Damn I feel bad for Raptors fans right now, but talk about respect for our team! "Houston's too tough for us. Raptors have no heart and Houston is all heart. Loss." " This years Houston Rockets are essentially the anti Toronto Raptors" "This is like the setup for the perfect sports story cliche. A team that is undertalented (Rockets) defeats a team that is more talented (Raptors) because of their heart and will to win" "The Houston Rockets... now that's a basketball team" "Gotta love Houston, They deserve Bosh. A team that plays their @sses off. They are going to out us in everything. From coach to effort." "This game will be a prime example of how hard work and minimal talent overcomes talent and minimal effort." "Houston is missing two players that eat up 40 mil worth of cap space yet I still think they'll win. Sunday will be a good reminder of how much of a difference good coaches make." "They lose their 2 best players 13-9, we have just about every one and 10-15. Does not look good, we got spanked by them in the pre-season." "houston is gonna use this game to show bosh what at real team looks like and why he should sign with them" "Adleman will make Jay his b****." "Hopefully the Rockets will show what it looks like when you actually TRY to win the basketball game. They give it 110% everytime they step on the floor and I'm kinda hoping they win." "Jay is gonna get a first hand look at what good coaches can do for a team. Bargs and Bosh are gonna get a real hard lesson when smaller and less talented guys outwork them and beat them down. Hedo is gonna find out that the extra money wasnt worth it and the grass definitely isnt greener on the other side. BC is gonna find out that Daryl Morey is the much better GM." "Upcoming coach of the year and a team that plays themselves to death vs...the Toronto Raptors" "I expect the Rockets to lose...but then I pretty much expect that every night. At some point they're gonna stop doing this with mirrors, and I, for one, hope it's sooner than later, because as heart-warming as all this 'playing way above your head' stuff is, it's entirely ephemeral, whereas the benefits of actually taking the natural benefits of beign without your star for the year last a lot longer. Or at least that's what Spurs fans tell me." "This will be an ugly game. Ariza with 7 threes, Brooks with 12 layups, and Scola with 18 boards. 124 - 101. Raptors avoid getting boo'd thanks to free pizza thing." "watch out for Shane Battier. Hopefully, we're winning this one. Killer B's with a huge game. Win #11" "Raptors win ugly, 86-73 Got a good feeling bout this game" "If we lose by less than 15 it's a victory in our books " "If we lose by less than 20, it's a victory in my book. This Raps team is a piece of *** so far and shows nothing" "i feel like rockets wont reach 90 points this game... i dont know ours... im between if i want to wake up early to watch this game... we will see.." "I have nothing to add to this discussion. We suck. Raps 89 Rockets 111" "I dig the 'blow it up' theory, so...Go Rockets!!" "the team's mental deficiencies cost them down the stretch as they give up some costly open threes. rockets win this one running away in the fourth."
-From: http://raptorsrepublic.com/2009/12/13/feelings-can-be-confusing/#more-13180 Houston trots in tonight without Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady and still finds itself at 13-9. A solidly constructed team with quality at each position and more importantly, players who are committed to the cause. They’ve won 5 of 6, the lone blemish a one point road defeat to Brandon Roy on the road. They’ve got speed with Aaron Brooks, pure hustle with Carl Landry, a tidy professional in Shane Battier, a solid defender in Trevor Ariza, and one of the most underrated players in the league in Luis Scola. Even their second round pick, Chase Budinger, is averaging 9 points leading all second rounders. Holding this bunch together is Rick Adelman’s experience and faith in team-ball philosophy, something he’s been preaching for ages and which has manifested in success in Sacramento and now in Houston. They’re better than us, and the purest proof of it is that we pick up their trash – Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Game thread has more. Trevor Ariza on the Rockets frontline: “They’re undersized, but they play with a lot of heart. That’s what got them here, and that’s what got us where we are right now.” Aah, heart. I long for those days. Back to the team-ball thing, when I heard that we were going Euro in Toronto the thoughts that conjured up in my head were those of beautiful passing, all five players touching the ball, movement-oriented offense, Princeton cuts, hi-lo feeds, high IQ plays, cross-court passes that slice open defenses, and all those things I for some reason associated with European basketball. None of that has happened, we’re playing traditional basketball with non-traditional players, something tells me it’s not going to work. Square peg, round hole. Sustaining effort and competitiveness beyond the first quarter has been a problem in the last two games. We hung with Milwaukee and Atlanta in the first quarter but as soon as the benches came into play, we got crushed. Our bench got outscored 55-33 against Atlanta and thoroughly outplayed in the late-first and early-second stage of the Milwaukee game, in both instances the opposing team built a lead we never managed to erase. Consistency is the key and we don’t have it, Belinelli (as much as I like him) doesn’t seem like the guy that can be counted on to bring it every night, Jack is a solid pick-up but after him it really gets thin. This is a team built entirely around its starters and when they’re not producing as expected, we will suffer. While the good teams have backup plans, we don’t. Our depth at the 3, 4 and 5 positions has been exposed, Wright has been a failure, Johnson has been pleasantly surprising but far from a solution, and Rasho has been about as expected given his age. Evans hasn’t had a chance to do anything yet but c’mon, I mean, c’mon. He’s not a saviour and if we’re relying on him to be a saviour, we have much, much bigger issues. A guy we all would like to see more of, Sonny Weems, is expected to get more burn against Houston. Belinelli hasn’t