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Guard Play is bringing us down

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Post#61 » by tosi » Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:23 pm

The Raptors really need to pick up a Guard that is good with off the ball movement. There is often too many statues during raptor games. One player who I love with off the ball movement is Richard Hamilton. Constantly keeping his guard on his toes, trying to get into open space.

I am not saying we pick up Hamilton, but a player who can move well, doesn't need the ball, knock down open Js, and slash to the basket.
fart wrote:I agree. get over it people. MJ is ridicoulsly overrated that people have developed this perception that no one can challenge him for GOAT.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#62 » by El Presidente » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:13 pm

Shaazzam wrote:Jose: 3-7 FG 5 Ast 3 Reb 3 TO 8 Pts
AP: 5-11 FG 0 Ast 3 Reb 2 TO 10 Pts

Billups: 5-9 FG 4 Ast 3 Reb 2 TO 20 Pts
Rip: 16-22 F 6 Ast 4 Reb 0 TO 39 Pts

People can crap all over our bigs but I feel a major item is getting overlooked. And It's the type of thing that bugs me in the whole TJ vs Jose thing. Jose was atrocious last night, and he gets a free pass. He couldn't initiate anything offensively and got abused by Billups, but he's supposed to sign somewhere for 9 million next season. Now we can chalk it up as a bad matchup, or heavy minutes against POR, and continue to throw AB under the bus. Or we can accept the fact that this team either needs TJ back badly or we need to upgrade the 2.


Yes, we can chalk it entirely to a bad matchup and Billups being a demon. Jose's play has not been a major problem this year and generally speaking, the worst he's done this year is to play some shoddy defense and pull back on semi-transition opportunities. So I wouldn't **** on him too much but that doesn't mean we don't miss TJ, he is the engine that drives the team and his injury has also caused our second unit to be weakened which now is sans Calderon. As for him getting 9M, that's just the market, nothing you can do about that.

Shaazzam wrote:Unless we get a top tier 2 for Jose. he will lead us to nothing more then mediocrity. He is dynamic enough offensively and cannot guard his own position. Now I love the guy and I feel bad typing this about him, but the amount of flack our bigs are getting is unwarranted and small minded. These guys don't control the ball, they aren't supposed to initiate the offence, they aren't at the point of attack defensively.

I love AP, but the guy has lost a step this year and cannot break down defenses. He can hit seams and lanes that are already there, but he can't break anyone down.


Agreed on Jose but did you actually think that AP could break down defenses last year? I think his play has been very similar to last year, the dip in stats is entirely because of a decline in minutes, thats all. I don't think anybody here thinks that AP is the 2 of the future but you got to ask yourself, where are you going to get a 2 from? You can't just pull an All-Star 2 guard out of your ass these days without giving up something and guess what our most tradeable asset is? Yup. AP's biggest problem is helping off his man when there's no need to help, he's been getting burned all year.


Shaazzam wrote:Yes items like rebounding are a major issue, and you ahve to play with the personnel that you have. But I think we have some of the weakest guard play around with TJ out. Our 2's are support players at best and Jose is not equipped to play major minutes against the best teams night in and night out. He can't play good enough defence and he can't break teams down without the benefit of a screen and/or a defensive miscue.


Wait, wait. Your thoughts on rebounding are "you have to play with the personnel you have" but you're choosing to isolate the guards. I agree with the latter argument but you also have to **** on the big men for not rebounding consistently. I agree we lost the Detroit game because of bad guard play but we've lost more games because of rebounding and interior defense issues than guard play, agree?

The fact is that not only our the 2's support players, it's also the 3's and the 5's. There are problems all around with this team but the goal isn't to win an NBA championship this year, it's to win a playoff series or two and to do that we need to upgrade our interior offense/defense first, we can worry about upgrading AP through free agency later.

Shaazzam wrote:TJ I hope you come back soon man and restore some balance to the lineup, because without you we don't have enough pure talent to beat the best teams. We try to out execute them and sometimes we are able to, but we can't beat them on raw talent.Thoughts?


Amen.
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Post#63 » by bane_dd » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:23 pm

Shaazzam,

Detorit owned the Raps even with TJ and Garbo playing. They are a BETTER TEAM than the Raptors are right now. Stop calling out players, it is the team that lost. Chauncey and RIP did most of the scoring, but Maxiell and Dice set screens, defended and generally pestered Bosh into a subpar night. Their bigs were just as dominant as their guards, it was just that the guards did the bulk of the scoring. Dice had 7 steals and 13 rebs, and if that is not ownage, I don't know what is.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#64 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:33 pm

Excellent post. Will address some points briefly. I mean no disrespect, and I appreciate the time you took to respond to me.

El Presidente wrote:As for him getting 9M, that's just the market, nothing you can do about that.


I question that this will be the market, and if any team wants to give him 9 million, I personally, would let him walk. He's not dynamic enough for me to tie up that much cap space.

El Presidente wrote:Agreed on Jose but did you actually think that AP could break down defenses last year?


No, not at all, but I see how my sentence structure would cause you to believe that. I was one of the few in the preseason that called for AP to do less not more on offence this year.

