Over the five group stage game days for men’s basketball at the Olympics, I’m going to try to post my thoughts on the performances of the Raptors’ three representatives in London. I’ll also do this for any knockout stage games that include Jonas Valanciunas and Linas Kleiza’s Lithuanian team or Jose Calderon’s Spanish side.
So without further ado, let’s discuss how Valanciunas, Kleiza and Calderon fared on day 1 of the 2012 Olympic basketball tournament.
With Jose Calderon out of the picture, does Amir Johnson become the main amnesty target for the Raptors?
The 2012 deadline for NBA teams to use the amnesty provision has passed, and it appears safe to assume that the Raptors elected not to utilize the option, meaning they will still have the ability to amnesty one of their pre-lockout contracts next July.
Between Bryan Colangelo referring to the upcoming summer as an “exciting and active” off-season and recent reports/rumours linking the Raptors with the likes of Steve Nash and Jeremy Lin, Raptors fans have become rightfully anxious to get the 2012 off-season underway.
While the May 30th Draft Lottery, the Draft itself and free agency are the obvious talking points for fans and media alike, I’ve been quietly wondering how, if at all, the amnesty clause might come in to play for Toronto this summer.
Game No. 54: Raptors 92, Bobcats 87
While Raptors fans are preoccupied with an informal tank (and rightfully so, did you watch Monday night’s NCAA Final?), you would have to assume, or at least hope, that the Raptors themselves were preoccupied with finding a way to beat the pitiful Charlotte Bobcats.
The Bobcats came into this game at 7-43 and are honestly the worst NBA team I’ve seen in my lifetime, so as much as I’m fine with racking up losses right now, my pride as a Raptors fan needed this W. You don’t want to be the team that hands the Bobcats three of their eight wins.
Now here are some thoughts on the game:
1- There have been close losses this season against championship caliber teams that make you think the Raptors aren’t that far away from starting their climb up the NBA pecking order. But then there are wins like this against the Bobcats, where I thought the Raptors played pretty well and seemed to control the flow of the game almost all night, and yet they still needed a big final two minutes to hold off one of the worst teams in NBA history. There was a portion of the game where the Raps were shooting over 50 per cent and the Bobcats were shooting under 40 per cent but were still within two possessions. Charlotte grabbing eight more rebounds and getting to the free throw line eight more times than Toronto helped them stay in it.
2- Andrea Bargnani only grabbed three rebounds and wasn’t noticeably good on defence (though his D was passable in this game against the lowly Bobcats, which isn’t saying much), but he was very good offensively again and finished with 30 points on 50 per cent shooting. Outside of an 0-for-5 stretch at the beginning of the fourth quarter, Bargs pretty much got what he wanted on the offensive end. If you accept the fact that you’re probably not going to get very good defence from Andrea on most nights, but still want a big offensive game from him, then just watch his first few offensive touches for an answer as to whether you’ll get one. Not neccessarily whether he’s scoring or not, but rather what he’s doing with the ball.
When Bargnani’s head is in the game offensively, he seems to know what he wants to do before the ball even gets to him. His first step is a tough to guard deceiving burst and his pump fake gets defenders every time. You can usually tell when Andrea’s going to struggle from the field if he stands in one spot holding the ball just looking around to make a pass or if his pump-fake is half-assed and only confuses himself.
3- Jose Calderon only scored one point and shot 0-for-2 from the field, but he was masterful running the offence, recording 11 assists in 33 minutes without committing a turnover. It was actually Calderon who I thought got Bargnani going in the first quarter, as after Andrea had missed his first few shots, Jose started looking for him and putting him in great position for easy buckets. In addition, outside of a few lapses, Calderon was better than usual on defence, and even came up with three steals.
4- DeMar DeRozan and Linas Kleiza completed the Raptors offence for the night, combining for 38 points on 15-of-30 shooting to go along with nine rebounds. Both players played big roles in the Raptors holding off the Bobcats, as Kleiza stretched the floor with four-of-eight three-point shooting and DeRozan helped the Raps maintain their second half lead with 16 of his 20 points coming in the final 24 minutes. Kleiza had a big stretch of threes in the second quarter, while DeRozan rode a red-hot jumper for 10 points in a quick third quarter stretch.
5- Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but I’m pretty sure tonight was the first game where Raptors Season Seats were advertised. If you remember my post from a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that existing seat holders and those that bought at a lowered price for this season were guaranteed that same lowered price for next season as well. By the sounds of the promo Matt Devlin read tonight, outsiders/potential buyers can also purchase seats at this season’s lowered price for next season. I’ve said it before, but one of the things I’m really interested in this summer is seeing how casual fans and prospective ticket buyers react to the Raptors. Will season seat sales increase because of the Valanciunas hype, the draft hype and this season’s defensive improvement, or is it going to take a lot more and a lot longer than that?
6- With their first set of back-to-back wins in over two months, the Raptors have unfortunately climbed over the slumping Cavaliers, who have crashed back to earth with eight straight wins. A surprising Pistons win keeps Detroit 1.5 games ahead of the Raps, while the Kings and Nets are both playing as I write this. Depending on how those games finish, the Raptors could be anywhere from fifth from the bottom to tied for sixth/seventh from the bottom by the time you read this. I’ve said for the longest time that if you look at the standings, it’s pretty obvious that Toronto will likely finish somewhere between fourth-to-eighth from the bottom. Given the fact that teams can move down three spots on lottery night, the Raptors could realistically pick anywhere from first to 11th on draft night, which is actually kind of scary considering how much stock we’re all putting in this class. Basically, remaining games against the Cavs, Pistons, Bucks and Nets will be huge for tanking implications.
