PG: Clear Path FTL

[tdotboyy]

someone tell me WHY DID CASEY TAKE VAL OUT THE GAME DOWN THE STRETCH?? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??????????????????????????????

[Kevin Willis]

Great game by the Raptors. They're making sure the entire league knows who they are. Some poor coaching and questionable calls from the 4th on, cost he Raptors the game.

Still, this team is showing that they're up there with the elite teams.

Thanks man. The fan base is spoiled by winning so they're not taking any loss too well.

[Ari_Emanuel]

Extremely poor decision by our coach to go small and keep Val out of the game. It changed the way we defended Portland the first 3 quarters and resulted in a size advantage for the Blazers and more open jumpers for them as well. With Val out, our offense stalled and rebounding suffered too.

[Ari_Emanuel]

CASEY DOES NOT COACH!

HE CALLS ZERO PLAYS

NOTHING. KYLE CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT AS LONG AS THEY DONT "GIVE UP ON THE PLAY"

This team is going nowhere deep

YOU ARE CLUELESS

Anyhow, the Raps got enough ref love tonight for being on the road. That out of bounds with Blake, that goaltend (which was really close, and honestly I don't think it even was one properly), and mobbing Freeland and somehow not picking up a foul. They just couldn't hit a shot to save their lives, that's why they lost. They played worse down the stretch, plain and simple.

This is the problem. The refs made some bad calls/non calls that worked against AND for us then proceeded to officiate so as to appear fair, rather than actually reffing each play objectively. The result was them overturning an obvious clear path in Portland's favour to make up for the goaltend call (which was the correct call). When another clear path situation came up improbably, the refs' bias was revealed when they upheld the clear path against us. Regardless of when Vasquez commited his foul on Batum, Ross - one of the quickest and most athletic guys in the league - was almost side by side with the much slower Batum. Ross would have contested Nic's attempt at the rim.

[curryking3]

Have you seen the news in New York lately? Police Union?

Look up dirt on police union drama in Toronto too. Look up corrupt Mike Mccormick versus Mukherjee.

Unions don't give a ***k if they are too powerful.

yo don't use police unions to tar and feather unions for ordinary working people. they are on two different ends of the ideological spectrum

The refs are criminal, comparison is valid.

[HangTime]

Bulls Loss + Wiz Loss + Hawks Win = Raps have to Lose

Have too keep 1st place within reach for the other teams.


But really, Jonas being subbed out is still the real mystery.

[curryking3]

What I learned is that the blazers aren't that good of a playoff team. Are they a good team? Yeah, they got a lot of fire power and rely too much on the 3 to ever be a great playoff team. Before the game started, I was thinking Aldridge may have changed his game up and started going inside more but I was wrong, they kept taking so many dumb 3's and I realize that's part of their game plan but that won't take them far when its not dropping and you're facing a fully healthy Raptors esq team without the help of refs. I felt we contained Lillard and did a decent job on him all night, we didn't let their shooters get going for the majority of the game and Aldridge got a few calls in his favour. If we had DD/Fields, we wouldn't be seeing Vasquez as much, he's obviously decided that he wants to focus on offense and be that spark off the bench, he doesn't like passing the ball and just pounds the ball for 2 0 secs to either shoot or pass for a bad shot. If he had it going and wasn't terrible on defense, i wouldn't mind but that obviously wasn't the case. The other issue is that Casey uses him as the "PG" so Lowry can play off the ball and he doesn't have to put so much energy into bringing ball up every time and creating a play, Vasquez has been terrible at that and Lou had nothing going for him after that 1st Q. That's when you need a guy like Demar who would open up the floor so much and attract attention, you really gotta give Lowry respect though for going inside on so many occasions but didn't get 1 foul call in his favour, the refs decided they wanted the blazers to win I guess.

Also, like I've mentioned before the Loss is not just the refs fault but our guys didn't make shots as well when it mattered and the rotations weren't good at all, if you replace Hansbro with Hayes we might not even get to the OT, if you bring in JJ earlier and sit V's a** down earlier for either jj/ross then the same thing applies. Casey brought JJ in too late when he got cold and he didn't bring us anything in the OT, why did we shy away from posting up JV/JJ, that's what I don't like.. Casey still needs to improve in that regard. I don't blame him that much though for sitting JV down because he wasn't getting any calls but at the same time, you gotta stick with him as he could have gotten them late and he needs to go through this now for betterment of long term. If anyone brings up how the game was reffed fair, look again. It's the same story all the time, the Raptors were winning and needed to go off in order to win or else the refs would bring back the blazers like they did. They got us in early foul trouble in the quarter which wouldn't allow us to be as aggressive on defense and it would cost us free throws the rest of the way, its not how many fouls there are its when and who the fouls are called on which is the key you guys need to understand about the refs. They aren't dumb, they know when and how to shift the momentum.

Great post.

It was a mix of both, bad Raptors play (with lack of play calls) + ref homering in the 4th Q.

Some calls did go Raptors way: Lowry running over Blake is clear foul on Lowry.

But many 4th Q calls and the Clear Path OT call definitely did not. Those add up. Sure, 2 or 3 blown calls, not a big deal, happens every game.

But several? Complete BS. This reminds me of the Lakers game where Kobe got those random HOF calls, for e.g. the "no touch foul" + the "kick Tross in the balls for and1" yeaaaaaa..............

