Rocky Mountain Low
I have a lot to say about the Raptors' latest loss, 95-86 to Denver, but I'm going to try to keep this short...
Well, I don't want to lose the sight of the big picture and all, and this was a mid-December game at the tail end of a tough, four-game road trip. Plus we were missing not one, not two, but four key players in this one. No Kyle, Freddie, Siakam and JV.
Still, it was such a maddening loss. The guys missed open shots with no defender within 5 feet of them (I swear I could have made some of those!) and it looked like we just hit a wall late in the game.
We went from leading 70-57 with 3:55 left in the third quarter (at which point I thought we had this game wrapped up) to losing 95-86. If you do the math, the Nuggets closed out the game on a 38-16 run over the final 16 or so minutes.
A few thoughts.
Game of Runs
There were a bunch of 7-0, 10-0ish runs by both teams in this one. One team would go on a run, and the other would call a timeout. And coming out of the huddle, that team would put together a run of its own, prompting the opponent to call a timeout, too.
The biggest blow for us was Denver's 18-0 run from third to fourth. After building that 70-57 lead, Moose made a bucket to get us to 72 with 2:20 left in the third. And then we got stuck there for an eternity. The next points came on Kawhi's dunk about 5 minutes into the fourth.
This was the play:
Kawhi had 29 with 14 boards. Went 12-of-21 from the field and had four assists. I thought he made some great passes out of double or triple teams. If OG, CJ and other guys had made their open chances, Kawhi would have had a triple double and we would have won this rather easily.
I turned it off after Canadian Jamal Murray made it 86-77 for the bad guys. It was going to be one of those nights.
We went 2-2 on this trip. Before it began, I would have been happy with this split, except that I figured we'd lose to the Clippers and the Warriors and then beat the Blazers and the Nuggets. Well, we won the first two games in pretty convincing style, which makes dropping the next two that much more disappointing, key absences or not.
Officiating
Because I am a biased fan, I'll never be able to have an objective take on officiating when it comes to my team. In recent games, I felt there have been some egregious calls/non-calls against the Raptors.
Well, I've kinda held back from commenting on officiating because I already whine a great deal after every loss and I didn't want to add to it.
And then coach Nurse spoke up:
It's almost certain he's going to be fined, or at the very least, he'll get a call from the league office about this comment. But you know what? This is a coach sticking up for his best player. I love it. What's a few bucks, right? Kawhi is not the type to complain about these things (though he did get T'd up once recently). But Nurse has his back.
To Nurse's credit, the refs were letting 'em play in this one. There was a lot of contact at the other end, too. So it wasn't just the Raptors or Kawhi not getting things called his way. And for Nurse to complain about this after a loss will make him look like a sore loser in many eyes.
In the history of sports, no one did "sticking up for my guys vs. refs" better than Wayne Gretzky at the 2002 Winter Olympics, when he was the executive director of Team Canada. This was after Canada's 3-3 tie with the Czechs and Theo Fleury almost got murdered.
This is the classic, "crock of crap" speech. Believe me, it's worth 9 minutes of your time. (Or, if you don't have 9 minutes, watch from about 2:00 mark)
Shooting woes
Look, I like CJ. But his shooting woes are holding us back. He started this game in the absence of all those bodies, but went just 2-of-9 from downtown and 2-of-12 from the field overall.
He's a catch-and-shoot guy but he's not converting on his chances. He has tried driving to the basket for layups or floaters, etc, but that's not his game. And he has missed his share of those, too. And he's not athletic enough to be throwing up step-backs.
He's shooting just 31.7 percent from deep, and 33.6 percent from the field. He's a better shooter than that.
OG has been frustrating to watch, too. He's settling for jumpers too often and not using his athleticism to go hard at defenders. His FT shooting has been terrible (6-of-20 this year, a 30 percent clip. He shot 62.9 percent last season) and for all of his defensive contributions, OG has to step up his offensive game to help the second unit and to justify his minutes.
Without JV for an extended period of time and Norm also out a while, we don't have much in the way of go-to scoring options off the bench, now that Siakam is in the starting lineup. Freddie has been up and down, Delon isn't a natural scorer, and CJ has been off. JV was carrying the scoring load for a few games before he was injured.
Anyway, if you didn't know anything about the NBA and just read my last couple of posts, you'd have thought the Raptors were in last place or something.
Nope. We're still in first place. For now.
The gang will get a couple of days off, and then it's against the Pacers. I'll have my real life/fantasy hoops inner conflict once again.
Dipo is the best guard on my fantasy team. He just came back from injury and had a monster game against the Knicks today, with 26 points, eight boards, seven times, five steals and five treys.
Here's what I'd like to see Thursday: Dipo putting up those numbers again, only in a loss.
