The real reasons we lost last night

[Grizzled]

Some of the posts in here are ridicolous. Blaming Bargs & Blaming Calderon. You are missing the point of the original poster. Those where our GOOD Players.

1) Calderon defense on Billups was not great, but it was NOT HORRIBLE as some of you say. Billups is a GREAT player. He shot 7/14 and had 9 assists. That is what great players do. Calderon didn't play great defense, but it is not the reason we lost. Billups is difficult matchup. He is going to get his. Plus in the NBA there is only few players who can cover the other teams great players 1-1. When you shutdown the opposition, its because of the good team defense. This team doesn't know the word of team defense. How many times did calderon steer Billups to the double team, only for Bosh/Bargs to look away and allow layup.

2) Calderon is not a starter and we miss TJ. This arguement is stupid. Calderon has being playing great. He had 7/13 & 9 assists. How come you guys aren't saying he was abusing Billups? We miss TJ, because we don't have Calderon coming off the bench. We have huge dropoff with Dixon/Murray. Before we expected to make runs when our bench comes in, now we are hoping not have huge deficit. If we decided Murray is not capable backup PG, why is he still on the roster. BC is letting the ball drop on this.

It

[Death Knight]

The thing about Calderon's defense is that he is being ask to play 40+ minutes now that Ford is gone. With those minutes in effect some players tend to slack on defense so they would have more energy for the offensive side. Had he been coming off the bench or know Ford will be getting half the minutes, we probably could have stopped a lot more of Billups and Stuckey's shot.

Are you kidding me? Jose is and was a bad defender even when TJ Ford was playing and Jose was coming off the bench. A bad defender is a bad defender no matter how many minutes they play, 20 or 40.

Calderon is much like Bargnani on defense. They can hold their own on post defense, but they struggle to guard their man when they face up and get beat off the dribble. They both also suck with their off the ball defense (this could be said about a lot of other Raptor players). They pay too much attention to the ball side and totally lose their man on the weak side or off the ball.

[Michael Bradley]

Ford is the only player on the Raptors who can create for himself, and is the best on the team at creating off penetration. Take those elements away and you're left with a roster without a player who can create offense for himself and almost 100% dependent on jump shooting. Calderon is a good PG, but there's not much he can do when his only options (other than Bosh) are standstill shooters or offensive pylons (Moon). It also hurts that the back-up PG is so bad at being a point guard that it necessitates 40 minutes from Jose every night.

If anything, this just makes it more obvious that this team is missing a scoring wing player (a Joe Johnson type). Parker looks like he may have peaked last season, Delfino is erratic, Kapono is what he is (great shooter), and Moon is a defensive player only.

The Raptors miss Ford, but even with Ford there needs to be a significant upgrade at the wing position.

[hoop_head]

The focus here shouldn't be on Calderon's play, but the poor play at our SG and SF spots. Let's be fair - Jose is doing a good job, and we're all hoping for TJ to return as soon as possible. Billups makes most opposing Point Guards look bad, and given that Calderon isn't a great defender, it looked bad last night.

The real issue form last night is how lacking we are at SG & SF when compared to Detroit. Assuming TJ returns to form and can play well for many years to come, we must look at improving the SG and SF spots in the very near future. TJ(PG), Bosh(PF), and Bargnani(C) make a pretty good young trio going forward. However, our starting SG and SF spots also need an injection of young promising talent.

What do we have now?

SG Anthony Parker, Carols Delfino, Juan Dixon. The only long-term prospect here is Delfino IMO, and I"m not convinced he's starting SG material. We need a quality 24-28 year-old starting SG that can grow with TJ, Bosh, and Bargnani.

SF Jamario Moon, Joey Graham, Jason Kapono. Is anyone on this list starting SF material? Each player brings somewthing special, but in reality we need a SF that has the complete package (Jamario's defence, Joey's athleticism, Jason's sharp-shooting).

Of the two positions, I think we need to focus on getting a good young SG first IMO.

[knickerbocker2k2]

It’s pretty hard to say that Calderon is not a starter, but yes we do miss TJ a lot. Forderon was one of our best assets.

Yes I agree. My point was that we miss TJ not because he is not starting, but rather he is not playing at all. TJ/Calderon is a good combo and with both we dominated the pg position.

Like somebody else says in this thread, TJ & Bosh are the two players who can create shots on their own. Our whole bench needs somebody to set them up and without TJ/Calderon in the game, we can't score. If we had TJ, we could've easily won Portland & Houston game. IMO I think Tj coming off the bench would be the best thing for this team because he could easily get his and create for our scrubs who rely on penetration. Calderon/Bosh play better together, because Jose will always defer to Bosh.

I believe he knows what he’s doing. I see him trying to get everyone involved. I think he knew that if we were going to win that game against a team as good as Detroit he had to get Parker and others going, so he kept giving Parker good looks hoping that he’d light up, but he never did. Like Nash I think he’s so smart in what he’s doing that it can be hard to recognise immediately. Sometimes you have to watch the replays or watch the game again to see what he was thinking. But with him putting up 8-10 assists per game, with a better than 6/1 A/TO ratio, and shooting over .500, it’s hard to argue that he’s not making good decisions.

