PG: Cack gets it done.

[Garbo's Hair]

Oh TJ, how I've missed the "I get in to the paint at will but no idea what to do once I get there" routine.

[kush-]

I think it's a joke that Wright gets so much run in favour of clearly superior players. It's by far the biggest indictment of Jay as a coach. And the defensive argument is getting very old. We just allowed 112 points to the 24th ranked offence (who, despite their pace, average <100/game). We have a shot to post the worst defensive efficiency OF ALL TIME. Stop playing him. He sucks balls.

it's true. first game back and the guy still thinks he's MJ. but derozan was getting absolutely burned by granger. turkoglu did a pretty decent job when he was on granger, but wright played respectably when he was on the floor.

[Phenomenologist]

Also, we're infinitely more potent with Belinelli than we are without him. He's very valuable to this team. Just think about it, we would have likely lost to the Clippers if it were not for his shooting. And he kept us in a lot of games when we were on the Western Conf. road swing.

I **** love Belinelli. Maybe my favourite Raptor.

[There There]

Don't mean to be a party-pooper, but we gave up 112 to the fricking Pacers.

Unless i got the wrong formula, we put up a Defensive Rating of about a 100, which is a decent effort.

It was 113.1, which is not good, but an improvement.

First half was 96.4, with a ridiculously fast pace (110).

Fourth quarter was 90.9, with a fairly slow pace (88)

Third quarter was 162.5, with pace of 96.

edit... missed the last turnover of the fourth

[zilby]

I love Cack tonight, both Cack's drove hard to the rim, was wet from outside, and was firing on all cylinders, the Cack tandem was just unstoppable tonight.

BTW i geeked at the title

heh.

[quickymgee]

PACERS WITH NO PROTECTION FOR CACK.

[Gold Chain]

That was a fun one to watch.

Down to Carolina.

Go Raps.

[bonjovi0308]

I didn't watch the game, but what happened to Bargs? I mean I was watching the live boxscore and Bargs only had like 5 shots attempt going into the 3 quarter??

[Phenomenologist]

I think it's a joke that Wright gets so much run in favour of clearly superior players. It's by far the biggest indictment of Jay as a coach. And the defensive argument is getting very old. We just allowed 112 points to the 24th ranked offence (who, despite their pace, average <100/game). We have a shot to post the worst defensive efficiency OF ALL TIME. Stop playing him. He sucks balls.

it's true. first game back and the guy still thinks he's MJ. but derozan was getting absolutely burned by granger. turkoglu did a pretty decent job when he was on granger, but wright played respectably when he was on the floor.

He was fine. Granger was getting similar shots all night. He hit some. He missed some. Certainly Derozan had a few lapses, but he's been pretty good on D in general. I say give him the benefit of the doubt, since he's the better player.

Wright toned down the shots/insane drives tonight, but I still don't see a reason to play him. We've been just as bad, if not worse in games that Wright has played on D (with wings going off on us like nobody's business), and our defensive rating is not all that different with him off the court (and the small improvement could just be white noise; certainly I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions this early anyway). He's just not very good, and the gulf between him and our other wings on offence is ... a canyon.

One Wright makes a Wrong.

[MarcusFenix]

Cack had balls, keeping it hard all game long. Pushing it easily with no resistance from the Pacers, like hot knife through butter. Keep it up. Good win.

[fredericklove]

I didn't watch the game, but what happened to Bargs? I mean I was watching the live boxscore and Bargs only had like 5 shots attempt going into the 3 quarter??

2 fouls in the first quarter, and ...teammates hate him thus no touches all game till 4th quarter.

[BasketballAbyss]

Cack finally has started to function correctly. Upright and standing erect Cack would show the Pacers who's boss. We talking about penetrations down the hole, great passes to streaking players for nba facials, and always being wet with that jimmy. Boy oh boy do these guys know how to stroke it.

[MrBojangelz71]

Lets just take a quick look at our record:

Of our 8 losses, 1 has came against a sub par team in Memphis.

