Linkage - April 21
How many ways can one team screw up one game? The short answer: Lots of ways. The long answer: Watch Sunday’s playoff debut from the Toronto Raptors, and start counting.
The star player didn’t produce like a star player, and later complained about the game plan. The coach rolled out a starting lineup he had not used since this time last year, to no good effect. The point guards, who were supposed to dominate, flopped. The defence was a gift, not an impediment. The game was essentially lost in the first quarter.
On the plus side, the team bus made it back to the hotel. So at least we know they can organize a one-car parade.
"Yeah, it looked like we are not [ready]," said Raptors centre Rasho Nesterovic, who was solid, again. "It looked like we are not because they were making some shots; they made nine of 11 threes in the first quarter. It makes you look bad. Whatever you do on the floor, it makes you look bad."
He’s sort of right: Whatever Toronto did during Orlando’s 43-point first quarter, they looked bad. But they looked bad because they were bad. "Blue and White, Ignite!" is the empty-headed playoff motto here. (Toronto’s, just as colourfully, is "Are You Red-Y?" which should maybe be directed at the team.) Blue and white, ignite? The Raptors were gasoline in red uniforms.
So to clarify, Toronto played 82 games and decided to reinvent themselves in the two days of practice before the playoffs started. Sure, the final third of the season was a wreck in slow motion, but this is when the deck gets shuffled? Mitchell has never been afraid of bold personnel moves, but these ones backfired. It wasn’t just bad; it was strange.
This was a franchise that hadn’t won a playoff game in five years. Yet the Magic led by 20 after one quarter. Toronto’s late run, in which the Raptors cut the lead down to five, was fool’s gold. Orlando’s game-sealing 10-0 run was easy, and final.
Look, the series isn’t over. Maybe that initial shock has worn off. Maybe Mitchell starts Jason Kapono, who was finally good, at small forward in Game 2. Maybe the point guards won’t shoot 4-for-20 next time. Maybe Bosh plays like a franchise player - the way Howard, who was a wrecking ball, was a franchise player - from here on out.
An incredible nine first-quarter three-pointers by the Magic on 11 attempts had the hosts up by 20 after one quarter and well on their way to the series opening win.
"They were driving, they were kicking and they were making shots," T.J. Ford said afterward. "What can you say? We know we put ourselves in a tough hole in the beginning. That was a record they broke in the first quarter. Who expected them to shoot like that? I don’t think you guys expected that, but they played well. It’s a seven-game series. They won the first one. The series is not over. We’ll come back (tomorrow), we’ll regroup and come out and make a better game."
The record Ford alluded to actually was an NBA-tying mark of nine threes in the first 12 minutes. The 43 points was also a Raptors franchise high for points by an opponent in a playoff quarter.
And while Ford is correct in giving the Magic credit for a very good first 12 minutes of shooting, the Raptors allowed quite a few open looks in the quarter as well.
"I think when we kept our man in front of us they stopped making all those threes," Chris Bosh said. "I think they only got two or three (actually four) after that first quarter."
Jason Kapono came off the bench and had his biggest impact on a game since mid-March. Kapono wound up playing just over 30 minutes with 18 points, 12 of those points coming from behind the arc. His play, combined with a team-high 24 points by Anthony Parker and Bosh — getting to the line almost at will it seemed for 13 of his 21 points — combined to get the Raptors back to within five but that was as close as they would get.
Howard made sure of that with 18 of his 25 points coming in the second half.
Howard also had five blocks in the game and 22 rebounds, six of them on the offensive end as he owned the glass at both ends of the court.
"Dwight Howard got some key offensive boards, and if we could have come up with those rebounds and it’s a five-point game with the way we started to click offensively, it could have been a different story," Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said.
According to Nelson, enough people had been telling him that all the pundits and prognosticators were pinpointing the guard play as Toronto’s one big advantage. Nelson was, understandably, miffed by the suggestion.
His team had beaten the Raptors two out of three times this season, so how much of an anchor could he have been?
