PG: Raptors give the Calves cramps on opening night

[Lord Eder]

What an impact player Scottie is. 15-7-3 doesn’t jump out at you as anything special but I swear he had his hand in nearly every big play down the stretch.

Hopefully we continue to hit the outside shot at a good clip, Scottie surrounded by shooters will be deadly on that end of the floor.

[BlackThought]

Only negative thing is the heavy minutes. If the young guys are going to get better they need to play. I don't mind losing a few games to give them the opportunity to play. I want to see guys like Dowtin and Harper Jr. get some run.

Yes and no.
Season opener against a competitive team/conference rival.. play the main guys heavy minutes.
We're built to be deep this year, so yes we need to get away from leaning too heavy on the starting 5 for the sake of late season & playoffs.
But no I don't want to see these last man on the bench guys unless we're up 30 in the 4th against Utah or some ish like that.

I'll believe it when I see it. Guys shouldn't be playing 39 minutes unless we are in the playoffs. Even against good teams it's just a regular season game.

[mihaic]

For some reason I don't feel good about this win.

Feel better than an L for sure but I think this could have been a much better game if we played as intense in the forth earlier in the game.

Good teams time it to peak in the late 3rd or 4th, which we did. They pick up another gear. They know it is not sustainable for too long.

That is how you play similar strength teams.

In the 4th we picked up the D and it seemed that other than Mitchell noone could score on us.

If not for a couple of mistakes, missed FTs, and a few questionable calls at the end, we would have won comfortably.

[Mikistan]

Scottie passes to og for 3s is what chemistry is all about. Siakam isoing a bunch was fun I guess.

One play or two I didn't like:

Scottie pushes it across the timeline, Fred stops running at half court and stands still waiting for a pass. Scottie gives him the hand motion like what are you doing... Fred does a hand motion, doesn't cut, so Scottie takes it all the way to the rim for a layup to score. Why can't Fred just **** cut the lane then go stand in a corner like the catch and shoot player he can be. Why the hell does he feel like he has to slow down the offense and pound the rock to the point of standing at half court... So annoying.

2, there was one right side three pointer that Fred shot and missed in the first half and then he got beat by Mitchell the other way for a quick layup in transition off his kiss. You can't do that. Especially not when you are the self proclaimed leader of the team.

The inbound that Fred called a time out for at the end of the game. You are a poi t guard and you can't inbound the **** ball? Whatever we won, it some of those bugged me.

I also liked koloko getting blocked at the rim by Jarret Allen on one attempt. Welcome to the NBA! Love what he brought, love that the NBA refs also took away his put back jam on one play

One play pascal pouted and stopped running for a ball on offense that ended up being a turnover on us and layup for them. He was complaining to the ref instead of running for a loose ball in his area. Not a good look...

Pascal fouled out because he was reaching on defense. He goes through these lapses on d where he reaches or swipes with his hands when he doesn't have to, or gets lazy ball watching and losing his man

[mihaic]

Pascal needs to be told to save a few fouls for the 4th. We clearly need him to finish close games.

[mihaic]

OG had a fantastic all-round game regardless of a slow start. Scottie is such an intangibles guy, his box stats will routinely undersell his impact.

In this case it didn't. Highest +/- on the floor by far.

He is not gonna be your top scorer for now but he will be a main cog on the winning plays.

[ATLTimekeeper]

Scottie nearly cost us the W by driving too early on the shot clock at the end. I'm not sure why he was given the ball in that situation. Hopefully he and Precious get grilled by the coaching staff for their clock management brain cramps.

Overall it was a strong opening show. There was a level of fierceness defensively from OG, Scottie and Fred that I really haven't seen out of them. I'm not liking Precious' defensive intensity to start the year. He's not playing like he did last year. Thad seems like he's got some rust and age issues to work off. Banton was pretty much singlehandedly at fault for the Cavs mini run at the end of the 3rd/early 4th with bad positioning.

We also had a bad draw with Josh Tiven as our first ref. I knew as soon as that challenge went up he'd be too stubborn to acknowledge that Mobley pushed off on Siakam and that carried through into Siakam's arm while he was already slipping. The guy just wants to be the next Malloy.

[mihaic]

The Cavs were intimidated by Koloko. His feet move like a guard, and his length is insane. He looked better than Mobley.

That is exactly what I was thinking in the game.

Moreover he runs back on D like young Pascal. We need to import some Douala water

[ATLTimekeeper]

The inbound that Fred called a time out for at the end of the game. You are a poi t guard and you can't inbound the **** ball? Whatever we won, it some of those bugged me.

That was a good call. The Cavs were holding Gary and he couldn't make a safe pass. He immediately went to the refs to point out that they need to call that. Also thought he made a great pass to Scottie to seal the win after the Cavs were mugging Trent again. But, the worrisome part is that in a foul situation we seem to only have two guys that can be trusted to make free throws. I probably would have put Thad Young in to make the inbound pass.

