Memphis @ Toronto: DeRozan's continued Growth and God Father IV

[Rapstor4Life]

Hope Stone is ok all his botched layups and dunks make a whole lot a sense now with this coming into light I hope hes alright.

[wallz]

I'll actually be pretty upset if Stone is out for good. I feel like his defensive ability could of really helped, especially in late game situations covering the best PG's in the league

[ceez]

i gotta say... i'm really impressed with demar so far. watching him, you can see he's trying to take good shots. letting the offense come to him more. his 3 point shooting still isn't up to snuff and i'm not going to bother talking about his defense, but he's trying to be more effecient, and i really appreciate that.

rudy on the other hand...

[drunkmunky]

He made 2 3pt'ers last night which is an improvement from 0 lol

[ceez]

He made 2 3pt'ers last night which is an improvement from 0 lol

he made 1

[Nilanka]

Although last season's preseason record looked good too, this year there is noticeable chemistry with the starting unit. I don't really care that we're 6-1 so far, as most of those wins came with deep bench guys playing heavy minutes.

But our starters look to be in mid-season form already. It's amazing how beneficial one summer of continuity can be. Hoping it carries over to next week.

[ceez]

honestly i think a lot of it is Lowry playing at 100% and demar's improvement.

[iblastoff]

i just assumed that of the ten thousand preaseason games for the raptors, this would have been the surefire loss. pleasantly surprised but obviously no crazy hopes up for the regular season, especially with the random injuries to basically half the team.

[NoPropsneeded]

Resting K low is a must for Friday. We can sort out the backup pg situation possibly

[Rapstor4Life]

The only positive Id say.... looks like the Augustine starting and Buycks back up show this Friday.

[Jclaw]

I was going to add this in to provide some sober context but there is a silver lining. Guess who the Raptors played in their penultimate preseason game last year? The Memphis Grizzlies. Beat them 120-106 too. But, the silver lining is that the Grizz played mostly bench guys. Still, funny coincidence. Naismith lives!

Then again, take a look at our last preseason. Winning sched. Lots of hype about derozan. Impressive lowry. Even bargnani was a rock star. Hmmmm. Bring on the real season. Time to see if there is any actual gold in them there fool's gold

http://www.nba.com/raptors/schedule/2012

[LC009]

I was going to add this in to provide some sober context but there is a silver lining. Guess who the Raptors played in their penultimate preseason game last year? The Memphis Grizzlies. Beat them 120-106 too. But, the silver lining is that the Grizz played mostly bench guys. Still, funny coincidence. Naismith lives!

Very fair point. But all I got out of that video (and the box score) is that our starters played decent minutes, theirs didn't even play (other than T.Allen), and even then we only blew the game open in the 4th quarter. In other words, our starters were only good enough for a 4pt lead on their bench.

Oh, and Bargnani grabbed ONE rebound, our defense looked like garbage, and most of our points were in transition (on the video). The only bright spot seems to be the assist-to-turnover ratio, which is not surprising when you compare our backup PG that year to this year.

That's not to say I'm taking our success this year out of context. Not by a long shot. But our starters have looked really good on both ends of the court (especially defense), and I'm seeing some crucial improvements to some key players there. With good health and solid effort (contract year for Lowry and Gay should REALLY help there), this year's starters are VASTLY superior to last year's. Fields (last year's version) and Bargnani starting?! **Puke**

[blackjitsu]

I was going to add this in to provide some sober context but there is a silver lining. Guess who the Raptors played in their penultimate preseason game last year? The Memphis Grizzlies. Beat them 120-106 too. But, the silver lining is that the Grizz played mostly bench guys. Still, funny coincidence. Naismith lives!

Then again, take a look at our last preseason. Winning sched. Lots of hype about derozan. Impressive lowry. Even bargnani was a rock star. Hmmmm. Bring on the real season. Time to see if there is any actual gold in them there fool's gold

http://www.nba.com/raptors/schedule/2012

LC said pretty much all that needed to be said but have a look at the speed that the current roster plays at versus last year.
Last year's team was way slower with Andrea on the floor -- you don't really notice how bad his footwork is until you compare it to Val or Hansborough...
Also, tough to compare a game that the Grizz never were in and a game that the Raps starters had to claw back to win against the Grizz 3rd team! I'm not sure if there's a serious drop in coaching, the starters for Memphis had a late night (it is pre-season) or what, but they never were into the game, meanwhile Raps are trying to sort out the bench so Raptor player are playing to earn minutes - who knows, but the 2 games are considerably different.


Also, no hype this year -- I like that.

[slaw]

Resting K low is a must for Friday. We can sort out the backup pg situation possibly

I don't think that will be sorted out for awhile. I suspect everyone will get a crack early on....

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Update on TSN: http://www.tsn.ca/nba/story/?id=434933

Valanciunas and Hansborough practiced today. Those two and Stone are expected to make the trip to Milwaukee for the final preseason game. Lowry's status should be known later today, or tomorrow latest.