Instead of looking for an answer from those same pundits, Nelson just went out and wiped the floor with the Raptor guards.
Offensively and defensively Nelson had his way with the Raptors guards, whether it was T.J. Ford or Jose Calderon.
Nelson finished with 24 points and seven assists in just over 32 minutes of play.
"We definitely lost that battle tonight," Ford said. "(Nelson) outplayed us."
Asked if he thought the Raptors had to win that battle over the course of the series in order for the Raptors to advance, Ford replied: "I think so. I think our team depends on us to play well. I don’t think we’ve both played bad in a long time."
Nelson admitted he was playing with a bit of a chip on his shoulder because of what everyone was saying.
"I definitely take it personal," Nelson said. "They have great guards but we have great guards here too. It’s nice to step up to another level and prove everybody wrong."
Bosh, obviously a very frustrated team captain, said that the reason why the Raptors started Game 1 so poorly — falling behind by 20 points after the first quarter — was because the players were "confused" and "shell-shocked" and the point guards "didn’t know what to run at times."
"We were trying to implement too many things and we’re not doing the things that got us here," Bosh said.
"We have to go back to playing our style of basketball."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his teammates, or the Raptors coaching staff.
Only when asked to elaborate did Bosh add that the fault for the team’s confusion at the start of yesterday’s game rested on the players, not the coaches, and that perhaps "jitters" had something to do with it.
And while Bargnani certainly couldn’t be blamed for the fact that the Magic scored 43 points in the first 12 minutes, en route to a 114-100 victory, the move did seem to confuse Toronto’s other starting four, especially in terms of defensive assignments.
Calderon, who gave up his starting job to Ford on his own accord a few weeks ago, scored nine points with eight assists in 26 minutes, which raises an interesting question: Does Mitchell risk the emotional Ford falling into a Major League funk by starting Calderon for Game 2 tomorrow? It may be only Game 2, but it’s already do or die time. There may not be enough time for Mitchell and his staff to implement new and improved defensive and offensive schemes, but he can shake up the lineup again.
One of the reasons, other than his size, that Mitchell started the 7-foot Bargnani yesterday was because the Italian had a strong playoff series last season against the New Jersey Nets.
Perhaps it’s time to start Calderon again, and maybe even give Jason Kapono, who scored 18 points off the bench yesterday, a start at small forward.
They’ve got nothing to lose.
"We added some tweaks to the offence and that kind of confused us a little bit. I know T.J. (Ford) and Jose (Calderon), for a minute, they really didn’t know what to run … we were in the wrong spots."
"They hit threes, but I think we could have given ourselves a better chance on offence by running the plays we always run, plays that have given us success … throughout the whole season," said Bosh.
"If we get back to doing our own offence, doing what got us here, we’ll be pretty good offensively. I think we have good matchups against them and we can really take advantage of them."
If the Raptors did manage to defend shooters, the Magic simply dumped the ball inside to the magnificent Dwight Howard, who had the quietest 25-point, 22-rebound, five-block game of his career.
Considering it took him only 13 field goal attempts to get those 25 points, it might have been one of the most economical big games of his life.
"Dwight was incredible," said Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy. "We did not do a very good job of getting him the ball at all and he still had 25, 22 and five blocks and he did it on his own. He just went and got the ball on the glass."
Anthony Parker had 24 points to lead Toronto, while Bosh had 21, continually denied an easy lane to the basket by the aggressive defence of Rashard Lewis. Bosh made all 13 of his foul shots but he never really got into his low-post game.
"I know I have to go a lot quicker," he said. "I know which way to go and I know where the help is … I just have to capitalize more in that situation and know where the team is coming from."
"All those guys who were making threes in the first quarter, the clock struck 12 (in quarters 2 through 4)," said Darrick Martin, the locker room veteran. "They all turned into pumpkins."
The Raptors repeated the supposed reason for their defeat – "They made threes" – as though the Magic had orchestrated some kind of conspiracy. Go figure that the Magic made 801 three-pointers this season, the second-most by a team in NBA history; that the Raptors gave up the third-most three-pointers per game in the league this season. You can call yesterday a fluke. The realists might call it a start.