Pascal fouled out because he was reaching on defense. He goes through these lapses on d where he reaches or swipes with his hands when he doesn't have to, or gets lazy ball watching and losing his man

No, he fouled out because he bumped Mitchell on the endline. No hands there. The foul on Mobley was nonsense. Mobley pushed off and his follow through ended up in Siakam's hand, but he was already slipping at that point. The 6th foul was legit, but you just never see that called against a star in that situation. The challenge call was bogus. Just a ref on a power trip.

[vini_vidi_vici]

12-6 OREBs. 18-4 2nd chance points. Thought CLE would give us probs there.

CLE shot 74.1 FG% on contested shots. Garland/Lavert 1/7, the rest of the team 18-20.

Some weird stuff going on, but nice to get the win.

[Gold Dragon]

Lots of things to be excited about.

Offense
Just an observation that there were three sections where the half court offense was functioning quite well all leading to 3s (6 of our 13 3s)
1. End of the first quarter with multiple sequences where Fred was the primary initiator
2. Beginning of the fourth quarter with three 3 pointers where Scottie was the main initiator
3. End of the fourth quarter with two key sequences where Pascal and Fred played a bit of a two man game where Pascal was the main initiator.

It was nice to see Pascal actively trying to get OG more involved on offense and OG finishing on a lot of those plays.

There were a lot of turnovers (10 combined) by Pascal (driving into crowds), OG (losing the handle) and Scottie (from offensive fouls, travels) trying to initiate the offense and going into the teeth of the Cavs defense with multiple defenders. These are the growing pains we need to expect with the hope of future improvement.


Defense
1. Koloko was very impressive, obviously needs to work on avoiding fouls and only had 2 but otherwise very solid for a rookie debut
2. OG is just so impactful on defense. It felt like every sequence he was on the floor, he was making impactful plays
3. I'm a bit concerned about Scottie's defensive positioning and tendency to float as a lot our defensive breakdowns had him as the main culprit. We saw this last year and I was hoping a bigger jump on this side of the ball than on offense. Eventually we'll get there.
4. The Thad/Juancho stretch had a lot of defensive breakdowns from multiple people. Maybe because of a lack of time together, cohesion, communication? I didn't think it was a size problem. Maybe it will fix itself with time.

[Johnny Bball]

Koloko calm like hes been here before. This guy may have the potential to be one of the best C's in the league in 5 years.

Scottie was getting picked on today by the refs, great poise to for him in the 4th to play thru it.

Fun team to watch all around

The refs didn't help but I think the 2nd quarter and start of the 3rd was the worst I've seen him play, a lot of it defesnively. Good to see him bounce back very quick from that.

[MoneyBall]

I can't wait for the "Is Koloko better than Mobley?" thread to pop up.

[fbalmeida]

Win.

There is no substitute for the unique joy delivered by watching a game of Raptors basketball.

I'm relieved that the #6 on-court tribute to Bill Russell doesn't feature a clover or Celtics motif.

Our halfcourt offense is still messy.

OG and Precious' early shooting looked rusty, but came alive early 4th.

Defensive movement and paint protection looked really sharp in the first quarter. Not so much in the 2nd and 3rd Q. Particularly bad when Thaddeus and Hernangomez were out there.

In the first quarter, Scottie Barnes shot a mid-range J in Jarett Allen's face!

In the 2nd quarter, he shot a long 2 in Evan Mobley's face!

In the 3rd quarter, he got another one in Allen's face!

Fred VanVleet hit a running floater in Evan Mobley's shadow!

Banton looks stronger. Really like his "swiss-army knife" type game off the bench.

Koloko looks solid and useful. Likely a rotation player for now. His FT shooting form is pure comedy though. Missed a couple of dunks but solid elsewhere. He really fills a need. Stopped a Mitchell drive in his tracks.

[refshateRaps]

Koloko calm like hes been here before. This guy may have the potential to be one of the best C's in the league in 5 years.

Scottie was getting picked on today by the refs, great poise to for him in the 4th to play thru it.

Fun team to watch all around

The refs didn't help but I think the 2nd quarter and start of the 3rd was the worst I've seen him play, a lot of it defesnively. Good to see him bounce back very quick from that.

He just looked like he was trying to do too much at times and was going into into Precious tunnel vision mode mindset.

Needs to shake off the ROY pressure and let the game come to him

[redeye514]

Scottie passes to og for 3s is what chemistry is all about. Siakam isoing a bunch was fun I guess.

One play or two I didn't like:

Scottie pushes it across the timeline, Fred stops running at half court and stands still waiting for a pass. Scottie gives him the hand motion like what are you doing... Fred does a hand motion, doesn't cut, so Scottie takes it all the way to the rim for a layup to score. Why can't Fred just **** cut the lane then go stand in a corner like the catch and shoot player he can be. Why the hell does he feel like he has to slow down the offense and pound the rock to the point of standing at half court... So annoying.

