Linkage - March 31
The final score of 118-111 actually flattered the Raptors, who spent most of the evening down by double digits. Only an energized makeshift bench unit of Jose Calderon, Linton Johnson in his first action as a Raptor, Kris Humphries, Carlos Defino and Jamario Moon managed to get the lead back down to six with a minute and a half to play. While it forced Hornets coach Byron Scott to bring his starters back for the final three minutes, the lead quickly got back to a comfortable 10.
"You try trapping him but he backs out of it and splits it," Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell said of Paul. "He made some passes tonight and I don’t even see how he found the guy and he didn’t miss any shots. They’ve got great shooters and some nights you have to hope the guys don’t shoot the ball as well."
"It was hard to guard him tonight," Ford said of Paul. "They put us in a lot of pick and rolls and we threw a lot of different coverages at them and they were able to adjust. We tried everything possible tonight but he was able to pick us apart."
Mitchell took a flyer at the beginning of the game inserting Jason Kapono in the starting lineup in place of Moon. The hope was that it might get Kapono energized, who came into the game 0-for-5 in his past three games. Kapono went 0-for-3 for the game.
Mitchell said the thinking behind the move was also part matchup driven, but said it was not something he will be trying tonight in Charlotte.
Darrick Martin won’t be on the court for the remainder of the season, but he has not made the decision to hang up his sneakers just yet. Martin, who is expected to clear waivers today and accept an off-court position with the Raptors says he has not closed the door on playing completely.
"I’ll wait and see what happens this summer," Martin said.
The Raptors actually played well enough offensively to give any team a run. They shot 52 per cent from the floor, got 21 points from Chris Bosh and double-figure output from six others but were never really in the game.
"The effort was there, we just couldn’t stop anything," said Mitchell. "We scored, we shot over 50 per cent, we rebounded the basketball, we had 31 assists but we could just not stop plays.
"When we got into a situation where we had to get a stop one-on-one, Peja hit a couple of fadeaway shots at the buzzer, David West scored on the block and Bonzi Wells took us inside and scored on us. We just couldn’t get a stop."
A scrambling backup group of Jose Calderon, Carlos Delfino, Jamario Moon, Kris Humphries and the newly acquired Linton Johnson carved what was a 24-point Hornets lead to six with just under two minutes left, but that’s when New Orleans coach Byron Scott brought Paul, West, Stojakovic and Chandler back into the game and it was over.
"Twenty-point leads are broken every night in this league," said Paul. "Toronto is a great team, they never gave up and that’s why we had to come back in and finish it off."
The kiss: Morris Peterson planted one right on the Raptors logo at centre court moments before he and his New Orleans Hornets tipped off last night against the team for whom he gave his heart for seven long seasons.
The hugs: Peterson exchanged them with dozens of Raptor loyalists, ushers, security personnel and, especially, many of the current Raptors themselves, still friends.
The good loving: It showered down from many in the capacity Air Canada Centre crowd, a group that has been known in the past to turn surly with former Raptors. Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter figure most prominently in that group. Their departures were acrimonious, in sharp contrast to Mo Pete’s last off-season.
Asked before the game if he might get chills (nothing to do with the unseasonable weather), Peterson said: "I might start crying … I almost walked into the wrong locker room at first," he added. "I had to stop myself. (Teammate Bonzi Wells) had to pull me back."
Asked afterward if the experience was everything he’d hoped it would be, he said no, that "it was more, it was even better … I can’t even put it into words. That’s why I went up and kissed the floor. It was spontaneous. I was just going to wave to the crowd. But something told me to kiss the floor."
Checking the schedules, and guessing ‘cause that’s what we do around here sometimes, it probably takes six, maybe seven wins to creep into fifth and five, maybe six, to hold off Philly for seventh.
Should be a piece o’ cake, right? Well, don’t think these fellas aren’t quite aware of their own ability to cough ‘em up. Check out Chris Bosh last night:
"It scares me. Sometimes when you play teams like that, it’s kind of tough to get up for games. It shouldn’t be like that but that’s how it is. Sometimes guys tend to overlook teams and we can’t do that. We still have very tough games ahead of us and these teams are very capable of beating us.”
He’s dead right, of course. Now we find out how mentally tough these dudes are. I’m thinking they get six of the last nine.
He finished with 20 points and 16 assists, the 10th time he’s had at least 20 points and 15 helpers in the same game.
There have been only eight other such games in the NBA this season.
That kind of spectacular output on a team that surprisingly led the NBA’s Western Conference with a 50-22 record after last night has earned Paul respect beyond his 22 years and thrust him into the middle of one of the most heated MVP debates in years.
"You see him with the baby face and off the court he’s one of the most humble guys, but once he gets on the court, he’s like a little pit bull, a little bulldog," Peterson said. "He takes his game to a level I’ve only seen a few guys get to — the Jason Kidds, the Michael Jordans, those guys. He wants the ball in his hands for game-winners."
The Raptors did mount a late charge with some energetic play from a small lineup that featured newcomer Linton Johnson, cutting the Hornets’ lead to six points with a minute and a half to play, but by then Paul had returned to the floor, found West for a layup and Chandler for a dunk to put his team up by 10 points.