It wasn’t just the dead-eye shooting that did the visitors in, of course. Jameer Nelson, who was thought by some to be one of Orlando’s liabilities in the face of T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon, treated his foes like a slalom course, zig-zagging wherever he needed to zig-zag. He did much of that first-quarter manoeuvring past a step-slow Ford, of course. And though Bosh was forthcoming in the obvious flaw in the first line of defence – "We’ve got to keep our man in front of us," he said – Ford wouldn’t so much as admit fault.
"There’s a lot of areas where they hurt us today," Ford said. "We struggled with a lot of different things. It’s not just one thing."
As for the more conventionally effective methods of stopping a deluge – speedy movement of quick feet and game-savvy brains to stop the drive-and-kick merry-go-round that produced a steady stream of easy looks – the Raptors were a little light on the fundamentals.
In other words, they were being themselves. And it doesn’t bode well.
"If you look at our playoff history, I think arguably you can say that Andrea was one of our better players last year in the playoffs and you’re trying to get your more experienced players on the court with more minutes," Mitchell said of the move that preceded Toronto’s 114-100 loss to the Orlando Magic in yesterday’s opening game of the best-of-seven series.
Bargnani was asked to guard either Hedo Turkoglu or Rashard Lewis for much of his time on the court and Turkoglu ended up with 21 points and Lewis had 13.
But few came off plays in the low post, which was another reason Mitchell went with the switch.
"Andrea has done a pretty good job defensively when he’s had to guard Turkoglu and Rashard and one thing we felt like (was) with Chris (Bosh) and Andrea in those spots, it would take away those two posting our guys up. In other games, Rashard and Turkoglu posted us up quite a bit."
But it didn’t address the defensive matchup problem, which is Bosh on Lewis. And it’s not like the Raptors were doing anything to get Bargnani more involved in the offence.
One thing it did was, effectively, cut the rotation by one (Moon’s four minutes were inconsequential) and I’m all for that. A seven and a half-man rotation (Calderon and one of Delfino-Kapono) isn’t that bad in my opinion.
The move also smelled of a way to get Bargnani going and if that was the case, it certainly didn’t work. Five points, eight shots? Hardly the production they’d expect.
Not sure Moon could have given them much more, although he is a quicker defender on the perimeter.
Trouble is, now do they go back to Moon? Or stay with the group that gave up 43 first-quarter points? I’d stick with this one for one more game. But it did not cost them the game.
That was the quietest 20-20 game I’ve ever seen and if the Magic had thrown the ball to Howard a dozen more times, we might have seen a 40-30 game. His ability to shrug off defenders and hit the offensive glass is stunning. I have no idea how the Raptors will deal with him, and they don’t either.
"The thing we have to do a better job of is keeping him off the glass. It’s easy for me to sit here and say it but I don’t have to do it. Our guys understand what we have to do and we’ve got to do a much better job of keeping him off the offensive glass,” said Sam.
Here’s the thing: Mitchell’s right. Howard’s going to get 15 or 20 defensive boards a game, he’s that good; if they hold him to six on the offensive glass, that’s about as good as they can hope.
Yes, that was Jason Kapono taking six three-pointers and making four.
The shot he made to make it 88-83 (as close as they’d get, of course) was exactly the kind of play he should have been making all year. On the catch, he pumped faked Hedo Turkoglu, got him off the ground but instead of heading to the rim to meet big men and being forced to shoot that runner of his, he stepped back and to the side and drilled a three.
That’s what they’re paying him $24 million to do.
The Raptors defended the three-point line poorly in the regular season, and the Magic exploited that.
The Raptors struggled to contain dribble penetration, and the Magic exploited that.
The Raptors have been in the doldrums offensively for the past two months, and that was the case Sunday as well as they shot just 37.6 per cent from the floor.
And for those who believe coaching has been part of the problem, Raptors head man Sam Mitchell provided some ammunition there, too.
