Another top-tier opponent, another loss
Posted by Arsenalist on February 2, 2008
It’s no surprise that we have a long ways to go before we can think of contending with real teams, or even with real teams missing two starters while playing at home. Didn’t the Lakers suffer an exhausting 1 point defeat in Detroit and arrived in Toronto at 4 AM? They sure didn’t look like the team that might be road weary, if anything it was the Raptors that looked tired and never got back on defense and got rightfully killed in transition. So much for taking advantage of the Lakers back-to-back, pushing the ball up-court only to launch a quick jumper isn’t “attacking” basketball, that’s more like bailing a tired team out. And don’t let Chuck/Jack fool you into thinking that we did anything to extend the Lakers by any means, they’re the ones who extended us out by spreading the floor and playing the triangle and leaving many a Raptor with the deer-in-the-headlights look. And then of course, there was Kobe.
You expect Kobe to explode against our perimeter defense but you’d think that we’d keep the likes of Jordan Farmar and Sasha Vujacic in check, no? Isn’t that what Sam’s philosophy is, let Kobe get his and slow the supporting cast down. Tonight the supporting cast was depleted and we still allowed 7 threes from the guard combo who led the bench scoring and out-gunned ours 37-18 with each three being of the killer variety. Now you can point to Anthony Parker and Jose Calderon’s noncommittal man-defense but at some point the Raptors as a team have to make an adjustment to hide this weakness in their games. Maybe asking Parker and Calderon to help is a really, really bad idea because it seems like we get burned every time they do. Our defense on Kobe ranged from helping-early, helping-late and not helping at all. Needless to say when you’re a poor defensive team like the Raptors are, deploying so many different defenses against him is bound to confuse the living shit out of your players. But hey, Kobe went off, not much you can do about it. Sleep easy Carlos, you’re not the first one to get burned and you won’t be the last.
Hold off on the trades and the D-league assignment people, Andrea Bargnani is alive and well, how well? 28 points, 4 rebounds well. Bargnani is actually looking athletic of late, he’s driving to the rim at a reasonable pace, his thinking speed and movement speed are aligned, he’s making the right decisions when his man is playing him tight or giving him space and he’s playing (or trying to play) with authority. His in-traffic dunk in the first quarter was the highlight of this season, if there’s one thing to take from this game, it’s Bargnani’s performance. The thing that is most noticeable is that he doesn’t have that scared look on his face every time he catches the ball; Sam is letting him play through his mistakes which helps. But the most and I mean the most important thing about his recent success is that he isn’t taking himself out of the game by picking up early fouls. Now this might have something to do with playing against Haywood and Turiaf who aren’t exactly aggressive centers but at least it’s a sign that Bargnani isn’t dead just yet.
Chris Bosh had 22 and 15 but shot only 7-22 and stayed on the perimeter for the better part of the game. I didn’t like the first shot he took although he made it, a baseline fadeaway which I was hoping he’d miss because that might’ve motivated him to attack Turiaf who had expected trouble guarding the quicker Bosh. Bosh completely bailed out the Lakers defense and you might point to his 15 rebounds and say that he was exhausted on the defensive end, but I don’t buy that. We had a day off and he played less than 20 minutes on Friday, no excuses here. The Lakers were playing a lot of single-coverage on him and that’s exactly the situation where he needs to dominate and force early doubles which would kick-start our simplistic offense. Coming off an all-star nod, you have to bring it against the best player in the league. Disappointing night for Bosh.
It was obvious that part of our strategy was to slow down Kobe by having him play some defense. Unfortunately, Parker isn’t the type of player that can wear an opponent out. After all, running around screens to shoot jumpers tires you more out than the defender. Although he hit his first couple shots you knew it wasn’t going to last and Kobe came back each time Parker scored to get the points back and send a message to the Raptors that they’re better off conserving Parker’s energy on offense so he can actually defend Kobe. Delfino played Kobe as well as you can, no complaints there, Kobe’s an awesome player and got his points through many a different mean. A few times our last line of defense (aka PF and C’s) weren’t there when Kobe had beaten his man to find a wide open path to the rim. It looked like they weren’t even supposed to help out and had delegated on the helping to the guards. Anyway, Kobe exploded like the superstar that he is. A real superstar. Kobe summed up the game and his success:
“We only come here once a year, for some people, it’s the only chance they get to see me. Sometimes it’s the first time, so I want to make sure that I go out and put on a good performance. I was just reading the defense, the fact that they were honoring our shooters made it easy for me to get to the basket and I just kept attacking. The times that they closed off the lanes, I kicked it out to our shooters and they were able to knock them down.”