At that point, Paul turned around and mouthed "It’s over."
T.J. Ford had just finished a long day, so when the media descended upon the Raptors point guard after Sunday night’s against the New Orleans Hornets, he made the reporters wait a minute.
He had a plate of ribs in front of him, and he just wanted to eat.
Morris Peterson, the Hornets’ other starter, is one of those pieces. He spent his first seven years as a professional in Toronto, and made his first appearance in the building as a visitor. He had eight shots, as well as a block on Bosh.
"He made a good play," Bosh deadpanned, "but it will never happen again."
Just two games after he put Ford and Rasho Nesterovic into the lineup, Mitchell inserted Jason Kapono, who had hit just three of his last 16 field-goal attempts, in place of Moon.
It did not work. Kapono missed all three of his shots, going scoreless, while the Hornets got any shot they wanted against Toronto’s defence.
"It was just one night," Mitchell said. "Just matchups. Looking at the matchups, hopefully getting him out there early right after the warm-ups, maybe that would help him going."
There’s no easy way to say this, so we’ll let Jack Armstrong do it for us.
"I’m probably committing sacrilege by saying this," says the incisive Raptors broadcaster, "but I think Chris Paul is the best point guard in the game today."
Yes, this is the basketball nation Steve Nash built, but Armstrong isn’t alone in acknowledging that our two-time MVP has been surpassed. Ask Darrick Martin, the newest member of the Toronto Raptors coaching staff, who has seen a lot of point guards in his time.
"He’s the best point guard in the league, I think," says Martin. "If I had a vote [for the MVP award], I’d vote for him. And I’m the biggest Kobe fan."
"I don’t think he’s offensive-minded like Isiah was," Martin says. "He makes plays for other guys. Chris can dominate a game like Jason Kidd, without scoring.
"[Like Isiah], he’s very tough minded. He’ll smile, and then cut you. From the front, too, not from the back."
"He can just do everything," Raptors coach Sam Mitchell says. "It’s hard to match how much he means to one team, and what he does."
So is he the MVP? Paul demurs, saying, "I never look at it as a one-on-one game. I just want to see that little mark on nba.com, that little ‘x’ that says ‘clinched playoff spot.’ I never think about [the MVP]. For what?"
West was asked about the letdown in the fourth quarter and he expanded a bit more by telling the media, "Coach was kind of upset because the guys came in off the bench - obviously we didn’t want to come out of the game - because he was trying to get us some rest. It was just a letdown and Toronto’s feisty. They’ve got guys over there who are hungry and some guys who haven’t been playing much. So when they got their opportunity they took advantage of it. We just didn’t have the sustained effort to close out the game."
Toronto had been holding opponents to 86.0 points over their past five games. Tonight New Orleans had 86 points midway through the third quarter and finished the game with 118 points.
When Peterson was asked if he talks with Mike James about their times in Toronto he told the reporter, "We talk about Toronto all the time. We both had career years here and we had some good times here. Mike (James) did a great job while he was here and it was kind of funny that we both ended up in here New Orleans. Now were’ getting a little older – I’m 30 and he’s 32 – and it seems like it was some years back."
On a night when Chris Bosh had 21/7, we needed him to have a much bigger game, if not on offense by getting Chandler/West out of the game, then by establishing himself as a defensive presence against the agile and impressive David West. Bosh came up short but at least he tried, the same couldn’t be said for Jason Kapono or Andrea Bargnani. Kapono was inserted into the starting lineup to matchup with Morris Peterson (nice welcome by the crowd) but went a quiet 0-3 and was a non-factor. Note to Sam: Stop relying on Jason Kapono to create his own shot. That’s not his game, that’s not what he was hired to do, that’s something he’ll never do. He’s a shooter, a pure shooter who needs an offense around him to get him shots. Start drawing some plays for him because if you want him to be more than a 5th wheel on offense come playoff time, he’ll need your help.
Just like last week against the Nuggets we again saw how teams don’t respect the Raps. The Hornets were having a great time doing what they wanted and when they wanted. They were laughing and acting like the game was won at tip. It pretty much was. Did anyone think to cover David West? He made the All-Star team in case you did not hear.
Chris Paul is amazing but come on, the Raps mailed that one in. Should they beat the Hornets? No. But it was over at the half.
I honestly thought the Raptors would give a better showing then this, my expectations are clearly too high. The Hornets were on the tail end of 4 games in 6 nights on the road, and the Raptors were playing with some assemblage of normalcy. The stage was set for an upset, but that’s all, it was an opportunity that the Raptors couldn’t didn’t take advantage of.
Take care of business in this game, against this calibre of opponent, playing with this sort of motivation, and it will quell the raising tide of dissent among the Raptors’ faithful which senses quite correctly that something is amiss, at the Core of this franchise, despite the silver-plated gains that have been made in the Eastern Conference standings since the installation of President/GM, Bryan Colangelo, 2 full years ago.