"We just wanted to stay in the game," said forward Chris Bosh, who saw the man he was defending, Rashard Lewis, knock down a couple of three-pointers. "They were making shots and shooting unbelievably."
Reasons for the Raptors’ sluggish start were varied, but in some ways the two teams were simply playing to type, although an exaggerated version.
Toronto did scramble to get back into the game as the Magic cooled and the Raptors began to hit some of their shots.
Two triples by Jason Kapono helped the Raptors cut the Orlando lead to five with a little more than 10 minutes to play in the fourth quarter.
But at that point, the Magic didn’t need three-pointers any more as Dwight Howard, their agile and massive young centre, muscled his way for two dunks and a layup as part of a 10-0 run that put the game out of reach.
While the notion that Bargnani will be big in this series is a no-brainer — Bargnani is big in every game he plays in the sense that if you’re giving steady minutes to a guy who shoots 39 per cent yet but sometimes goes off and leads your team in scoring, he’s either big or an anvil. So what’s funny is that just the other day I made the point that while it might be easy and convenient to put the spotlight on Bargnani as perhaps the key in this series, it would be unfair to do so. And then Sam starts him. Oh well.
Did Bosh throw Mitchell under the tricked-out Escalade? It kind of sounded that way. There was the Raptors all-star and captain blaming at least part of the Raptors troubles on the relatively last-minute changes they made in preparation for the series. He didn’t say starting Bargnani, but I guess he could have. But he did talk about new sets and new plays and new wrinkles of plays that were added and suggested that Jose and T.J. were a bit flummoxed by the new stuff.
Bosh: “We anticipated them try trying to [figure out] every play we had without running them. At the start of the game they hit threes, but we could have given ourselves a better chance on offence by running the plays we always run, the things that we’re giving us success throughout the whole season. If we get back to doing our own offence and doing what got us here, we’ll be pretty good. We have good match-ups against them.”
Q: Did you go to the old stuff as the game went on?
Bosh: It’s not really old, the season just ended last week. We just need to go back to our things. We know what we’re good at and we have to continue to play the way we can play.
Q: Can you elaborate? What was new?
Bosh: Trying to add tweaks to the offence. That kind of confused us a little bit. I know T.J. and Jose, they didn’t really know what to run sometimes and if we did they we were in the wrong spots. Maybe it’s the jitters of the game. Maybe them making shots like that kind of shell-shocked us a little bit and kind of put us on our heels. The next game, if we’re more aggressive and do the things we know how to do and play our basketball, the outcome will be a lot different.
Q: Was that the players or the game plan?
Bosh: I think it’s the players. We have to know our offence. The coach can call the play, but if run something different it’s a whole different story, so I think we just have to focus and pay more attention and come out hard and with a purpose.
It sort of sounded like Bosh realized how what he was saying was coming across and tried to put the cat back in the bag, but a little late. Let’s face it, with his playoff record now at 2-5, it takes little to feed into the perception that Mitchell can be out-coached. And when his star player questions the strategy and approach for Game 1 of a playoff series, it adds a giant log on the fire; and some gasoline. Fires like that are hard to put out.
That will not go down as a great game in what will likely be a career of great games, but I was impressed by Bosh yesterday. He sprawled for loosed balls; he forced contact, he played pretty good defence on Lewis on the perimeter, I thought. Was he out of sync offensively? Yes. Did he allow that to impact any other aspect of his game? Not a bit. The guy plays hard.
"They put us back on our heels to start the game," Jason Kapono said in a grand understatement. "It is a really hard because you want to take away the paint with Dwight Howard there. You want to clog the paint and close up to shooters, but obviously when they make six or seven threes in a row, you are now worried about the guys shooting threes. So as a result, Dwight Howard and the passing lanes are now open."
"Looking at all the games we’ve played so far, Andrea has done a pretty good job defensively when he had to guard Turkoglu and Rashard [Lewis,]" Mitchell said in defence of the surprise switch. "And one thing we felt like was, with Chris [Bosh] and Andrea in those spots, that it would take away those two guys posting up."