That is one school of thought. But great PGs know when their team is struggling and they try to keep them in. During couple of stretches when we went into draughts, the lead was pushed to double digit lead. At some point you have to take charge and force the other team to double you. You can tell when Jose is passive, he doesn't attack the screen/roll. Billups is probably the best PG in terms of knowing when to score. He often takes it upon himself to score in clutch situations (team is on ropes or dagger shot, etc). There was atleast two stretches where we went 5 straight possesions with TOs, bad shots, and nothing to show for it, and Calderon was still deferring to his teammates. I think for him to become a better PG, he has to realize that he could also be effective by scoring in clutch situations (stopping 8-0 runs, etc). This is the happy medium that few PGs reach and I think he has the potential to reach this point.

[Grizzled]

That is one school of thought. But great PGs know when their team is struggling and they try to keep them in. During couple of stretches when we went into draughts, the lead was pushed to double digit lead. At some point you have to take charge and force the other team to double you. You can tell when Jose is passive, he doesn't attack the screen/roll. Billups is probably the best PG in terms of knowing when to score. He often takes it upon himself to score in clutch situations (team is on ropes or dagger shot, etc). There was atleast two stretches where we went 5 straight possesions with TOs, bad shots, and nothing to show for it, and Calderon was still deferring to his teammates. I think for him to become a better PG, he has to realize that he could also be effective by scoring in clutch situations (stopping 8-0 runs, etc). This is the happy medium that few PGs reach and I think he has the potential to reach this point.

I don

[b0na f1de]

In the larger picture our bigs are very aptly compared to Detroits. Bragnani for all of his critism about rebounding at this stage can be quite accurately compared to Wallaces rebounding. In fact his overall game can be compared. Wallace has had a tonne of 40min 2rb games. To think that Bragnani can't eventually be a 6-7 rb guy is absurd. Hump compares to Maxiell, and Bosh is way better than McDyess.
Yet NO ONE is saying that Detroit does not have the INSIDE presence to make at least a run at the championship

So do you believe bargs/bosh/hump are equally as intimidating to other teams as sheed/dice/max?

Seriously which group of bigs are teams more scared to play against?

[Darrick Martin]

Meh, the Pistons were probably playing at close to 70% capacity to conserve for tonight's REAL challenge

[A_wildstabatanything]

Just look at our starting wing's production compared to some of the teams in the east:


WASHINGTON
30.4 PPG
7.8 ASTS

DETROIT:

31.8 PPG
7.4 ASTS

ORLANDO:
29.7 PPG
5.3 ASTS

BOSTON:

39.9 PPG
8.1 ASTS

NEW JERSEY

46.2 PPG
7.5 ASTS


....


TORONTO:

18.3 PPG
2.6 ASTS

[deknow]

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AMEN!

I don

[Andiamo]

how bout we put this one on sam.he's useless and its games like this where coaching comes into play and he was out coached thoroughly.

[Death Knight]

Deknow strikes again..............

[Grizzled]

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Fixed. and read the sig for further evidence.

I

[elephunk]

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I

[deknow]

Deknow strikes again..............

What the truth hurts?

[Grizzled]

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So, in order to be the next Steve Nash, you have to be a great 3 pt shooter and a bad defender?

Got it.

In order to be the next Steve Nash your game has to resemble Steve Nash

[C Court]

Just look at our starting wing's production compared to some of the teams in the east:


WASHINGTON
30.4 PPG
7.8 ASTS

DETROIT:

31.8 PPG
7.4 ASTS

ORLANDO:
29.7 PPG
5.3 ASTS

BOSTON:

39.9 PPG
8.1 ASTS

NEW JERSEY

46.2 PPG
7.5 ASTS


....


TORONTO:

18.3 PPG
2.6 ASTS

I'm not a big stats guy, but there it is. 18 ppg from the wings is pathetic. I'll bet we had better wing play as an expansion team.

[Death Knight]

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What the truth hurts?

It hurts, it hurts..............stop it!

[Mad Prophet]

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I'm not a big stats guy, but there it is. 18 ppg from the wings is pathetic. I'll bet we had better wing play as an expansion team.

Combined stats for Willie Anderson and Alvin Robertson: 21.7 ppg, 7.2 apg

[A_wildstabatanything]

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I'm not a big stats guy, but there it is. 18 ppg from the wings is pathetic. I'll bet we had better wing play as an expansion team.

Here's an even worse stat. There are 24 teams in the league with at least one wing player that outscores our starting 2 & 3 combined.

The 5 exceptions: Phoenix (Barbosa & Hill combine for over 30 PPG), Utah, Minnesota, Indiana (Dunleavy and Granger combine for over 30 PPG), & New Orleans.