done much to make the bench minutes at the SG his own so we have to look at other options and so far this season Weems has been more or less ignored. Reggie Evans practiced but remains out, Jose Calderon practiced but didn’t appear to move too well and got shut down early; he’ll be out for a while. Triano’s going to have to figure out the backup PG position and right now waiving Douby doesn’t look like the right move (Carlos Arroyo could soon be available), he’s going to rely on Belinelli and Turkoglu to pick up the slack but Banks will be activated (formality, really, what the hell would it say about him if he’s a health scratch on a team with one PG). Triano spoke about the PG situation and how the team seems to give up after conceding a small run: It’ll change the point guard spot… We’re going to make a couple of other changes too, to bring some more energy. Our biggest problem has been, I don’t know if it’s complacency or what, but they go on a 6-0 run and we kind of hang our heads a bit, and we’re still up. We just have to make sure that we get fresh guys in, energy and do the little things.” What do you do when you’re not making your threes? Shoot more threes, of course. That’s what Triano’s plan is to get the team out of their slump, Chris Bosh tends to agree although why he’s commenting on three-point shooting is a mystery: “Shooting is a lot mental. If you start pump faking and thinking about it, you’re probably not going to make it. You have to step into it and shoot your shot…. Lay it out on the line. That’s what this game is about. Lay it on out there. I don’t care if I miss five shots in a row because if I don’t [take an open shot], what’s the best we’re going to get? A panic shot at the end of the shot clock. That’s just about being aggressive and believing in our talent.” So as we wait for this afternoon’s game against Houston, all you hope is that if the Raptors do win, it’s the start of something good. If they’re winning this game only to drop 4 of 5, I’d rather they lose this one too and get exposed for what we all fear they are – gutless. That gut will be tested this afternoon, Houston leads the league in offensive rebounding and plays 48 minutes. An optimist could argue that on paper this is a close game, but once you factor in team form and Houston’s effort level, this could get ugly. Bargnani and Bosh have offensive advantages, but will they be able to put that to use and not give it right back and more on defense? That seems to be what plagues every Raptor. Here’s hoping Hedo Turkoglu has two good games in a row, it’ll help us win this game and might even go some ways in renewing Portland’s interest in him. Houston is only a 1.5 favorite, I guess the odds-makers have more faith in the Raptors than we do. Hey, you know how Scott Skiles threw Roko Ukic out there hoping he’d have some incentive to do well against his former team? You think we could pull something like that off with Pops? Naaah…just joking. Try to enjoy the game and I’ll try to do the same, although these days watching Raptors basketball seems to suck the life out of me. This has been surprisingly enjoyable.
lol raptorsforum.. i post there once in a while since i'm canadian. but i gotta say, that board is blowing up. the expectations were so dam high in the beginning witht he signing of turk. Now look at them, half of the threads asks for Jay triano (who's a dumbass btw) to be fired, the other half asks for bosh/barg/jose/turk/everyone on the team to be traded.
I feel bad for Toronto. I blame the GM, not the coach. The team can not defend because there are no good defenders. Jarret Jack is probably the best defender in the squad. They can not rebound because Bosh is the only good rebounder at his position. Everyone else rebounds poorly for their position. When you can't get stops or rebounds, you can't run. This team is trying to run. I think they need Shane Battier. Would drastically change their make up, probably make them contenders. But they have nothign useful to offer us. This is all good for us, because it means Bosh will definitely consider leaving.
Maybe sometimes too many expectations would result in too much disappointment, which is leading up to the hatred towards the single player on this team. Negativity would be a better option for us not to hate on our own guys.
Our fans are spoiled. We have had a really good team for the past 5 years and now torch bearers are trying to drive away a huge part of it because they can't just accept bad luck as a reason for losing, they have to have a scapegoat.
So, which of these Raptors does Morey trade for? I like Bargnani. He is David Andersen with more physical talent.
If they continue to play like this (I think they're on pace to become the worst defensive team in NBA history this season), then I think Bryan Colangelo (who is no dummy) will look long and hard at trading Chris Bosh. I don't see him trading Bargnani, who just signed a $50M extension, or Demar DeRozan, especially since Colangelo would then lose all credibility about having ANY pieces to build around. Turkoglu is probably not tradeable at this point, given his big new contract and apparently diminishing skills. Calderon, while still a very effective offensive point guard, is quickly becoming known as the worst defensive point guard in the league by far (and probably a big reason why the team as a whole is so poor defensively). My guess is that, for the Raptors to be willing to trade Bosh (assuming that Colangelo ever actually gets to the point of realization that Chris is a goner next summer), the other team will have to take back Marcus Banks and Reggie Evans (owed a combined ~$9.5M or so next season) and give up multiple first rounders and at least one or two quality young players. While I personally would not make this trade, my guess is that Colangelo would want the following from Houston (at least at this point): Chris Bosh, Marcus Banks and Reggie Evans for Tracy McGrady('s contract), Luis Scola, Aaron Brooks and a 2010 first round pick
Too much love from the opposing team, I feel flattered..............but still....... let's kick their ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their perimeter D is so bad AB will have a career high in points, and JT will score 10 points in garbage time.