2, there was one right side three pointer that Fred shot and missed in the first half and then he got beat by Mitchell the other way for a quick layup in transition off his kiss. You can't do that. Especially not when you are the self proclaimed leader of the team.

The inbound that Fred called a time out for at the end of the game. You are a poi t guard and you can't inbound the **** ball? Whatever we won, it some of those bugged me.

I also liked koloko getting blocked at the rim by Jarret Allen on one attempt. Welcome to the NBA! Love what he brought, love that the NBA refs also took away his put back jam on one play

One play pascal pouted and stopped running for a ball on offense that ended up being a turnover on us and layup for them. He was complaining to the ref instead of running for a loose ball in his area. Not a good look...

Pascal fouled out because he was reaching on defense. He goes through these lapses on d where he reaches or swipes with his hands when he doesn't have to, or gets lazy ball watching and losing his man

I agree with most points. The first Fred point about calling for the ball, I noticed that real time too. It actually started on the inbound.. I forgot who inbounded, but the ball went up to Scotty instead of to FVV, and FVV shot the inbounder a 'WTF' look.. then called for it again, but Scotty waived off and attacked. Whatevs.. hard to be too critical when we dont know what was actually being called for, but I get the point and noticed it too.

The inbound play though was not on FVV at all. I was sitting behind the play of that and everyone was locked up.. no where to go for FVV and I was even screaming 'time out! time out! time out!' before we got called... not on FVV.

Allens block on Koloko was a nice / funny welcome moment.. but still wish Koloko put it down. Allen had a nasty block on OG too that took the life out of the building for a moment.. had the potential to a momentum swinger, but thankfully raps were able to get a bucket shortly thereafter to bring the life back. Cant remember when we were rumoured to be in the running for Allen, but man, he would've fit so nice with what we do. Solid solid player.

While I hear th ebeef about PAscal's D, hard to be too critical.. P is mostly very engaged vs. not, and not many guys go as hard as he does on both sides.. and everyone complains to the refs, EVERYONE, even the Kawhis of the world, so its hard to call that out.. P puts enough effort out there to earn his right to complain.

[mtcan]

It was fun watching Scottie hitting those jumpers with Allen and Mobley in his face. I need to temper my excitement especially not to expect this consistently. I have to remind myself that will be nights when none of those shots are hitting.

Very nice to see him unleashing the improved shooting early on.

[Mikistan]

The inbound that Fred called a time out for at the end of the game. You are a poi t guard and you can't inbound the **** ball? Whatever we won, it some of those bugged me.

That was a good call. The Cavs were holding Gary and he couldn't make a safe pass. He immediately went to the refs to point out that they need to call that. Also thought he made a great pass to Scottie to seal the win after the Cavs were mugging Trent again. But, the worrisome part is that in a foul situation we seem to only have two guys that can be trusted to make free throws. I probably would have put Thad Young in to make the inbound pass.

Pascal fouled out because he was reaching on defense. He goes through these lapses on d where he reaches or swipes with his hands when he doesn't have to, or gets lazy ball watching and losing his man

No, he fouled out because he bumped Mitchell on the endline. No hands there. The foul on Mobley was nonsense. Mobley pushed off and his follow through ended up in Siakam's hand, but he was already slipping at that point. The 6th foul was legit, but you just never see that called against a star in that situation. The challenge call was bogus. Just a ref on a power trip.

re;Inbounding, i agree, we pick fred as the shortest guy to inbound who also will hold the ball if he thinks its too risky, trent got pushed over, but he could have floated a pass to Scottie as Scottie was coming tot he ball, but he didnt, he pump faked it then there was no more spacing because fred didnt take the opening, its not a big deal because we won, but its another example where we make things harder on ourselves

re:siakam
the 6th foul wasnt the one iw as referring to but the he picked up 2 or 3 being dumb and then put himself in the position to foul out because ofit- that challenge was bad in my opinion clearly a foul not enough to overturn

[bape_lovers]

I mean we are missing 3 bench players? Not sure what else you want nurse to do?

Only negative thing is the heavy minutes. If the young guys are going to get better they need to play. I don't mind losing a few games to give them the opportunity to play. I want to see guys like Dowtin and Harper Jr. get some run.

Yes and no.
Season opener against a competitive team/conference rival.. play the main guys heavy minutes.
We're built to be deep this year, so yes we need to get away from leaning too heavy on the starting 5 for the sake of late season & playoffs.
But no I don't want to see these last man on the bench guys unless we're up 30 in the 4th against Utah or some ish like that.

I'll believe it when I see it. Guys shouldn't be playing 39 minutes unless we are in the playoffs. Even against good teams it's just a regular season game.

[OakleyDokely]

Mobley gives me Bosh type vibes. Which isn't a bad thing since Bosh will be a hall of famer. Offensively, he doesn't have enough tools/skills to be more than a 2nd/3rd option on a very good team. Defensively, he will be a great help defender and paint presence but certain matchups on the perimeter and some bigger Cs will give him problems