But Bargnani’s presence did not do any wonders for the team’s rotation, as Orlando’s starting guards made all of their five three-point attempts in the quarter, opening up a 20-point lead.
"I’ve never seen a team shoot that well for an extended period of time," Kapono said.
"They got Game 1," Ford said. "They protected home court this time. But they got to do it one more time [Tuesday night]."
Yes, the Raptors continue to spout confidence. It has to be dwindling, though.
VIDEO: Post game press conference
Bosh is an All-Star, and he usually dominates the Magic, but it didn’t happen this time. He did score 21 points, but they were quiet ones. He made all 13 of his free throws, but he made only four of 11 field-goal attempts.
Scrawled on the greaseboard in their dressing room, under the title "Step By Step, Possession By Possession," the club plotted its growth chart to storybook success. The stairstep-type illustration began with "Winning Season" and ended with, ahem, " NBA Finals."
Circled in red after the Magic’s 114-100 Game 1 victory against the Toronto Raptors at Amway Arena was "Playoff Win."
Circle it, underline it and mark it with a big exclamation point.
Howard won the star vs. star duel against Chris Bosh (21 points, but just 4-of-11 shooting). Defending Bosh and getting at least a draw in the point-guard matchup were the other major story lines heading into the series.
Rashard Lewis (13 points) was hired as a scorer, but his chest-to-chest defense on Bosh was critical. "It’s not easy. I just tried to make it tough for him," Lewis said.
Point guard Nelson scored 24 points — his most points since Nov. 9 — and had seven assists. His backup, Dooling, added 10 points as Orlando bested the Toronto tandem of T.J. Ford (five points, 1-of-9) and Jose Calderon (nine points, 3-of-11).
If Toronto is going to win this series, the first thing it needs to do is figure out a way to get in the same area code as Rashard Lewis & Co.
Nelson did clean work as well, scoring 24 points. He hadn’t done that since November, all of which caused Stan Van Gundy to sum Nelson’s playoff afternoon up in two words.
"Outstanding," he said. "Outstanding."
A big reason is Toronto’s advantage at point guard, where T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon are supposed to make Nelson look like the last kid picked in PE class.
"I understand it’s not a one-on-one game," Nelson said. "I’m not a guy who listens to the analysts. But people come up to me and talk about it. It kind of frustrates me."
So in keeping with a standard playoff story line, he went out and showed the experts what-for. Ford and Calderon hit four of 20 shots. Throw in Keyon Dooling’s 10 points, and it’s apparent that Van Gundy should be affixing chips on his point guards’ shoulders for the rest of the series.
If only it were that simple.
"I thought they did a great job coming back. It does happen," said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. "We don’t have a lot of guys who have been through these battles. Besides making every shot, that energized us, and we had great energy and great enthusiasm and spirit early in the game. And when it got tough, I thought we let that go a little bit. I thought we hung our heads a bit."
Howard scored 25 points and grabbed 22 rebounds, simply overpowering the Raptors. No Toronto player hauled in more than eight rebounds as the Magic beat the Raptors 42-35 on the boards. Chris Bosh, the Raptors’ leading rebounder (8.7) during the season, managed just six.
"The rebounding part is just going to be tough," Mitchell said. "The thing we have to try to do is do a better job of keeping him off the glass. It’s easy for me to sit here and say it, but I don’t have to do it. Our guys understand what we have to do. But it’s tough."
Aside from Kapono’s 18 point injection, Andrea Bargnani starred in yet another flop performance, 5 points, 3 rebounds and 2-8 FG. He was inexplicably inserted into the starting lineup and was a big failure. He couldn’t guard Turkoglu who made him look silly and couldn’t give us a thing on offense. Typical Bargnani really. I don’t understand why Sam Mitchell went with a brand new starting lineup, isn’t continuity the thing you’re looking for going into the playoffs. Why start experimenting now? This was a case where Mitchell tried to use Bargnani’s size as an advantage over Hedo/Rashard only to forget that Bargnani doesn’t know how to use his size. He sort of outcoached himself. Carlos Delfino and Jamario Moon were non-factors, but it’s strange how Moon only got 5 minutes in a game where defense was our #1 problem and seeing how he’s our best defender, something doesn’t make sense.