El Presidente wrote:Wait, wait. Your thoughts on rebounding are "you have to play with the personnel you have" but you're choosing to isolate the guards.


I was going to concede this to point to you, but I'm a try an' tap dance here for a moment. We may get into a chicken egg argument, but I feel strongly about guard play being important.

On defence our guards can't guard the perimeter, which can cause the bigs to sacrifice rebounding position.

On offence our guards can't break down the defence so they can't force the opposing bigs to have to roatate, sacrifice rebounding position and open seams to hit the glass.
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Post#65 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:40 pm

bane_dd wrote:Shaazzam,

Detorit owned the Raps even with TJ and Garbo playing. They are a BETTER TEAM than the Raptors are right now. Stop calling out players, it is the team that lost. Chauncey and RIP did most of the scoring, but Maxiell and Dice set screens, defended and generally pestered Bosh into a subpar night. Their bigs were just as dominant as their guards, it was just that the guards did the bulk of the scoring. Dice had 7 steals and 13 rebs, and if that is not ownage, I don't know what is.


I completely agree they are a better team and we don't have the raw talent in order to overcome great "teams" that are healthy.

Now, if we had some guys that could get into the heart of their defence, wouldn't that make it easier to create space for Bosh? If all they have to do is sit in his lap, doesn't it behoove the guards to make some plays?
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#66 » by El Presidente » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:44 pm

Shaazzam wrote:On defense our guards can't guard the perimeter, which can cause the bigs to sacrifice rebounding position.

On offense our guards can't break down the defense so they can't force the opposing bigs to have to rotate, sacrifice rebounding position and open seams to hit the glass.


There's truth in what you say here but not enough to warrant a pass on the rebounding. The long jump shots we take so often result in 50-50 rebounds that we always end up losing. The guards have nothing to do with that.

Now I agree that if a PG drives and attacks a big man, he'll spawn a thread of rotations that'll have to be made and it might open up chances of offensive rebounding by I'm not even talking about offensive rebounds, my primary concern are defensive ones. I think you're slightly exaggerating how our big men are helping our guards when they get broken down thus conceding positioning, even if that is happening it's up to the other front court players to make the rotation and rebound the ball, no excuses here really.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#67 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 7:55 pm

El Presidente wrote:-= original quote snipped =-

There's truth in what you say here but not enough to warrant a pass on the rebounding. The long jump shots we take so often result in 50-50 rebounds that we always end up losing. The guards have nothing to do with that.



Ah, but we do have some very, very good shooters on this team. And if someone could break down defenses better, they would get more room on them, generally making it easier to hit at a higher clip. Also if we could get someone driving to the rim, we wouldn't have to shoot so many long jumpers.
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Post#68 » by SciencePiggy » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:01 pm

I'd like to think that if TJ was playing banged up for approx 40min a night with no real backup that he would be given slack and we wouldn't need more of these TJ vs Jose discussions...then I remember this is RealGM

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Post#69 » by Death Knight » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:05 pm

Death Knight wrote:We are talking about the Raptors. TJ and Jose are already pretty good. We know what guys like TJ, Jose, and Bosh are going to bring to the table. The only one that hasn't brought it is Bargnani. So if you talk about guard play, TJ and Jose can continue to do their thing, but until Bargnani improves, develops and starts playing better, this team can't take the next step.

Wouldn't you agree that Bargnani has the most improving to do out of all the Raptors' players? Truth is, Bargnani is the key for the Raptors make the jump to elite level. You can't tell me that the Raptors can just waste a number one pick and still be able to take it to the next level.

Guard play has always been consistent for this team. Even going back to last season, they were pretty consistent all season long. But the Raptors didn't start to make their second half run until Bargnani started to play better.


This is from the pg thread and I wanted to post again......

PG play on this team has been the most consistent position for the Raptors. And once TJ comes back, it will be the Raptors most consistent strong point.

As for the sg spot, Parker is becoming very streaky. So I don't know what to say......
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Post#70 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:30 pm

Death Knight wrote:
This is from the pg thread and I wanted to post again......

PG play on this team has been the most consistent position for the Raptors. And once TJ comes back, it will be the Raptors most consistent strong point.

As for the sg spot, Parker is becoming very streaky. So I don't know what to say......


Good post, but I would posit that since we had TJ healthy last season when AB came on you are thus proving my point.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#71 » by The_Hater » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:42 pm

Shaazzam wrote:Jose: 3-7 FG 5 Ast 3 Reb 3 TO 8 Pts
AP: 5-11 FG 0 Ast 3 Reb 2 TO 10 Pts

Billups: 5-9 FG 4 Ast 3 Reb 2 TO 20 Pts
Rip: 16-22 F 6 Ast 4 Reb 0 TO 39 Pts

People can crap all over our bigs but I feel a major item is getting overlooked.
Thoughts?


Are you saying that guard play is bringing us down in general or are you just saying that they both played awful last night? Because generally speaking, although they stunk out the joint last night Jose and AP have both been playing excellent ball of late.