As I said before, I agree with the above quote but what I don’t understand his why we keep helping off our guards when Kobe’s driving, let Bosh/Bargnani/Moon be the first to apply the rotations, not Parker and Calderon.
A word needs to be said about our our defense, we were utterly confused by the triangle. Even when the Lakers had just set it up and passed the ball to Turiaf in the middle, you could tell that the Raptors had zero idea of where the ball might go next. I was almost like we didn’t watch any game tape or if we did, failed to grasp anything from it. The thing with the triangle is that it has many options so once the baseline cut was taken away by say Rasho or Bosh helping out, it left the weakside open and all that was needed was a quick swing pass or two to completely carve us open. The Lakers played exceedingly well and didn’t give the Raptors even a remote chance in this game. We were unprepared and not ready for what was about to hit us, maybe we were still celebrating the Washington win.
Liners:
* The Pau Gasol trade makes the Lakers the favorite to come out of the pacific over Phoenix.
* Jamario Moon’s honeymoon is officially over. He’s regressed into playing some very risky cheating-type defense and is starting to take more and more ill-advised jumpers. To Sam’s credit he’s been quick in yanking him whenever he’s up to no good.
* Jason Kapono went 4-5, all of his points coming in a second-half stretch which saw us trade baskets. It never looked like we would ever get a meaningful stop and this game was decided in the third quarter when it became apparent that at best we could trade baskets with the Lakers.
* Checking the boxscore you notice that we out-rebounded them 41-40 but I could swear on my mother that it felt like they had about 20 offensive boards.
* Kobe going after the Toronto fans in the first row doesn’t feel too good.
* Derek Fisher’s defense on Jose Calderon can’t be ignored, yeah Calderon scored 17 points but Fisher wore him out on the other end and applied enough pressure to hold Calderon to only 5 assists.
* Every time we hit a three to get some momentum, they came and hit one back. We never had any momentum in this game on which we could ride. All in all, it was awfully familiar from last year’s game in Toronto except in that one Kobe didn’t need to score 46, not that he did today.
Podcast on Monday, later.
February 2, 2008 at 7:38 am
Where is everyone? We were unprepared and the Lakers aggressiveness caught us by surprise. Raps expected them to come out lethargic but they came out firing and wanting to attack. We didn’t have a plan against Kobe or against the triangle. Juan Dixon playing Kobe was a joke, Smitch also likes to put his defensive stalwart on T-Mac, go figure. But I knew we were going to lose, Lakers are a good team and against good teams we usually fizzle out.
February 2, 2008 at 9:09 am
I agree with everything you said. The positive was Bargnani.
Sorry to hear about giving up the TFC part but I know how you feeling about being into it 100%.
Thanks for the great recap since I did not get to see the game.
Please pass this link along to any female Raptors fans you know.
Help choose this year’s Rap-chelor!
follow the link and rate the Raptors on who has the best smile, eyes etc.
pass it on to your friends.
http://cuzoogle.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/rating-the-raptors-ladies-style/
February 2, 2008 at 9:37 am
San Antonio, Dallas, New Orleans, Boston (OTL and win), Portland and Houston are all quality wins… The Raptors can win against good teams… I just don’t think that they matched the Lakers intensity early… Bosh especially… I didn’t like that his first make was a fade away jump shot either… I think that had a lot to do with the referees swallowing their whistles for most of the game… When Bosh is not aggressively taking it to the basket the team suffers seriously… The lack of stops was also alarming but Kobe in particular can sometimes put a team on his back and his teammates were making shots… All the other points you made in the story were for the most part dead on… I just don’t agree that they have a long way to go… Bosh has to realize when the team needs him and conversely he has to demand their aggressiveness on a consistent basis… Sam should have a rule that the team’s their first shot has to be in the paint… Or every player’s first shot has to be be a drive… Especially Jamario Moon who even when he tries to drive does not finish with a dunk… He could create and excellent drive and kick game that is muted by his insistence on taking that bail out jump shot… Even when it goes in it does not set up the drive…
February 2, 2008 at 10:25 am
People are blaming Sam and Dixon for a blowout loss
to Kobe and the Lakers. The game ended when the Lakers
made their first 8 shots of the 4th. The triangle worked to perfection. In that 5 minute stretch Dixon has 4 assists… and Bosh/Calderon subbed in to add ZERO points. Yeah… let’s blame Sam and Juan for Kobe Superstar.
This all supports my belief that Elite Players decide all things NBA… especially in the Playoffs. That’s why Gasol makes the Lakers an instant favorite in the West.
The Raps can win the odd game against Elite Teams with hot shooting… but NOT a playoff series. When ** serious people ** talk about East contenders… Toronto is not in the conversation. So we have a very long way to go.