Well, I don't want to lose the sight of the big picture and all, and this was a mid-December game at the tail end of a tough, four-game road trip. Plus we were missing not one, not two, but four key players in this one. No Kyle, Freddie, Siakam and JV.
Still, it was such a maddening loss. The guys missed open shots with no defender within 5 feet of them (I swear I could have made some of those!) and it looked like we just hit a wall late in the game.
We went from leading 70-57 with 3:55 left in the third quarter (at which point I thought we had this game wrapped up) to losing 95-86. If you do the math, the Nuggets closed out the game on a 38-16 run over the final 16 or so minutes.
A few thoughts.
 |
| Ain't his fault we've lost 2 in a row. |
Game of Runs
There were a bunch of 7-0, 10-0ish runs by both teams in this one. One team would go on a run, and the other would call a timeout. And coming out of the huddle, that team would put together a run of its own, prompting the opponent to call a timeout, too.
The biggest blow for us was Denver's 18-0 run from third to fourth. After building that 70-57 lead, Moose made a bucket to get us to 72 with 2:20 left in the third. And then we got stuck there for an eternity. The next points came on Kawhi's dunk about 5 minutes into the fourth.
This was the play:
Kawhi (25 PTS) reaches up for the stuff!#WeTheNorth 79#MileHighBasketball 86— NBA (@NBA) December 17, 2018
4:45 left on NBALP (WATCH FREE: https://t.co/cYXnbWzIYB) pic.twitter.com/cBtFpGMQ1M
Kawhi had 29 with 14 boards. Went 12-of-21 from the field and had four assists. I thought he made some great passes out of double or triple teams. If OG, CJ and other guys had made their open chances, Kawhi would have had a triple double and we would have won this rather easily.
I turned it off after Canadian Jamal Murray made it 86-77 for the bad guys. It was going to be one of those nights.
We went 2-2 on this trip. Before it began, I would have been happy with this split, except that I figured we'd lose to the Clippers and the Warriors and then beat the Blazers and the Nuggets. Well, we won the first two games in pretty convincing style, which makes dropping the next two that much more disappointing, key absences or not.
Officiating
Because I am a biased fan, I'll never be able to have an objective take on officiating when it comes to my team. In recent games, I felt there have been some egregious calls/non-calls against the Raptors.
Well, I've kinda held back from commenting on officiating because I already whine a great deal after every loss and I didn't want to add to it.
And then coach Nurse spoke up:
It's almost certain he's going to be fined, or at the very least, he'll get a call from the league office about this comment. But you know what? This is a coach sticking up for his best player. I love it. What's a few bucks, right? Kawhi is not the type to complain about these things (though he did get T'd up once recently). But Nurse has his back.
To Nurse's credit, the refs were letting 'em play in this one. There was a lot of contact at the other end, too. So it wasn't just the Raptors or Kawhi not getting things called his way. And for Nurse to complain about this after a loss will make him look like a sore loser in many eyes.
In the history of sports, no one did "sticking up for my guys vs. refs" better than Wayne Gretzky at the 2002 Winter Olympics, when he was the executive director of Team Canada. This was after Canada's 3-3 tie with the Czechs and Theo Fleury almost got murdered.
This is the classic, "crock of crap" speech. Believe me, it's worth 9 minutes of your time. (Or, if you don't have 9 minutes, watch from about 2:00 mark)
Shooting woes
Look, I like CJ. But his shooting woes are holding us back. He started this game in the absence of all those bodies, but went just 2-of-9 from downtown and 2-of-12 from the field overall.
He's a catch-and-shoot guy but he's not converting on his chances. He has tried driving to the basket for layups or floaters, etc, but that's not his game. And he has missed his share of those, too. And he's not athletic enough to be throwing up step-backs.
He's shooting just 31.7 percent from deep, and 33.6 percent from the field. He's a better shooter than that.
OG has been frustrating to watch, too. He's settling for jumpers too often and not using his athleticism to go hard at defenders. His FT shooting has been terrible (6-of-20 this year, a 30 percent clip. He shot 62.9 percent last season) and for all of his defensive contributions, OG has to step up his offensive game to help the second unit and to justify his minutes.
Without JV for an extended period of time and Norm also out a while, we don't have much in the way of go-to scoring options off the bench, now that Siakam is in the starting lineup. Freddie has been up and down, Delon isn't a natural scorer, and CJ has been off. JV was carrying the scoring load for a few games before he was injured.
Anyway, if you didn't know anything about the NBA and just read my last couple of posts, you'd have thought the Raptors were in last place or something.
Nope. We're still in first place. For now.
The gang will get a couple of days off, and then it's against the Pacers. I'll have my real life/fantasy hoops inner conflict once again.
Dipo is the best guard on my fantasy team. He just came back from injury and had a monster game against the Knicks today, with 26 points, eight boards, seven times, five steals and five treys.
Here's what I'd like to see Thursday: Dipo putting up those numbers again, only in a loss.
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