Center, the bench. These have been the biggest weaknesses for the past 5 weeks.
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Post#72 » by Reignman » Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:54 pm

2 things that really stand out about our team without TJ is the draw and kick. Jose has not used the draw and kick at all and even though he is the master of the perimeter pass, I've noticed that our shooters are still shooting mainly contested shots. This causes our shooters to try and create for themselves when they don't have the ability to do so.

Take a look at the Pistons running the draw and kick to perfection. I know they are elite and all, but it's a pretty simple play. Drive the lane and pass out when the defence collapses. And even if you can't pass to the open man, he's usually 1 additional perimeter pass away.

It's sad that CB4 and Delfino are better at the draw and kick play than Jose.

Also, I think Dagger mentioned that our defence doesn't change with TJ in the lineup, and I actually find this flat out wrong. Very rarely does our team have to provide help because the opposition PG broke him down off the point of attack. He's very good at keeping his man infront of him, and his defence is underated on this board. Does that mean he makes our defence great? No, but I'd rather have 2 leaks in the dam than 3, if you get what I'm saying. Check the efg%.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#73 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:05 pm

The_Hater wrote:
Are you saying that guard play is bringing us down in general or are you just saying that they both played awful last night? Because generally speaking, although they stunk out the joint last night Jose and AP have both been playing excellent ball of late.

Center, the bench. These have been the biggest weaknesses for the past 5 weeks.


I must say I struggled with a title, but my thrust was that with Jose and AP as our starters, we can't really hang with the big boys.
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Post#74 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:08 pm

Reignman wrote:
Also, I think Dagger mentioned that our defence doesn't change with TJ in the lineup, and I actually find this flat out wrong. Very rarely does our team have to provide help because the opposition PG broke him down off the point of attack. He's very good at keeping his man infront of him, and his defence is underated on this board. Does that mean he makes our defence great? No, but I'd rather have 2 leaks in the dam than 3, if you get what I'm saying. Check the efg%.


TJ can get over screens and stay in front of his man, now he is susceptible to strong guards bulling him to the rim, but I feel he improves or defence when compared to the other options we have.
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Post#75 » by Reignman » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:30 pm

Shaazzam wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



TJ can get over screens and stay in front of his man, now he is susceptible to strong guards bulling him to the rim, but I feel he improves or defence when compared to the other options we have.


Agreed. And how often do you find a point guard that wants to bully his way into the lane throughout the course of a game. I can name 2, Baron and Billups. Deron possibly as well. However, having TJ pester these guys all the way to the rim does 2 things, makes it difficult for them to find the open man on the kick, and allows our bigs to track them for the block.

Right now the lane is like the parting of the sea. CB4 is smart enough to know when to go for the block and when to give up the basket to avoid fouling. Bargs has not learnt this yet, so it's most likely going to end up in a foul for him. Or worse, our entire defence breaks down and someone is shooting a wide open 3.

One question I do have is why do we have multiple people providing help?
Are they not communicating, because it hurts seeing our wing defender on the other side of the court, who has nothing to do with the play, start sagging off his man. So instead of 1 open perimeter player, the opposition has a choice of people for the kick.
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Post#76 » by KG1585 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:34 pm

I must say I struggled with a title, but my thrust was that with Jose and AP as our starters, we can't really hang with the big boys.


Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't you say that Calderon is like Ron Harper and Derek Fisher. Didn't these guys win multiple championships as starting Pgs.
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#77 » by supersub15 » Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:37 pm

Shaazzam wrote:-= original quote snipped =-

I must say I struggled with a title, but my thrust was that with Jose and AP as our starters, we can't really hang with the big boys.


The big boys, such as Chris Paul and Tony Parker? Oh wait...
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Post#78 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:14 pm

KG1585 wrote:
I must say I struggled with a title, but my thrust was that with Jose and AP as our starters, we can't really hang with the big boys.


Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't you say that Calderon is like Ron Harper and Derek Fisher. Didn't these guys win multiple championships as starting Pgs.


Wrong.

The reason for this is related to how I view the PG position in regards to team building. If I'm going to go with a PG oriented offence, I want a guy that can break defences down and cause havoc. He can be forgiven for some defensive inadequacies by putting a strong defender at the two who can stick shots.

If I'm looking for a system PG (who I think Jose's game as a lead guard is more suited to be, and with the calls for more sophistication rampant, looks like most of us agree on this) I want a big guard who is strong defender that can hit big shots. Guys like Ron Harper, Derek Fisher, come to mind. This guy has to be able to guard his own position.

The issue I see with Jose is that for the first instance, he can't break down defenses well enough on his own to fit there, and in the second he's not strong enough physically, or as a defender to fit. Regardless of how much people blame it on the fact that Jose can't double down and recover, he still can't guard his own position.
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Post#79 » by RockTHECasbah » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:17 pm

You used the stats from one game to generalize, get back when you use averages
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Re: Guard Play is bringing us down 

Post#80 » by Shaazzam » Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:17 pm

supersub15 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



The big boys, such as Chris Paul and Tony Parker? Oh wait...


I don't consider NO an elite team, and that's what I am referring to. Teams.

SA is elite obviously, and if I think we won because some key guards were hurt for them as well, but if I am going to complain about TJ being hurt, I'll concede that one.
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