Starting Bargnani was a symptom of the sickness he Raptors were suffering this afternoon. The disease is called ‘Balls’, as in, the Raptors suck balls. I have been calling for Smitch to shorten the bench, and define the rotation for the last month and change. Had no idea he was going to use one lineup for the regular season, then a totally different one for the playoffs. I’m sure Van Gundy was pleased to see Bargnani starting the game.
A while earlier, I was saying that the Raptors should watch what they wish for. They were celebrating when they got the news that they were going to be facing the Magic in the first round and now that has come around to slap them in the face. The Magic put a stamp on things, dropping 43 points in the first quarter, which is almost too big of a number to even believe. At some point, you have to start seeing that the other team is getting far too many good looks from the perimeter and you have to adjust. The post season is all about making quick adjustments and the Raptors and their coaching staff just weren’t about it today.
The key though, as we’ve been discussing all year, is that the Raptors need to start setting the tone in games from the tip-off. It’s unlikely the Magic will come out and hit nine of their first 11 three pointers again Tuesday night (although with Toronto’s defense, you never know) and the same goes for Dwight Howard hitting nine of 11 free-throws. But if Toronto keeps digging huge holes on the scoreboard to start games, this one is going to be over very quickly.
The Raptors started off in man-to-man coverage, and then switched a two-three zone briefly, but went back to man after the Magic nailed two wide-open three-pointers. It seemed nothing the Raptors did on defense worked, as the Magic hit their first seven shots, pulling out to and 18-8 lead just 3:51 in, including four three-pointers, two by Jameer Nelson.
In fact, it was Nelson and Maurice Evans who killed the Raptors early, as they scored 16 of their team’s first 25 points, the Magic extended their lead to 25-14 with 5:37 left in the first quarter. T.J. Ford struggled mightily in the early going, as he missed his next four shots after making his first jumper, while getting thoroughly outplayed by Jameer Nelson.
Kapono was good enough on the defensive end that Sam Mitchell was able to keep him on the floor for longer stretches. Kapono’s “D” is the biggest downfall of his game and it often forces him off the floor in crucial stretches of games. But whether it was Keith Bogans or Maurice Evans … neither player really exposed JK’s defense. Thus, Mitchell left him out there, and the swingman responded.
Kapono had post-season career-highs in:
- Field Goals (6)
- Field Goal Attempts (9)
- Three Point Field Goals (4)
- Three Point Attempts (6)
- Free Throws (2) * TIED
- Free Throw Attempts (2) * TIED
- Steals (1) * TIED
- Points (18)
You could say that the ‘01 postseason marked the last time Carter was universally loved by basketball fans in and out of Toronto — after the whole graduation incident, the anti-Vince delegation started growing in numbers. And after what happened to the Raptors over this past weekend in Orlando, Vince’s vintage performance might be the last time for a while that Toronto has a legit Eastern Conference contender.
I also don’t understand how on earth this team does not understand basic defensive fundamentals. Things like contesting shots and crashing the boards. This is not rocket science here. Go find someone and box him out. See that open guy over there maybe you might want to guard him. I always go back to an expression Jack Armstrong uses and it is that HELP is the weakest word in the defensive vocabulary. Well Raptors are very weak in that regard. T.J Ford and Jose Calderon are the first line of defence and need to do a better job staying in front of their man. Ford is the fastest player in the NBA and that says to me that he should be able to stay in front of anyone he chooses to. T.J often is guilty of too much effort on offence.
Finally, the Chuck Swirsky Suicide Watch is on. The play-by-play man for the Toronto Raptors who reacts to Raps losses like someone violated him in a bus station bathroom, was his usual homer self on Sunday as Toronto dropped Game 1 to Orlando.
