GT March 15th: Charlotte @ Toronto 7:00pm

[SWedd523]

meh, I'm lazy

I was thinking of a different adjective.

Amazing?

Perfect?

Rudy Gay?

[Diop]

meh, I'm lazy

I was thinking of a different adjective.

Rudy Gay?

As if, its Desagana Diop or bust.

[Diop]

I forgot to mention the silver lining for this game.

Rudy Gay is in my fantasy team.

[Leolovinliberal]

meh, I'm lazy

I was thinking of a different adjective.

Amazing?

Perfect?

Rudy Gay?

Amazingly Perfect Rudy Gay

[vorbis]

not bad for $20 walkup, on a friday night. i know the bobcats aren't the best draw but it was BON JOVI NIGHT EVERYBODY WOOOOOO. place was probably 75% full. air canada centre is damned nice. i've been there a few times now. great food. i was sitting in the "in-seat service" section which is dangerous. i don't even like **** coors light but i had a couple.

first off, i've now seen both bobcats games in toronto and both times the bobcats scored 78 points. would it kill them to score a little more?

raptors fans should be concerned that the bobcats were ever in this game. god, they were messy at times.

for the bobs:
kemba - seeing him in person on a night like tonight, i really appreciate how professional he is, how solid he is, how much of a gamer he is, no matter the score, the record, or anything. kemba was the 1st out of the locker room after halftime with adrien shooting jumpers. everyone else sauntered out a good 5 minutes later. he is a basketball lifer, and bobcats fans are lucky to have him. there were a couple of BS calls on him, but he competed, played defense, was afraid of nothing, and brought it. i think in person experiences like this cement him as my personal favorite bobcat, not that i'm going out on a limb or anything.

MKG - people call him raw, but he's really not. at all. he is so polished at everything except his jumpshot, really. i think his biggest hurdle right now might be his emotions, which is not really a big deal for a 19 year old. he clearly has elite quickness, and more than enough heart to become a beloved and valuable player down the line. i saw clear frustration out of him a couple of times, and he got some tough foul calls (nothing new). i was glad to see him calmly discussing with the referee at one point after a real tickytack foul call on a 3pt shot. i also saw pargo, of all people, going through some techniques on the block before the 3rd quarter. working on catching the entry pass and turning quick to face the basket and get the defender to commit early. very cool to see him as a willing pupil, and also to see a journeyman shrimp guard giving pointers on post play. also, MKG (and taylor) played some awesome D on gay in the 2nd half. more on that later.

biyombo - the gay dunk in the 1st quarter was nasty, one of the few legit dunks on biyombo that i can remember. biyombo got 2 solid blocks at the rim in the 2nd half to more than make up for it. bambi is really a stunningly appropriate nickname for him. i think he is in such a shotblocker mode sometimes that he forgets to have soft hands for the catch, and instead just swats at it and expects his hands to be covered in glue. contrast that with MKG who has very good catching skills near the basket, with either hand. bambiyombo just ends up in some of the most awkward positions when jumping, lunging, holding the ball at the top of the key. i still don't think he's finished developing, though he more than almost anybody in the league would benefit from a stud big man coach somewhere along the line. simple things like his pivot foot - watching mcroberts hold the ball high at the top of the key, and then lunge while faking a pass, while keeping his right pivot foot nailed to the ground, really enlightened me as to how much this kid biyombo is just jumping out of his shoes at every movement, almost like he hadn't played basketball until a few years ago. oh wait...

speaking of mcroberts - man, what a relief it is to have someone like him on the floor at this point. he's not a banger type rebounder, but he knows when to crash the boards like no one on the bobcats since gerald wallace IMO. his passing is so so solid. he hit henderson on the break with a beautiful 40 foot pass that destroyed any attempt by lowry to foul henderson to prevent the fast break bucket. plus, it's really cool how he turns into the green man sometimes.

henderson - solid game from him, particularly the 2nd half. it's impressive for anyone to score 20 points in this trainwreck semicircle offense the bobcats have. he still makes me go "whoa" sometimes with how high he can get. why doesn't he just participate in the dunk contest and get it over with? he can bound with the best of them. another one of the bobcats who took on tough defensive assignments in the post on various long raptor forwards.

mullens should not be playing right now. period. he is bringing nothing to the table. i'd rather have tyrus thomas come out, pull his pants down, and babystep his way down the court and back than watch mullens sulk, foul, and sag back, and overall just be a drag on the floor.

gordon hit one just pull-out-of-your-ass jumpshot, and then he took a shot from the top of the key, looked good from my vantage point, i stood up and said BAM! and then it hit nothing but air. i got some chuckles as i sheepishly sat back down. gee thanks, ben.

