The Raptors led by Jose Calderon had just finished a third quarter which had rescued this game from getting out of hand. The Raptors had slowed the tempo and the scoreboard down in the third quarter winning it 27-18 by playing gritty paint defense and by riding Jose Calderon’s hot shooting. A 9 point halftime deficit had been entirely erased and with the fourth quarter set to go, the Raptors were smelling a San Antonio like upset. That’s when Sam Mitchell tried to get too smart for his own good. He inserted the volatile and struggling TJ Ford who went 1-4, turned the ball over twice, got himself into a one-on-one contest with Ronnie Price and the official, picked up two technicals and was sent packing. Add it all up and a 65-65 game had turned into an 81-69 ball game with 6:58 to go and Utah had the momentum with the crowd fully in to it. Game over. The crazy part might be that if it hadn’t been for the technicals, Ford would have continued to play the PG while Calderon and his hot hand cooled off on the bench. Mind boggling stuff, how many times has this happened already?

Utah was off today, they were back from an Eastern swing and their malaise allowed the Raptors to stick around at the end of the first quarter. Sloan went to the bench in the second and as is a Raptors custom, an relative no-name player (Price) scored 4 times his season average to pull the Jazz ahead at the half. In the third quarter our defense picked up and Rasho/Moon/Parker came up with blocks and strips near the rim to contain Utah which was excellent as usual moving without the ball. The third quarter belonged to Calderon who had 9, more than canceling out the brilliant Deron Williams’ 8 to bring us back in the game. Only two other Jazz scored field goals in the period and the Raptors had the momentum and the right defensive attitude going into the deciding quarter. Then TJ Ford happened and this game got out of hand making the final score very unreflective of the actual proceedings. Seriously, take the fourth quarter stats out of it and things are pretty even across the board. If we had just buckled down and played the fourth like we did the rest of the game, this one was going to stay close and would’ve been there for the taking late on.

According to Sekeres, Calderon and Ford were complaining all night to Sam Mitchell about the officials, it just so happened that TJ was fragile enough to explode:

Mitchell said that both Ford and Jose Calderon were complaining that the Jazz guards were riding them with their bodies throughout the game, cutting off penetration with physical contact. Mitchell and the point guards talked to the officials several times during the game about the tactic, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. When Ford was called for an offensive foul on a play where he felt body-riding was taking place, it was more combustible than gasoline near a bonfire.

We were without our best player on this swing but even then there is plenty of reason to be disappointed in our play. It doesn’t say much about the defensive depth of this squad when opponents have no issue shooting 50% against us simply because one player is missing. Is our offense so broken that if Chris Bosh isn’t there, we can’t put three consecutive decent possessions together? Can the severely stagnant nature of our offense be blamed on Bosh not playing? If PGs are meeting with zero resistance on both options of the pick ‘n roll, is not having a Bosh a good excuse? Sure, I can understand if rebounding is suffering and we’re not getting points in the paint with the same ease, but to continually point to Bosh not being there as the source/excuse of our poor play is a fallacy. It’s scary to watch this team without Bosh because you realize just how easy we are to defend and how horribly coached we are on offense.

I’m sure Bryan Colangelo is watching this team and seeing the limitations of our players, the pedantic nature of our coach and the inner turmoil that is on the verge of exploding. He’d be not doing his job if he weren’t to shuffle at least 3 players out of the current lineup: one of TJ/Jose, upgrade Moon/Graham, upgrade Hump and do something with Bargnani because he’s playing flat out awful. Bargnani went 2-11 which immediately reminded me of jeff’s comment from last night. I’m not sure what needs to happen for him to get back to becoming an average NBA player but I would think not relying solely on the perimeter shot is something that’s topping the list. Number 2 would be fighting for an advantageous position and establishing your 7-foot frame in a way where the PG is forced to pass you the ball. Just watching Rasho do his thing tonight should be motivation enough for him but who knows. Bargnani’s game is constricted, rusty and forced, there is nothing fluid or confident about his play over the last month and he’s basically taking the same bad shots over and over again just hoping they go in.

This nightmare is over and we need to get back home and start winning some meaningful games. Miami is a win and I’ll gladly take it but after that we have three massive games coming up which if we win, will give this team a huge boost of confidence which it so desperately needs. This trip has undoubtedly given every Raptor player and coach a first hand look at just how vulnerable we are and how fine the line between us being a good team and a lottery team really is. After Miami, we get Cleveland away and then Denver and Detroit at home. If we manage to win two of those three games, it’ll do a lot towards grabbing some momentum for the final stretch. I’m not worried about Washington catching us, I almost want them to, it’s Philadelphia that is of concern. Philly is a game back and playing well, if they catch us it’ll pit us against Detroit in the playoffs which will be no fun.