Utah is one other questionable loss. That was on back to backs and they still are a much better team than their record states

SAS is another. but as they have showed, they are quite capable of beating much better teams without their starter when they whooped Dallas by 11 two nights after beating us.

So with that said, we have beaten every team that I would consider middle of the pack teams, by a convincing matter. We won by an average of 12 pnts, tonight included. This doesn't include our 10 point win over the Cavs, who I consider a top tier team.

So what does this all mean? Considering that this team is far from playing it's best ball, we can easily beat middle tier teams. We are still a ways away from beating top tier teams but with showings in PHO and Orlando this past Sunday, we are getting closer to accomplishing this.

Tonights games was a microcosm of what ails this team. But from what I have witnessed, our lows are getting les low and our highs are becoming more regular. We have a ways to go but I truly like what I see and feel very optimistic for what our December schedule will bring. If we can keep our domination over mid tier teams going I believe before New Years this team will be 3 to 4 games over .500. If that happens I would consider the start to this season a very successful one!

[name_discrep]

I wish that would have been a blowout, WAY too close in the second half considering how bad Indiana was in the first, but still nice to get the win.

[Boogie!]

The Raptors can be even MORE deadly on offence than they already are if Jose Calderon plays with the attitude and mindset he played with tonight....wow....he had his game face on tonight.

Seriously, when was the last time you saw Jose push the ball as aggressively as he did tonight...I can only think back to his rookie season, and perhaps back when he was in the Euroleague. He led the team in scoring tonight...when was the last time that happened? I don't know what it was, but keep it up Jose.

Also, we're infinitely more potent with Belinelli than we are without him. He's very valuable to this team. Just think about it, we would have likely lost to the Clippers if it were not for his shooting. And he kept us in a lot of games when we were on the Western Conf. road swing.

Just pencil in 50 pts for the Raps through 2 quarters of play, because they can get 50 by halftime EASILY. Of course, they also give 50 pts. by half it seems. But, you take the good with the bad, and try to correct it.

i've been screaming free belinelli since the season started. finally after a few games he starts getting legitimate pt and has been tearing it up. now let's hope jay triano keeps listening and stops playing jack and calderon together and actually starts running plays for bargs.

[ruckus]

Now, I don't usually like Cack but, I decided to give it a try tonight because Triano keeps trying to push Cack down our collective throats. Surprise, surprise, tonight, the Cack was good. Now, I'm not saying that I'd like Cack every night but, I think it'd be okay in short spurts.

[SaveTheHens]

^ no homo

[A_wildstabatanything]

If that happens I would consider the start to this season a very successful one!

Sure, they'll make the playoffs... but this squad still gets slaughtered in the first round. Sounds like a waste of time to me if they're just going to lose Chris and the 2010 first rounder in the summer.

In the meanwhile DeMar won't develop as quickly with reduced PT this year and Bargnani's progression has been stunted (his offensive role has been diminished compared to last season from January on).

[Phenomenologist]

So what does this all mean? Considering that this team is far from playing it's best ball, we can easily beat middle tier teams. We are still a ways away from beating top tier teams but with showings in PHO and Orlando this past Sunday, we are getting closer to accomplishing this.

Tonights games was a microcosm of what ails this team. But from what I have witnessed, our lows are getting les low and our highs are becoming more regular. We have a ways to go but I truly like what I see and feel very optimistic for what our December schedule will bring. If we can keep our domination over mid tier teams going I believe before New Years this team will be 3 to 4 games over .500. If that happens I would consider the start to this season a very successful one!

Hoping that our circumstance will naturally improve to a greater extent then those of other teams seems silly. I admit that our upside is intriguing because we're bad at the part of the game that is less talent based and more effort based. It's also, however, been 14 games and we're as bad as ever (in fact, we're starting to run away from the rest of the league in terms of defensive inefficiency).

I really hope we can get our **** together, but I don't typically buy the "we haven't hit our stride argument". In fact, we've been fairly fortunate on a number of fronts this season, most notably in terms of injuries. So we've had some decent opportunity to mesh and learn how to not suck on defence. Still waiting on the latter.

[Spartan13]

Where are the Calderon haters now?