PG: Rockets lift-off against Raps in Toronto

[deeps6x]

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Then don't play him. Sheesh.

Barnes is higher in the pecking order than Darko at the Raptors. I dont think Darko has enough authority to bench him.

Valid point

[Dalek]

wildest take of the wildest take. Coach forcing now?

Where are you seeing that Darko forced Barnes to play (with the implication that he didn't want to)?

Barnes may be able to put on the jersey and say he is good to go, but coach has the power and obviously saw he is playing hurt.

It is not even just Barnes playing hurt. He started like 0-6 from three and many were bad pull ups. Darko could at some point bench him because he was hurt or sucking but he didn't and didn't even try to hide him on defense.

It was a lack of accountability that was compounded with Darko forcing Barnes to play when he clearly didn't have it.

Whatever you want to call it, but I think Scottie probably deserved to be benched partially because of injury but mostly because of bad play. Darko may not have "forced" him to play, but he put him in and he had terrible match-ups for him (Sengun) when he was clearly hobbled and the lone guy over 125 lbs on the court. What are you seeing differently, or are you caught up on semantics?

[Zeno]

Two minute report says Kelly was fouled and call missed on inbounds but ball was off Kelly. I assume that is the case but if they reviewed for possession, they would have seen the foul and now as we know could have retroactively called the foul. Tanks a lot refs.

[tecumseh18]

Two minute report says Kelly was fouled and call missed on inbounds but ball was off Kelly. I assume that is the case but if they reviewed for possession, they would have seen the foul and now as we know could have retroactively called the foul. Tanks a lot refs.

This is fine. Team built up a karmic war chest by playing in Tampa in 2021, which it cashed in to move up to #4 in the lottery. (Never heard any talk of the league "compensating" the Raps after the lottery, did you?)

Same thing is happening this season. All while playing an entertaining brand of basketball. Keep it coming.

[HoopAndTheHarm]

People can argue about ref bias for various reasons but I would be curious about a couple of straight statistical things.
1. Where does this team rank historically in free throw differential? Based on the numbers so far this year, I would not be surprized if they were among the highest ever.
2. If there happens to be teams with similar historically bad free throw differentials, how does their actual point differentials compare to this year's Raps, who rarely get blown out, and are currently averaging about a 5 point difference in PF vs PA?

Around the middle of the pack

Had to run the numbers on the season so far through 30 games (including NYK today):
Opposition FTA - 837
Raptors FTA - 669
Difference - 168 = 5.6/game

[Tor_Raps]