If you’re looking for something positive to take out of this roadtrip, we played better defense against Sacramento and Utah. They still shot 48% and 55% respectively but there were stretches where we played well and contained them by collapsing in the paint, contesting mid-range jumpers and fighting for rebounds. It’s not much but at this point the Raptors need to take whatever positive there is and build on it. The negativity of this roadtrip and the losing can kill the will of this team if they’re not too careful and that’s why the upcoming 4 games are so crucial, even more so than the roadtrip.

Go Raptors Go.

Liners:

• What can one say about TJ Ford? (PG Interview) He needs a shrink to help him cope with the complexities of taking a back seat. Mitchell obviously hasn’t done a good enough job of harnessing his competitive spirit, emotion or style of play. He has all the attributes of being a fiery, energetic guard that can be a positive catalyst for this team but the channeling of his emotion and fury has all been incorrect. Doug Smith tends to think that way also.
• This is the lowest point of the season and we need to show up with energy, emotion and a plan over the next week to get back into playoff mode.
• Sam Mitchell has a COY award while Jerry Sloan doesn’t. Something doesn’t feel right. The players come and go but the Jazz continue to play solid and sound basketball. There’s a reason Kris Humphries isn’t on that team, you think Sloan would tolerate missed defensive assignments and going into Jordan-mode?
• I don’t remember Utah doubling a single Raptor at any time in the game. This has to be a first.
• Rasho Nesterovic (13/12) has been instrumental in preventing us from getting dominated on the boards. We played the right way on defense today, at least the interior kind. We won the rebounding battle 38-36 and didn’t let Kirilenko or Boozer get off. The perimeter D was leaky as ever, Calderon was slow to fight through screens and Ford was brutal and impatient.
• Jason Kapono is showing some signs of life and willing to force his shot. That’s much better than him preserving his FG percentage and only looking for wide open shots. I’d rather him hoist up 11 shots than Bargnani any day, at least his have a shot of going in.
• I like the St. Patricks day uniforms, check Dinosty, he’ll probably have some nice pics.

The first three quarters were marred by stretches of bad defense, spotty offense, turnovers and generally speaking, some low quality basketball on both ends. Both teams were thankful that the other hadn’t blown them out so the fourth quarter began with the Kings nursing a three point lead and the Raptors looking to salvage a win on this roadtrip before they get a lesson in Basketball 101 tomorrow in Utah. The game was up for grabs in the fourth quarter but the Raptors, not surprisingly, failed to execute down the stretch on both ends and the core flaws of this team were yet again exposed.

Let’s fast forward to the fourth quarter to the part where we’re intentionally fouling Sacramento to stretch the game. Who’s their best FT shooter? It’s Kevin Martin at 86.4%. Who do we allow to easily catch the ball four straight times and get fouled? Kevin Martin. There was zero ball denial being deployed and Martin iced the game going 6-8 and Sacramento grabbed the offensive rebound on his last missed FT (how fitting). The inbounds play where Delfino allowed Artest to walk right underneath the rim to catch and lay the ball in reminded me of Corliss Williamson in Game 5 of the Detroit series. It was that dumb and obvious. The Raptors weren’t even on the same page when it came to fouling, Mitchell wanted the Raptors to play defense with 34 seconds left but Jose Calderon didn’t get the memo and so began the fouling fiasco. Maybe it’s stretches like these that’s prompted TSN’s Tim Chisholm to openly rip Sam Mitchell:

Mitchell can (and does) blame the players all he wants, but his Raptors have become a purely reactive team because he coaches them that way. This is not a team that walks into a game knowing who they are and how they’re going to beat their opponent, they’re a team that looks to interrupt what their opponent does and hope that they fall apart like the Raptors do in similar circumstances. They never impose their will on their opponents, but rather try and counter every move their opponent makes against them, tacitly admitting that they can’t conceive of a plan to beat them in advance and giving all the psychological power that implies to the opponent.

