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Raps 6-16 versus top half of the league

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Raps 6-16 versus top half of the league 

Post#1 » by seanied » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:13 pm

The Raps record against the top 16 teams in the league is 6-16 and they are 15-2 against the bottom half of the league. I had a feeling it was leaning towards this, but the extreme is kind of shocking to me. I've suspected that the Raps have an inferiority complex when playing elite teams. When I was watching the last game versus Detroit, the Pistons walked and talked to each other like they were going to win, like they had the game completely in hand. Sure, they'd occasionally drop the intensity and let the Raps get close, but all they had to do was turn it up again.

No other team in the top 18 has a worse record against top 10 teams. The Raps are 3-10. I guess the good news is, with our schedule the rest of the way, a nice 45-win season awaits us. The bad news is, the playoffs is kinda chock full of top 16 teams.

I guess the next level in a young team going from bottom feeders to championship team is mental -- the swagger -- or maybe it is that all the other top 16 teams have that banger/slasher/rebounder that the Raps lack and that's what makes the difference.
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Post#2 » by Tom Baker » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:25 pm

That's cause we're a strong middle class team, but in no way elite.

It's as simple as that. It's like Jack Armstrong used to repeat ad nauseum last year. You need to learn to creep, then crawl, then walk, then run. (Not sure if that's the exact wording.) We're somewhere between crawl and walk, that stage where you get up and walk a bit, holding on to furniture, then when you're tired of it, you crawl for a while.

The team is a work in progress. It'll come. Each year we'll get incrementally better, barring setbacks.

EDIT: And being 6-16 against the top half is fine as long as we're better than 16-6 against the bottom half, which we are. Not trying to be trite.
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Post#3 » by seanied » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:36 pm

I agree, Tom. Up to the point of the playoffs.
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Post#4 » by Platapie » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:48 pm

I agree, Tom. Up to the point of the playoffs.


If we're 4th or higher we have a decent chance of making the 2nd round, if not, we're out in the first again but I think first round of playoffs = the reasonable expectation for this team. 2nd round = good, missing playoffs = bad. At least, that's how I saw it coming into the year.
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Post#5 » by yt_boi » Fri Jan 18, 2008 12:56 pm

At least we win when we're supposed to win. We're 15-2 against the lower half of the league.

It'll all come when it's supposed to come. And don't forget, our guys will be in their prime from the 2010/2011 season to the 2014/2015 season. Anything extra we get now is a bonus and a building piece until then.
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Post#6 » by theonlyeastcoastrapsfan » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:07 pm

We could be better though. We could have won a few of those games close games. I think talent wise - we can do more, but I'll reiterate that I really agree with Woodin pyramid that our next steps are poise and confidence and I just don't think Smitch, at this point in his career, can bring that. I think we're a player or some player improvement from being a top team talent wise but we could have a better record against the good teams if we employed some more strategic game planning.

To illustrate, from todays papes

Smitch was quoted as

"The good thing about what we do and what we try to do defensively especially, is we know our principals so we don't have to go change everything if we have four games in five days," Mitchell said. "This is how we play, these are the things we are going to do. Now we tweak it but we don't make any major changes."


The bad part is everyone is doubled and good three point shooters can kill us. Sam's get angry at the Reporter for asking why teams shoot the three so well and Sam's all "There's a reason they pay him 13 million", but isn't that a good reason to guard the three point line? Even Billups in his quotes after the Piston game said he couldn't believe how most of Rip's shots were not contested.

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Post#7 » by asif9t9 » Fri Jan 18, 2008 1:32 pm

Nice post. I had a thread the other day about how we don't beat the good teams. Someone flippantly came back and told me, "off the top of my head, we've beaten San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, etc., etc." They named about six teams. And they made it sound like that was just "off the top of their head" and that there was probably many more.
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Post#8 » by dacrusha » Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:20 pm

15-2 vs. bottom-half teams is great.

Like someone posted, Jack says you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and the Raptors are learning to win the winnable games before learning to beat he elite.

Better than, say, the Bobcats, who can beat the Celtics, but lose to the Bulls, Nets and Bucks in the same week.
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Post#9 » by Snowcrash » Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:45 pm

Actually, this record is very encouraging. I had no idea the Raptors were so dominant against mediocre teams. They're certainly moving in the right direction.

I used to live in Vancouver when the Cancucks were absolutely putrid. The post-expansion glow wore off and they were literally worse than the current version of the Leafs.
Anyway, the biggest game of the year at the time was when Montreal came into town and the Canadiens were a powerhouse team, in the middle of their run of 4 or 5 Stanley Cups. Vancouver played out of their minds in these games, beating Montreal, and promptly went into the toilet again for the rest of the season. They would lose consistently to the bottom feeders and yet manage to beat Montreal or Philly when they came into town. This is what happens with bad teams.
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Post#10 » by Mak » Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:49 pm

6-16 ....out of those 22 games maybe someone can tell us how many of those games Bosh and TJ were in the line up together? It's hard to win games against top teams when your are missing key players. You see what happens when Martin/Dixon come in the game and obviously without Bosh we have nobody that can score inside.
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Post#11 » by Shaazzam » Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:50 pm

I am a strong believer in a team "Taking care of business." And that's one reason why I like Sam. He espouses that idea constantly, maybe not in those words, but that is what he has instilled in the team. And that's what the top teams do, they take care of business and beat the mediocre to crappy teams. Even teams that have a whack of talent, if they don't show up night in and night out, their record is going to suffer. It's a cultural and mental mindset.