i was really really impressed with taylor's defense tonight. he stopped rudy gay cold 3 consecutive times down the court in the post, causing him to feebly turn the ball over two of those times. granted, that's no huge accomplishment with gay being a very careless player with the ball off the bounce sometimes, but taylor D'ed up extremely well. gay eventually discovered he could just rush him down to the post and then fall back for an easy empty-gym type 12 footer, but i don't know what i expect taylor to do against that. gay is just too big and strong for him right now.

as for the raptors-
amir johnson had an incredible game. i think i am rethinking the whole thing with him. he was a beast on the glass, and doing little things on the pick and roll to frustrate the hell out of kemba in particular.

rudy gay is clearly a big-time talent but i'm not sure he really elevates the raptors in any significant way, in the big picture. he's just so damn inefficient. he reminds me of stephen jackson in that way. give him the ball on the elbow and he can get a pretty good shot a decent % of the time. but he's also going to turn the ball over a LOT, and if he just shoots that 20 footer he's going to miss it a LOT. jeffery taylor and MKG really stood up to him on the post. maybe he's predictable with that spin move? i dunno, but they were totally ready for it. also the raptors announcer says his name in a very strange way: RUUUUUDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY gay. people around me laughed out loud at that, and i did too.

also, i'm not sure the raptors know yet how to juggle gay, derozan and ross. gay needs the ball so much that derozan was pretty invisible for almost the whole game. ross picked his spots and hit some nice jumpers, but didn't really have anything to offer except in transition and quasi-transition, and when the ball is swinging to him against the zone.

valanciunas has the weirdest jumpshot. his feet do not leave the floor. i actually said "GAH" when he tried one early in the game. i need to watch more of him, because to be honest, tonight i did not get a sense that there is a huge vat of untapped potential with him. he's just kind of there. he has a nice little hook shot, and he's big and strong and will hang in there. i suppose he could do the gortat thing in a couple of years, but he's definitely not there yet. he's got some growing to do for sure.

i actually like ross, maybe even more than derozan (i am not a big derozan fan). lowry looked frustrated and didn't really leave an imprint on the game. i wonder if that was because kemba and telfair had their NYC rucker park thing going on. i definitely noticed a bit of back and forth with them. i did not even notice that landry fields played. 3 years, 19 million. holy ****.

ok, that's all for now. flame away. no editing because YOLO *gag*

[JT2006]

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry on behalf on most Raptors fans for the trolls in this thread. It's kind of pathetic, when these "fans" post only in your GT, but not in ours.

it's multi accounts made to only troll the bobcats

[JT2006]

I just wanted to say that I'm sorry on behalf on most Raptors fans for the trolls in this thread. It's kind of pathetic, when these "fans" post only in your GT, but not in ours.

it's multi accounts made to only troll the bobcats

[Eoghan]

Amir Johnson got 21 boards huh? He must be elite like Kanter then.

[Elden Payton]

Cheers vorbis.

Bravo!!

Awesome writeup.

[TheKingofSting]

I didn't get to watch this one but seeing that MKG took 12 shots is a good sign I think even though he didn't make many. You have to take them to make them.

[BigSlam]

You can have Charlottes future, but the person I was responding to believes the Bobcats are better than the Raptors NOW and in the future. Which I think is false.

Pretty hard to argue with this. The Raps are a better team right now than the Bobcats are. They have the best player between both rosters in Gay - but the big question is how both rosters project out.

I can't help but feel the Raps are in the same position we were in under the Clown when he maxed out our roster space with middle tier players.

Id much rather be in our position with young talent along with high draft picks and an amount of cap space.

But, as of today, the Raps are a better team than us. Heck, all of the other 29 teams are better than us.

[MPM]

Fantastic write up Vorbis. Couldn't manage to stay sober enough to watch the game last night, so appreciate the recap. Owing to Bonnell's growing journalistic laziness (I refuse to watch his videos), he should just copy and paste your posts into his non-existent post-game analysis.

[BigSlam]

Damn!!! What's the name of this chic?

Ima Notlegal

Surely I cant be the only idiot who Googled "Ima Notlegal" thinking it was some sort of Scandinavian name and wanting to see more of her cans?

[MPM]

Surely I cant be the only idiot who Googled "Ima Notlegal" thinking it was some sort of Scandinavian name and wanting to see more of her cans?

My libido has been telling me that she's definitely maybe legal.

[MPM]

The Raptors are the worst team in the history of sports.

5 playoff appearances in the last 12 years + a division title. How are the Bobcats in any way possibly better?

I've long admired Canadians for their utter lack of sensibility to facetiousness. It makes them a far less complex lot, and much easier to negotiate with. For instance, the terms of a goose purchase or the rules dictating the consumption of watered down lager are typically very straightforward.

[Fred Williamson]

legal. some french model. don't know name though

[vorbis]

legal. some french model. don't know name though

http://www.mikedowson.com/pages/00002.htm

you're welcome

[Eoghan]

Wow, this chick has huge...

















eyebrows.