Bonus: How crazy is it that the Raptors are 16 games under .500, and yet they could lose all 12 of their remaining games and still finish with a higher winning percentage than they did last season?!
Raptors Player of the Game: Andrea Bargnani – 34 Min, 30 Pts, 11-22 FG, 2-6 3PT, 6-6 FT, 3 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl, 2 TO
Bobcats Player of the Game: Byron Mullens – 32 Min, 20 Pts, 9-21 FG, 1-2 3PT, 1-3 FT, 14 Reb, 2 Blk, 1 TO
Game No. 39: Raptors 116, Rockets 98
The Raptors got out and ran from the opening tip to take advantage of a fatigued (Houston went to overtime in Boston on Tuesday night) and slumping Rockets team that has now lost five in a row.
The Raps shot the lights out while playing their usual smothering style on the defensive end to conclude their four-game home stand with an even 2-2 record.
Now here are some thoughts on the game.
1- What an offensive display from the hometown team. The Raptors shot an incredible 59 per cent (45-for-76) from the floor, 50 per cent (6-for-12) from three-point range and over 83 per cent (20-for-24) from the free throw line. Perhaps even more impressive is that of the nine Raptors players who took at least three shots in this game, seven of them shot 50 per cent or better. As a team, Toronto scored at least 24 points in all four quarters and scored 30 and 34 points in the second and fourth quarters. From start to finish, it just seemed that everything the Raptors threw up fell conveniently in the basket.
2- While it’s easy to dismiss massive offensive blips on the radar like this one as pure luck or a fluke, the Raptors deserve a big chunk of credit for how crisply they ran their offence and in particular, how well they shared the ball. Led by Jose Calderon’s game-high 12 assists, the Raps recorded an eye-popping 31 assists on just 45 made field goals. That’s nearly 70 per cent of their baskets coming from an assist. It was the result of the Raptors looking to make the extra pass on seemingly every possession, as I’m sure there were a boat load of hockey assists for Toronto in this game.
3- It’s a good thing the Raptors shot as well as they did on Wednesday night, because they weren’t getting any help from the officials. It’s tough to say whether the officiating was unbalanced or the Raptors were simply too aggressive on the defensive end, but the fact is this, the Raptors were called for 32 fouls compared to the Rockets’ 20, and Houston went to the line an astonishing 44 times, while Toronto made a more pedestrian 24 trips to the charity stripe. I’d say it’s extremely rare to have 20 less free throw attempts than your opponent and still win by 18 points. In total, there were 52 fouls in this game, or 1.08 fouls per minute. The only thing that kept the pace of the game moving was Toronto’s efficient offence.
4- I mentioned Calderon’s 12 assists already, but the Spaniard also poured in 17 points on seven-of-11 shooting to go along with three rebounds and a couple of steals. I suppose we could look at Jose’s three turnovers as a negative in this game, but at the end of the day, a 4-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, while simply average for Calderon, would be a highlight for many other lead guards. Quite simply, Jose clearly outplayed one of the better and younger point guards in the league in Kyle Lowry.
5- Fighting Calderon for player of the game honours were DeMar DeRozan and Amir Johnson. DeRozan attacked the basket, got to the free throw line eight times and showed off his steady mid-range game en route to a 23-point performance on eight-of-16 shooting. Amir put together a balanced stat-line of 14 points (on 7-of-10 shooting), eight rebounds, two assists and three blocks. Leandro Barbosa and Linas Kleiza also impressed in this ball game, coming off the bench to combine for 34 points on 14-of-26 shooting to go with eight rebounds, three assists (from Barbosa), two steals and a block (from Kleiza) in 26 and 24 minutes respectively.
6- The complete effort and team win over a potential Western Conference playoff team extends the Raptors’ run of consistency to 16 games. What I’m alluding to, of course, is the run the Raptors started on February 3 against the Wizards. Over that 16-game span, Toronto is 6-10, with the catch being that all 10 losses have been by seven points or less. The average margin of defeat in those 10 games is just 4.4 points and the Raptors point differential over the 16 games is actually positive, at +1.8.
What I find interesting about this stretch of competitiveness is that it started after a 36-point blowout loss in Boston. You always hear coaches and players talk about how “it won’t happen again” after they are embarrassed by another team, but rarely do teams actually come out with a grittier effort like the Raptors have since that Beantown beatdown. I’m not naive enough to believe this team won’t be blown out again, but I do believe they have learned and improved from that feeling of humiliation, and that’s more than I can say for Raptors teams of recent years.
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Even Tank Nation loyalists can’t be too disappointed with this W, as the Wizards, Nets and Cavaliers all won on Wednesday, with the Hornets and Kings playing each other, so the Raptors won’t even negatively affect their lottery positioning with this solid home win.
Raptors Player of the Game: Jose Calderon – 35 Min, 17 Pts, 7-11 FG, 1-3 3PT, 2-2 FT, 3 Reb, 12 Ast, 2 Stl, 3 TO
Rockets Player of the Game: Chandler Parsons – 42 Min, 19 Pts, 6-9 FG, 1-1 3PT, 6-8 FT, 4 Reb, 2 Ast, 3 Stl, 1 Blk, 2 TO