That 4th Q black hole the refs created was completely ridiculous. Hansbro fouls were mostly his fault. But calling Amir Johnson for defensive fouls for simply *playing defense?!* Absolutely garbage calls. 2 or 3 legitimate fouls turned into 5 or 6 in the 4th Q and gave them a free pass for bonus.

Portland won OT with those 3 ball shots, that was fair. But fact is they did not get there without ref help.

Not here to call "refs refs refs" every time we lose. We legit lost most of our losing games.

But I'm like Jack: I just want to call it how it is, and this game the refs didn't let the players decide the game. I don't give a ***k what the homers in "nowhere USA" think. Call it how it is or don't call the game.

[IMAN5]

you knew it was too good to be true, you knew the questionable calls were gonna come. So many years we have been screwed over in Portland and Sacramento, I seem to have really bad memories when we play in those cities. Casey also had some really bad adjustments out there.

[Raptor_Guy]

someone tell me WHY DID CASEY TAKE VAL OUT THE GAME DOWN THE STRETCH?? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??????????????????????????????

I had no issue with it. Val seems to get nervous and do stupid things in the 4th quarter. He gets easily rattled when he doesn't get a call and turns the ball over, he also forces bad shots at times. Overall his play was sloppy and I'd rather have Amir and Patterson in there.

[djsunyc]

I had no issue with it. Val seems to get nervous and do stupid things in the 4th quarter. He gets easily rattled when he doesn't get a call and turns the ball over, he also forces bad shots at times. Overall his play was sloppy and I'd rather have Amir and Patterson in there.

so when/how does a 22 year old get over being rattled? gotta play him through it now so it pays off later.

[kayliecee]

Well, you have every right to your opinion. Mine is that we have a better than 4-22 chance of winning an overtime on the road.

It's more like a 35-40% chance depending on who is taking the shot and how much of a quality look you can get. I'll take those odds on the road over OT every single time if given the chance especially against a team that good. And it's not like you still can't get a rebound put back off a miss anyway.

Seriously? 35-40%? Based on what? How well they were shooting last night (after three games in four days)? 35-40% is a crazy number to expect when 1) the opposition is expecting you to go for a three 2) they know the players who are going to be trying for a three. Honestly, I get really annoyed when people just argue because they are unable to see they might be wrong. Then I get mad at myself for not ignoring them because I know I'm wasting my own time here, which is stupid.

[chuckdevlin]

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??????????????????????????????

Why the NBA gotta do us like dat?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-cpL--0AQA[/youtube]

[dballislife]

watching these games makes me feel like if we're healthy and get into a groove the 2nd half we can win it all

[arbsn]

Refs were pretty bad. Real reason we lost tho was cuz we got killed on the defensive glass at the end of the game.

I hate that DC doesn't trust Val. It kills me. Freeland out rebounding us in OT smdh

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[22haytham22]

Seriously, Casey having GV on Batum in the 4th was so laughable that I cried. Another note, I am not one to complain about reffing but my goodness that was some of the worst officiating I have seen all season. That clear path was so bad and a game changer. It is all good our main guys in Lowry and Lou were off, on to the next one. Getting a low post scorer on this team (Cousins) would make us so hard to beat.

[VinBaker6]

This PG thread... It's like we forgot how to lose.

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[Undefeated]

Re-watching the 4th and OT it didn't look like Lowry went into hero mode forcing up shots. He missed a ton of shots that he would normally make especially his step-back J (he missed two). On one of his drives he lost control of the ball as he attacked LMA on the mismatch. Lowry losing the ball like that is very uncharacteristic of his nature.

As for Coach Casey's coaching only thing I felt like he could've done was capitalize on the switching defense on the PNR Portland was deploying. With JV dominating against almost every matchup thrown at him, it would've been best to continue that success. But his plays out of timeouts was really good. Got Ross that open dunk underneath the basket off of a screen-the-screener action. Same with the play where Lowry missed the wide open jumper from the wing with Portland's defense loading on Lou Williams losing contact of Lowry on the cross screen by Vasquez.

[TDotsfinest97]

GV and Hansbrough lost the game, especially GV giving 2 uncontested 3's in OT to Batum, I think this is where we needed either DD or Fields.

[kayliecee]

The bipolar fans are out again!!

Honestly, I think we do have fickle fans who blow with the prevailing wind, but we also have a huge proportion of negative nancies who can find something negative to say no matter what and blaming brians who rather than focus on the good things that happened, look to bag on their favourite target because it's always someone's fault. The other team never just played better. The Raps didn't have tired legs after three games in four days and after travelling thousands of miles. It was never a mistake someone made, that person is always an idiot, and always will be. It's just an immature group.

[hyper316]

someone tell me WHY DID CASEY TAKE VAL OUT THE GAME DOWN THE STRETCH?? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYWHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY??????????????????????????????

I had no issue with it. Val seems to get nervous and do stupid things in the 4th quarter. He gets easily rattled when he doesn't get a call and turns the ball over, he also forces bad shots at times. Overall his play was sloppy and I'd rather have Amir and Patterson in there.

Agreed. Not to mention Val didn't dunk that easy gimme in front of the rim in the 4th, instead he got block laying it up. And got T'ed up for a dumb gesture towards the ref. He was also forcing his shot when he didn't have good footing.