Come up on the short side of the ledger, however … especially in the Paul vs Forderon match-up … and it will be yet another indictment of the Raptors’ overall M.O. (headed up by Mitchel-Angelo) … which, with every day that passes, seems to be more-and-more Maple Leafs-like than ever before.
He is not that April Fool after all he is the 2 time executive of the year. He clearly will have work to do this off season. If the chance to make a trade that would include Ford or even Calderon I think he would look at it. The fact is Colangelo has built this team to give him options and has not painted himself into any corners. I have confidence in Colangelo and have no doubt there is Plan A-D already made. What happen the rest of the way may alter those plans slightly but the most clear thing that this season has shown is the need for a big defensive force that can defend and rebound. That is at the top of the wish list for Toronto.
I wasn’t so hot on Morris Peterson hopping down to kiss the Toronto court. I know, I know, Ivy may have saw MJ do it in Chicago, but he and MJ are on a different page than Peterson. I still like him though and I’m happy he has fit in well in New Orleans. Seeing him toss his jersey to a kid wearing his Toronto one was sweet, the kid was so fired up he looked like he had just hit the game-winning shot for the championship.
Now we get to the moving moment. After his name was called and he high-fived with all his teammates, as all the fans are cheering for him, he ran out to centre court, got down on the ground and kissed the floor of the Air Canada Centre - right on the Raptors’ logo. Something about that moment, seeing him back in Toronto, and him so obviously expressing his love for the city, the team and the people, just really hit me. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I had to fight them back, because it’s just kind of weird to start crying at a basketball game. Thankfully, the Raptors’ starting lineup was coming up next, and the arena gets dark for that, so I had some time to compose myself. ^_^ We lost the game, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget attending this particular event.
I love my Raptors, but whenever Mo Pete steps into the ACC, I will always cheer for him because no matter what team he plays for, he will always be a Raptor in my heart.
In a game that looked like a laugher, West and Paul had to be summoned from the bench after Toronto rallied from a 22-point deficit to cut the gap to 114-108 with 90 seconds remaining.
“Basically, their bench just ate our lunch,” Scott said.
David West set the tone early in this one, exploding for 16 first-quarter points and finishing with 32 overall on 13-of-21 shooting. The Raps tried guarding him with a few different guys, but it didn’t seem to matter as West mixed it up with 17-footers, baseline fades and some nifty post work. He also played a very smart, unselfish game. The Raptors started sending more double teams at him as the game went on, and West did a great job of recognizing those and adjusting appropriately. We’ve seen him struggle numerous times this season when he gets that extra attention, but he seemed to have it all figured out tonight.
The Raptors put plenty of points on the board, too, especially in the first half, when Chris Bosh dropped 19 points and Rasho Nesterovic added 12. Unfortunately for Toronto, those two managed to score just 4 points between them in the second half. I missed seeing exactly what it was that we did different on Bosh (if anything) after the half.
The Raps’ bench outscored ours 61-16. Toronto’s head coach Sam Mitchell elected to keep his starters on the pine and continue riding with the reserves after they made a game of it again in the fourth quarter. Almost paid off.
It seemed like the Raptors had absolutely no interest in crashing the offensive boards in the first half, letting us rip down a bunch of easy ones. I recall quite a few instances where Toronto would settle for a jump shot and then not have a single guy below the free throw line to go after the rebound. That definitely was not the case in the fourth quarter though.
I saved this for last, but it was enjoyable watching Mo-Pete making his Toronto return. He wasn’t particularly impressive from an offensive standpoint, but he did take more than 7 attempts for just the second time since February 2nd… which is a really long time. The play where Bosh (accidentally) knocked him down was amusing to say the least; the reception he got from the crowd pre-game was indeed very rousing. So rousing in fact that he decided to bust out AI’s Philly return move by kissing the court. The Toronto fans really were classy. Staying on that subject, their (TSN) commentators were also refreshingly awesome. Having listened to the horrific analysis of Indiana, then Cleveland, and then Boston commentators, it was really nice to hear these guys. They gave credit where credit was due, kept an open mind to all calls- against them or not- and in general didn’t let a team bias (which you have to expect) ruin the broadcast. I have to say these guys were some of my favorites; if there’s Toronto fans reading, you guys are real lucky.
Mar 31st, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I know most of you will love the comment about the broadcast team from the At The Hive blog.
Chuck….best in the business.
Scott’s last blog post..Linkage - March 31
Mar 31st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
“I recall quite a few instances where Toronto would settle for a jump shot and then not have a single guy below the free throw line to go after the rebound.”
We have been doing this for YEARS. We have a coach that thinks that you can’t coach defense or rebounding and a GM who thinks these players that you can’t coach defense to, need to learn how to play defense and rebound better. This has always confused me.
I think Sam needs to recognize that he can’t just sit on his hands and not teach the team defense or offense (see Arsenalist’s incredibly valid point about Kapono). Since Mitchell will never adjust, he shouldn’t be this team’s coach (see what I’ve been saying since Sam got here).
Colangelo, meanwhile, needs to recognize that he can’t just build a club the same way, every time. Make some REAL adjustments. Primoz and L. Johnson do not count for much.
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