I don’t know that they’re necessarily soft, per se (although Andrea Bargnani becomes more useless by the day, Jamario Moon is a D-leaguer in disguise and Rasho Nesterovic has conned fans into believing he’s a useful tool, when in fact he’s just a tool), but this is not a line-up that breeds confidence. And what seems to not be discussed often enough is that this is a team — a .500 team — that went 25-16 at home, but an ugly 16-25 on the road this season. Stephen A. would call that soft.
Come to think of it, he’s probably right.
A more likely trade target might be TJ Ford, who is making $8M to back up Calderon in Toronto. When the Raptors have to pony up $10M to keep Jose, it seems unlikely that they’re going to want that much money wrapped up in one position. But Ford may be too much like the unpleasant present for the Clippers - small (like Knight and Dickau), injury prone (like Livingston) and not a particularly good shooter (like, well, everybody).
After the game, Howard proved he was mortal.
"It felt real good — it was an amazing feeling for me," Howard said. "Actually, I almost got some tears."
The Magic led this one by 24 early in the second quarter but allowed the Raptors to close to within five with just over 10 minutes left in the game before taking off again.
"It is tough digging yourself a hole like that," said Toronto’s Anthony Parker. "Every time we did make a run, they made a play and put it back around 10 or 12. We just never got over that hump, and I believe if we had, it would’ve been a tough ballgame for them. The first quarter was the difference."
"[Lewis] fronted me the whole game," Bosh said. "He was up in my space. I should have done a better job expecting that. He did a good job; I’ll be ready for it in Game 2."
The Raptors were impressive from the free-throw line, going 27 of 28, but it didn’t make a difference.
Not since Shaq have Orlando looked quite this good, but unlike Shaq - no respite if you foul Howard: he went 9-11 at the charity stripe.
Now there are several things I look for in game two, which will be on Tuesday. First, it is probably a good thing Toronto came back because now the Magic wont overlook them. Second, Don’t expect Bosh to let Lewis keep fronting him like that again. Sam Mitchell will probably make a change but SVG has to know that, so it should be interesting to see how Orlando guards Bosh this time. Third and finally, I think Toronto will play Rasho Nesterovic less. He did solid, but matchup wise, it allows Howard to stay in the pain more. If Bosh is the starter for the Raptors, that will force Dwight to go out and guard Bosh and he has a difficult time guarding players away from the basket.
Let’s see…the Magic are the best three point shooting team in the NBA…they hit at least five threes in all 82 games (A NBA Record). They hit at least 10 threes in 42 games (Can’t remember the number from the broadcast, but its in that area). So what are you going to do? Start out in a zone, brilliant. And where are his assistant coaches to tell him that this idea is stupid.
The Raptors? They just reminded the U.S. why we don’t actually play or televise Eurobasketball here. It’s great to see teams and players running up and down the floor, shooting jumpers at will. But when other teams actually play, um, what’s that word?… defense?… we’ll, it’s not nearly as much fun to watch. And f*ck Spain… the Raptors need more Argentines if they really want to be taken seriously. Go see if Pepe Sanchez has anything left in the tank. Take a flyer on Pablo Prigioni, the Euroleague assist leader last year. Clone Manu.
This game easily could have been a whole lot uglier for Toronto, had the Magic not eased off the accelerator in the second quarter. When you score 23 points as a team in the first quarter, that’s a respectable amount, not great but certainly not tragic. You don’t expect to be out scored by your opponent, by 20 points, but Toronto was, and Orlando did as they led at the end of the period 43-23! Orlando basically kicked back in the second quarter, the result was they led at the half 60-47. Toronto remained competitive in the second half as they got the lead down to 10 by the end of the third with the Magic ahead 85-75. But they were coming from too far behind after the Orlando onslaught in the opening period.
Earlier today, Orlando’s Dwight Howard became the youngest player in NBA history to record at least 20 points, 20 blocks and 5 blocks in a playoff game, as the Magic dispatched the Raptors, 114-100. Even earlier, Toronto’s Chris Bosh became the youngest player in NBA history to be unfavorably compared to Manute Bol.