Rasho Nesterovic’s soft hands and Jason Kapono’s outside shooting kept us in this game of runs where the first team to play defense was going to come out on top. Just like the Golden State fourth quarter, nobody played any real D, the Raptors just cooled off between the 2:40 and 1:04 marks of the quarter where Jamario Moon missed a three and Jose Calderon missed a jumper. On the other end in this same stretch Kevin Martin and Ron Artest got scores while Brad Miller hit 2 free throws. A 1 point game turned into a 7 point deficit and that’s all she wrote. Talk all you want about whether Jamario Moon is the guy to be taking threes in crunch time (and why Kapono was on the bench) but that’s a whole other topic. This paragraph is to let you know what key stretch cost us the game.

This blog is becoming pretty boring because I keep saying the same shit over and over again: Their guards got into the paint way too easily and created opportunities for everybody around them. 19, 17, 14, 32, 15. Those aren’t the lottery numbers, those are the point totals for Sacramento starters who were benefiting from PG penetration and the Raptors’ inability to fight through the pick part of the pick ‘n roll. For a team that runs the pick ‘n roll on eveerry siingllle plaaay the Raptors can’t defend it for shit, Jose Calderon is the worst when it comes to this. He firmly believes that going underneath on a shooter is a valid option as long as you flail an arm after the shot’s been taken. This is pretty basic stuff, almost man-you-ball basic. The rebounding was expectedly bad again, 50-36 is the final tally with Sacramento grabbing 5 key offensive boards in the crucial fourth quarter. Ho hum.

Looking at Mikki Moore (17/7) and his snake collection I can’t help but think that’s the type of guy this team needs. A banger, a banger that knows how to bang and rebound, and be angry and collect snakes. That’s what we need, a snake-collecting, mean, tattooed, angry, tough rebounder to set some things right. Plus he can hit the mid-range jumper better than Brezec, Hump and Bargnani. Yes, I said Bargnani. What did Sacramento get him for? 5.3M. We threw away four times that much on Jason Kapono who had his second great game of the year. Bryan Colangelo dropped the ball on this one, he knew Garbajosa had injury issues and didn’t address our interior defense need even after having an up-close view of Moore in the NJ series.

It’s becoming clear as my Dasani bottle that Jose Calderon and TJ Ford cannot coexist. I’m not being a drama queen nor am I a supporter of one over the other. They’re hampering each others games, Calderon hasn’t been the same since TJ got back and TJ hasn’t been the same since he’s been coming off the bench. Let’s face it, he’s over his injuries now so the deserving player should get the starting job and since TJ is our official starter, there’s no need for him to come off the bench anymore since you can’t really lose your job to injury. It’s not like the team is in some great rhythm that something might be disrupted if TJ starts. Maybe they can play better if they have well defined roles, like it was in the beginning of the season. What do you think?

Although they won’t admit it, the other is a distraction to them. More Ford to Calderon, than vice-versa. We need to get back to having a traditional PG setup and trade one of the two to address one of our many other needs. Which one do we trade? Do you really care? Is one of them that much better than the other?

This one hurt. Tomorrow in Utah will be very tough, Matthew Sekeres agrees.

Liners:

• If Sacramento doesn’t commit 22 turnovers, this one might’ve not even been close.
• Andrea Bargnani supporters, let’s hear it: 2-7 FG against a Kings team that doesn’t have a center. 37% shooting in the last five games? Why is he taking transition threes when he has the laterally challenged Brad Miller on him? Didn’t we draft him to blow by slower bigs? What gives? What are we waiting for? I thought this was the perfect opportunity for him to step up with Bosh being out? Huh? Anybody?
• Sam Mitchell doubling Anthony Johnson with TJ Ford on him in the post is questionable. Johnson is not a great offensive player and even if he can score, why not let him make a shot before respecting his post-up game?
• The Raptors need to get better at double-teaming. For starters, either do a hard double team or don’t do it at all. Poor Jose Calderon is often asked to provide temporary help on the post-up player which doesn’t bother him at all. All it does is pull Calderon out of place so his man can drift, catch a pass and make an open jumper.
• Our close-outs on Kevin Martin, Ron Artest and Beno Udrih were very bad. We have to do a better job of keeping track of our man on the floor and must rotate briskly, quickly and with a purpose to shooters. I sound like a broken record but perimeter D and blow-bys are killing us.
• Leo Rautins love Jason Kapono. Leo calling out TJ Ford as being the reason why Kapono missed clutch threes was asinine, Leo argued that Ford wasn’t finding Kapono on the floor and that cooled him off. Wrong! Only once did TJ not pass him the ball on the wing, that does not cool off the reigning 3-pt champ.
• I want a job like Doug Smith. Sitting courtside, I promise you I’d report a helluva lot more than what he does.

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