime he shoots the ball.
2. everytime humphries shoots the ball outside of 2.5 feet.
if don’t see either of those for the rest of the season, i will be happy.
i only bring this up because of the last two pictures above…
Feb 26th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Scott,
Do you actually take all these photos?
They’re really good. Rasho needs a little more love, however.
Feb 26th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
nah, man. If I was in Indy, you’d have seen me. I could easily have taken up 2 seats and doubled their attendance. Scary Spice was much more important, as she is again tonight.
RapsFan, no way in hell Moon stops shooting. He is a poor mans Vince Carter.
Feb 26th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
a poverty stricken vince carter. at least vince took it to the rack.
how was scary spice looking, she had a wicked ass back in the day…
Feb 26th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1292/1037473932_96259f1a92.jpg