It is also a fact that the Raptors struggled to a mediocre 41 win mark - not as a result of injuries as some might have you believe, but because they are an average team.
A 41-41 record defines ‘average’ - no way around it. It also wasn’t an accident that the Magic held a 2-1 advantage over the Raptors this season.
All season long, realistic observers have been saying the Raps don’t have the necessary on-court intensity or mental toughness to win in the play-offs. Their perimeter defence is among the league’s worst, they don’t rebound well and they are a jump-shooting team who struggles miserably when shots aren’t falling.
It’s one thing for TJ Ford to go 1-for-9 from the field and gather 6 assists. That would be ok. Except he got TORCHED on the other end by Jameer Nelson. Yes the same Jameer Nelson who has been MIA the majority of the season. Toronto got absolutely abused, not just by the pick-and-pop or the pick-and-roll because half the time Nelson just rejected it and took Ford to the whole anyways. Even worse than Nelson continously blowing by Ford was the fact that no Toronto defender stepped up to make his presence felt. How does Nesterovic not knock him down once? And I swear if Chris Bosh holds his arms up one more time he’s going to have to make a million YouTube videos before I endorse his game.
Everyone likes calling guys ‘hombres’…I’m sticking with beast. And Dwight Howard was BEASTY today. 25 points, 22 rebounds, 5 blocks. Need I say more? On paper it is going to look like Dwight and Bosh went at it because Bosh finished with 21 and 6. No way Jose. Bosh had another poor playoff performance, to the point where he is one away from being overrated. I just didn’t see it today. He got completely outclasses by Dwight. He may be the David Robinson to Dwight’s Hakeem.
Apr 21st, 2008 at 6:54 pm
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re: “Step By Step, Possession By Possession,”
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The average basketball ‘fan’ has no idea what determines Winners from Losers in an NBA game.
Read that quote again and again … and then actually listen to what the best NBA coaches have to say when they give an explanation for THE reason their team won or lost a specific game.
In the NBA, teams Win and/or Lose games because of changes in momentum, and specific individual player match-ups AND the scoring situations they create which a team takes advantage of by making open shots.
Coming from a time-out situation, at the 10:15 mark of the 4th Quarter in yesterday’s game between Orlando & Toronto, the Magic ran an isolation Post-up play for Hedo Turkoglu on the Right Block vs Anthony Parker, when the Raptors had closed Orlando’s lead to just 5 pts.
When the Raptors faked a cover-down and, instead, stayed home on Orlando’s shooters … Hedo faked baseline and turned toward his Right shoulder - into the middle of the lane - for a Turn-around, fall-away Jump Shot that struck nothing but net … and stemmed the tide of momentum the Raptors had built up by cutting into Orlando’s lead, decisively, with Chris Bosh sitting on Toronto’s bench with 4 fouls.
This most critical possession of the game was then followed by the following sequence of 6 possessions (combined) for the two teams:
* Tor … Rasho Nesterovic missed a driving layup shot … Tor 83, ORL 90
* ORL … D12 made a dunk, coming off a high middle pick & roll … Tor 83, ORL 92
* Tor … Jose Calderon missed a 3pt Shot, at the top of the key … Tor 83, ORL 92
* ORL … Hedo Turkoglu missed a driving layup, which D12 rebounded & put back … Tor 83, ORL 94
* Tor … Jason Kapono missed a 3pt Shot, off the dribble … Tor 83, ORL 94
* ORL … Tor was called for a Defensive 3 Second Violation … Lewis missed the FT … but, after inbounding the ball, D12 rebounded Bogans missed 3pt Shot and finished the sequence with a 2nd put back (this time a dunk)
after which this game WAS DONE … at the 8:08 mark of the 4th Quarter.
In the NBA, teams Win and/or Lose games because of changes in momentum, and specific individual player match-ups AND the scoring situations they create which a team takes advantage of by making open shots … FULL STOP.
khandor’s last blog post..De-constructing the mystery that is Chris Bosh