Monday, November 2, 2009

Who Are These Guys?


The first full week of the Raptors NBA season has been logged, and within it we seem to have found that all early predictions of the Raptors have been true – meaning this team is harder to read then the smudged dry cleaning ticket Kramer got back with Uma Thurman’s number on it. We still have yet to answer the question: Who are these guys?

It’s real easy to see the last two losses and just throw our hands up in the air and say “Hopeless! This team is done for!” We’ve done it before after some heartbreaking losses, and I’m sure we’ll do it again. However (after battling a weekend long bout of Raptor-related depression) I’m not ready to give up on them just yet because there were definitely times in both games where we easily could have taken the game over if not for some inspired play by the Grizzlies and Magic, just like we could have easily coughed up our opener if not for some bone-headed plays by the Cavaliers.

Since we’re all down and out to begin with, let’s focus on what was bad here, namely the entirety of our defense. Our defense so far has been, well, indefensible. It’s not as if the Magic or Grizzlies were throwing out anything spectacular at us, it’s just that both teams exploited two different problems. The Grizzlies showed we have terrible one on one defense and can’t help on the blocks worth a damn. OJ Mayo was draining mid-range jumpers like glasses of cristal at cobra, and Zach Randolph almost made me forget he looks like Oliver Miller’s long lost brother. Everyone assumed that because our front court is such a radical departure from what most NBA teams have, we should be a match-up nightmare, but forget that without a truly intimidating big man, overweight slobs like Randolph can bully his way to a semi-decent performance.

And then a couple days later, the Magic pried open another transparent weakness of ours: Our complete inability to both cover the inside and still switch off to defenders beyond the arc. Granted, this is Orlando’s bread and butter, they got to the NBA finals because teams either had to stop Howard or stop their shooters and could rarely do both. But on Sunday, 3/5ths of their starting line-up wasn’t even in the game, so one would hope someone like JJ Reddick would be easier to stop then Rashard Lewis (and by the way, am I the only person who is tired of announcers always bringing up that JJ was a Duke All-star? We get it, he played well at Duke, went to the NBA, and had his spot supplanted by the ugliest man in basketball, who I will get to in a minute). Our rookie Demar DeRozan is one of the worst offenders here, as he was constantly the broken link in the chain of perimeter defense. At some point they realized that all they had to do was swing the ball around once and Double D would immediately start trying to triple team Dwight Howard. I understand his eagerness to stop the big man, but after being drained on three times in a row, maybe he should have thought about tightening up just a tad.

This team has tried to make public claims for a while that they are in a “defensive” mind-set, but so far that seems to be the furthest thing from the truth. Lebron got a triple double on them, the Magic dropped threes on them all day long, and they let Zach Randolph actually looked like a basketball player instead of the lead in Precious.

But as bad as the defense has been, there’s no denying that our offense has been pretty good at the worst of times and scorching at the best of times. It may look like our offense was looking bad when we dropped behind the Magic by 22 points, but that’s more of a by-product of our defense. Bosh has been unstoppable, there’s not much more I can say there. Andrea has looked fantastic (except for the first half of Friday’s game, but that looks to be more then exception then the norm here). And while being a little turnover happy, our movement is making for some very exciting basketball.

My favorite thing though has to be this: When the jump-shot gets stagnant, there seems to always be someone who’ll slash in and make a play. One of my favorite plays from Friday was when this exact situation was happening, Triano called a timeout, and within 5 seconds of coming back to play Jose had driven in, gotten the bucket and the foul. Any fan of the Raptors over the years knows how utterly frustrating it was to watch five or six minutes go by and just watch Moon or Parker or Jose or Andrea just heave shot after shot without any energy or passion. That aspect is definitely out the window.

And that brings me back to the ugliest man in basketball, Mr. Turkoglu. I’ve kind of gone back and forth on this over the past few days, but I think my solid decision is that he’s worth what we paid for him. He’ll never take over the game, but he’ll be the one to keep it close and make big plays at the end of the game. He handles the ball better then anyone on the team and that includes Jose (which leads me to wonder why Hedo doesn’t just play the point more often - Is there a height requirement? It doesn’t have to be all the time, but he definitely can push the ball better then Calderon), seems to have his shooting stroke back in full form, and for all their backcourt woes seems to be the one guy on the team who can effectively cover his man.

So… who are these guys? Are they a fast-paced high energy team who will pummel opponents into submission with their wide array of offensive attacks (as they were able to do to the Cleveland Lebrons)? Or are they just a bunch of defensive liabilities that will be good for the sportscentre highlight reel, but will constantly let losers like Jianlian and Villaneuva walk all over them?

Or will their inability to be defined define them? Will they spend the rest of the season playing inconsistent basketball right up until Bosh jumps ship to win some championships with Derrick Rose? Will they continue to ebb and flow between the markers that separate the good and bad teams?

Who are these guys? I don’t know. They don’t know. And they better find the answer sooner then later.

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