A strategy of bringing in mid-level Euros and MLE signings will get you absolutely nowhere. You can’t trade mid-level players for an Elite Player. A rebuilding team is only interested in draft picks, young talent, and expiring contracts. (Which is why a guy like Parker should be traded for young talent).
Now that Andrea has emerged from his self-induced coma… he MUST becomes a DOMINANT offensive player (still a longshot)… because we don’t have the assets to land another Elite Player. (Cap space may not be enough).
February 2, 2008 at 11:16 am
I agree with PsychicSpy that Elite Players win in the NBA; note LeBron’s singular destruction of the Pistons last playoff season, a team whose defense makes the Raptors look like a JV squad. Kobe is 1A to LeBron’s 1 (or vice versa).
I would also insist, however, that Elite COACHES win in the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc., etc. It’s really unsurprising when you see the same usual suspects like Jackson, Popovic, Belichick, etc., etc.; they have a system that works, and they have honed it over the years to perfection. Smitch in Year 3 is not there yet. I’m not sure if he’ll ever get there, but it’s not like the Raps are ready for prime-time.
However, we are only in Year 2 of BC’s architecting; he has a real plan, PsychicSpy, that’s why Rasho’s, AP’s, Garbo’s, Baston’s, Graham’s contracts all end at the same time at the end of 2008-2009 (http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries/toronto.htm). Even if Jose and Carlos take another $15 million off the salary cap, there is plenty of room to sign a big-time SG/SF.
Toronto is not Memphis; players are learning to like it here, I truly believe CB4’s positive attitude and evangelism has changed that apsect. Unfortunately, this means more of the same next season (i.e. 2 steps forward, 1 steps back), but Bargs is no Duncan and BC didn’t imagine him leading the Raps to the promised land in his Sophomore or even Junior season. More patience is needed. Kobe is 29.5 for Chrissakes.
February 2, 2008 at 11:43 am
Ahhh… Andrea seems to be coming of the learning curve but the Raptors team remains on one.
We still can’t respond to trading big buckets back & forth. A big weakness. We can hit a couple big ones but trying to string a stretch of trading shots and the Raps quickly wears out. They try soooooo hard to ‘Answer’ consective big buckets with deep 3-balls or long fade aways. Live by the 3. Die by the 3. Unless we are on fire draining shots, not consistent yet, teams will give us opportunities to shoot it because they’d rather have us shoot the low percentage shot rather then allowing us a high percentage close shot or layup. We have to drive it more in those situations. And NEED that 2nd scoring option. TJ will help but we still need more if we want to go anywhere.
The Raptors were exposed to the triangle offence. They responed like a virgin looking at a nake woman for the first time. We just fawndeled tits and blew it before we knew what happened!
I was impressed with the Lakers in the pre-season with the depth of the team and Kobe passing he ball. Now with Paul Gasol….I think the Lakers will be the Team to beat this year.
February 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm
totally agree with not sending a double team or switching on defense. the raptors all screw that up, and get a three pointer shoved down their throats, huts to watch.
those are all quality wins stealth, but the point is the raptors shot the shit out of the ball. it is easy to win when you shoot over 52% from the field. it puts massive pressure on the other team to win. the raptors have yet to win a game where their shooting hasn’t been good, and they had to grind it out (they have only won grinding games when their shot was falling). this is what arsenalist means when he says we can’t beat elite teams, i think he does anyways i know it’s what i mean.
if bosh really wants to be considered top tier, he has to do what kobe and lebron do, which is to step up, put the team on his back, and score 15 in a row to take the lead. it’s great he’s a team player, but passing the ball and having parker hit a jumper in the corner off three swings wont win you playoff games.
February 2, 2008 at 12:21 pm
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February 2, 2008 at 3:17 pm
stealth68—> … Sam should have a rule that the team’s their first shot has to be in the paint… Or every player’s first shot has to be be a drive…
No Doubt! They come out firing & put so much pressure on themselves with the shot. How about….if they make 2 driving or low post shots they are allowed 1 shot. If they miss they have to earn their shot again with 2 more easy buckets!! Ha, ha….. It seems so easy when your a spectator and easy to be a critic, but come on Raptors it heart breaking watching you jack a 3 when your only down by 5 and on a comeback. Sometimes they beat themselves and make it easy for teams down the stretch.
I know it opens the floor when they hit the shot early and it EASIER for them. But life ain’t easy & neither is sports!
February 2, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Who’s blaming Dixon for the loss? We just got outplayed by the Lakers. Just weren’t ready and prepared for the onslaught of the triangle or Kobe. I like the idea of scripting our first 5 plays kinda like coaches do in football, that way you at least ensure the chances of a good start. This post is bang on about everything.