Now when it comes to one top team playing against another top team, it's about "Making Plays." Which players have the talent and/or will to make plays. That's why Cleveland is terrifying to almost anyone, because Bron Bron is insane. On the flip side, that's why we love Garbo. May not be the most talented guy, but he makes plays.

And this is why I like TJ so much. He has the ability to make plays.

And that's a major reason why we are going to struggle against the best teams. Because we don't have enough guys that can make plays. Hell, as much as Mo Pete drove me batty, and my buddy asked me the question "who do you want taking a last(crazy) shot," right before he beat Washington, I quickly and emphatically said Mo. Because he may step ot of bounds once a game, but the dude could make plays.
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Post#12 » by ced_m » Fri Jan 18, 2008 2:54 pm

I guess we'll be an elite team when Bargs is an elite player... I just can't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. And about the canucks story, guess that's the same thing with the Knicks win on the Pistons and Bobcats over the Celtics...

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Post#13 » by Shaazzam » Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:02 pm

ced_m wrote:I guess we'll be an elite team when Bargs is an elite player... I just can't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. And about the canucks story, guess that's the same thing with the Knicks win on the Pistons and Bobcats over the Celtics...

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Post#14 » by ldnk » Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:37 pm

Good teams win when they should. Great teams win when they shouldn't.
We win the games we are supposed to right now. Maybe by the end of the year we win a few more against the really good teams, and we come out of things just fine. Getting Ford back will be a big boost. Ford won't play better than Calderon has, but the thing is that Forderon is a dominant combination whereas Caldecrap is an awful combo that forces Jose to play a lot of minutes to try and carry the second units.
Once we get our PG combo back our bench will stop absolutely sucking aside from good individual performances here and there.
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Post#15 » by seanied » Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:38 pm

Shaazzam wrote:And this is why I like TJ so much. He has the ability to make plays.


He not only makes plays. I've rarely seen in him overwhelmed mentally by an opponent.
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Post#16 » by Shaazzam » Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:49 pm

seanied wrote:
He not only makes plays. I've rarely seen in him overwhelmed mentally by an opponent.


Agreed.

Although to be fair, if he did have a fault it's getting too caught up in individual matchups. But that can change with Maturity. Having a killer instinct and wanting to take and make big plays might be a little more ingrained than learned.
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Post#17 » by chsh22 » Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:07 pm

Shaazzam wrote:-= original quote snipped =-
Agreed.

Although to be fair, if he did have a fault it's getting too caught up in individual matchups. But that can change with Maturity. Having a killer instinct and wanting to take and make big plays might be a little more ingrained than learned.


I think everyone was frustrated this year and some of last when TJ would try and do too much to win games. Don't get me wrong, I like the guy and think he complements our offense (and defense) much more than Jose, but people downplay this particular fault of TJ's all the time. Jose plays it safe and tries to get it into the hands of CB4 because he knows Chris will win us games.

EDIT: And that's not to say Jose's approach is any better. TBH, I'd prefer it if both our PGs were healthy and could trade a bit of their respective spectrum of attitude and mentality to one another. Make TJ a little more conservative and trusting in Bosh, and make Jose a little more willing to try and score, and I think both their games would take a step up.
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Post#18 » by radeonboy » Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:01 pm

I agree with what most of you said. I feel that yes we are missing 2 key pieces as of right now.

1. You can replace what TJ Ford brings to the club, and the points that are missing because of his injury. Nuff said, Ford + Calderon combo is scary because both PG's can get assists like it were easy to accomplish. And both can score when they want to, being Ford can score more because he wants to...

When TJ is back, we will win more games, and even the ones where we aren't supposed to win.

2. Garbo. He isn't the best player by a long stretch, but we surely miss his defense. If he can get back to form, we will have a shot of winning more games.
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Post#19 » by teamLeiweke » Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:16 pm

thats why when teams liek detroit talk about teams they respect come playoff time, they dont mentiont he raptors, even if we have the same or better record than the teams they mention, because a team like the cavs will give detroit a go in a 7 game series, they have done it twice.... the raps would be embarressed in the playoffs against the pistons.
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Post#20 » by Anticon » Fri Jan 18, 2008 7:17 pm

So we're 6-16, with wins over the Spurs, Mavericks, and Hornets. Are you including the Rockets, Magic, and Cavs in that listing?

Last year against the top teams out West, we were 1-9 - we lost every single game to the top West teams, except for one win against Houston.

So 6-16 is actually a substantial improvement. So, given that we're not a "top team", it's not surprising we have a losing record against the best teams in the league.

The important thing is that the Raptors are getting better at playing top teams and, most importantly, have been able to steal a few of these wins on the road.

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