GT: Hitting the ground running... are we ready?... (vs IND Pacers Halloween night)

[ceez]

man ross looked so lost out there, it was kind of funny. even when they showed them all standing around before the game started he looked pretty shook. dude was hella nervous.

[Hotshot]

Amid all the terrible ending, lets look at the positive that was JV. Double Double on his first game, that is very impressive. My gawed after all those years of trying to find a centre, Toronto actually found a real legit centre for the future.

[NoPropsneeded]

Just when our D is looking ok our starting wings end up being terrible shooters. They couldn't hit a fish in a barrel, better bounce back next game. I was hoping for a 3 - 0 start to the season... well that's out the window

[slaw]

Amid all the terrible ending, lets look at the positive that was JV. Double Double on his first game, that is very impressive. My gawed after all those years of trying to find a centre, Toronto actually found a real legit centre for the future.

I know it's one game and I might sound insane but I think they found more than just a legit centre. He played the best centre in the conference to a draw. In his first game. He's 20. I can't wait to see him in 3 years.

[Bendit]

40 big ones for DD? I still cant handle that unless of course he pulled the game out for us.

[Chr1s1anL]

We really needed that one. It's going to be hard to get a win in Brooklyn. With what will now be there home opener.

[ReubenJRD]

Impressive games by Lowry and Valanciunas tonight. REALLY LOVED their statlines too.

Whoever has Lowry on their fantasy team will be pleased, and Jonas is probably the only real close competition for Anthony Davis and the rookie of the year.

Derozan, Fields were fairly disappointing tonight, but I felt this was going to be a game where neither of them were going to be eyeshines offensively. Landry was in defensively, and his rebounding was solid. Derozan picked it up in the second, and as much as excuses shouldn't be used, he probably should of had 5 free throws attempt. Defensively he was solid as well.

If Andrea continues to play like this on both ends, and Lowry and Val are giving great effort always, this team will be in the playoffs. This game tonight made it feel very possible to be in the post-season again.

[Chr1s1anL]

Valanciunas became the first Raptors rookie since Damon Stoudamire (1995) to record a double-double in his first game.

[mcHAPPY]

Bargnani played great defence. Had two blocks and played very good man defence. I saw two mistake son help defence but the rest was solid. He hit some important shots and was okay from the free throw line. I will take the Bargs we saw this game all season long. His % will improve but his defence doesn't have to for him to stay in the warm part of my heart.

I disagree. Bargnani played some awful pick and roll D at times that led to easy buckets and was the guy guarding West as West went for 14 in the fourth. The thing about defense is effort. There is no excuse not to play great defense on every play. If you can do it for one you can do it for all - unless you are tired and then you should be on the bench. As for his shooting, 4-14 with some pussy little flip layups that were neither calls nor high quality attempts.

I can't get over how 3 starters play awful yet Raps lose by just 2. That is the silver lining, I guess.

[minks77]

I can't get On Andreas case too much. He was obviously running on pure adrenaline in the first q but once he got back in the game he was spent. I'll blame it on the flu for now but I'm already 2 excuses deep for him this year (conditioning in preseason and now the flu). You could see he had no lift in his shot and was getting turned the wrong way by the d. Also wasn't able to explode past anyone and kept settling for ugly fading to the side crap. Plus on d he was sagging of all kinds cuz he just couldn't match the strength/speed of west anymore.

DeMar fought but couldn't buy a basket or a call and made some inexcusably lazy decisions on defense, specially on the p-n-r.

Casey may be trusting his starters too much because I saw nothing in the 4th q to suggest they could even beat their own bench. It's early on though...

[Mediumcore]

What an awesome game! I'm so excited for this season if the games are going to be this exciting.

I thought they should have tried to swich JV onto West when he started rolling in the fourth becase AB was being abused, or atleast try and throw a double team at him to get the ball out of his hands. Not AB's fault though because West is a beast down low and looks like he's fully healed from his knee injury. This one was on Casey imo. Still, it's the first game and you gotta see what your team is capable of and we could have easily won if AB had anything resembling his usual shooting touch.

Bring on Brooklyn.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

What a tough loss... DeRozan, Fields and Amir were terrible and Bargnani was clearly out of gas after that stellar 1st quarter (the flu is a fair excuse, but then Casey should have pulled him in the 4th).

DeRozan - Stop looking for calls by going soft to the basket, grow a pair and start posterizing people! Dont' give the refs a chance to make it a 50/50 call... go hard to the bucket and force the whistle... and start earning your new contract!

Fields - So you're a glue guy... glue is sticky... stick a damn wide open shot! I hope that game was a blip and not the start of a season-long trend.

Amir - The hustle was good and he was clearly overmatched on D against Hibbert/West, but if he falls in love with those long 2's from just inside the 3pt line, he's going to start losing more playing time to Gray and Davis.


I was far more upset about hearing the news of DeRozan getting extended for $9.5M per season than I was about the loss. Absolute crap. No way is he worth nearly $9.5M per season... I sure hope Memphis approved that salary!


Our 4 most overpaid players: DeRozan ($9.5M x 4 yrs), Amir ($6.5M x 3 yrs), Fields ($6.25M x 3 yrs), Kleiza ($4.6M x 2 yrs)... 3 of them were under the bus last night and the other was a DNP-CD... what an efficient way to spend $26.85M!!! It's hard to wakeup this morning as a BC supporter...


On the positive side, I thought Valanciunas, Lowry, Calderon, Anderson, Gray, Davis and Bargnani (1st quarter, when he actually had some energy and legs beneath him) played quite well last night. Valanciunas appears to be everything we've been hoping and I look forward to watching him develop into a star!

[ceez]

it's kind of sad that this was the first season i was excited for in a while and yet when i heard about the demar extension all i felt was dread. what a absolutely awful deal.

whats even sadder is we'd be better off starting AA or Mcguire. at least they don't take anything away from the table. if we're playing fields for his D, since he clearly is useless on offense, we'd be better off starting mcguire. at least then you could put him on the other team's best wing. did anyone catch DD on hill and lowry on george for the first part of the game? lowry on a guy that's 6'10? WHAT???

if only this season had a reset button.

[ceez]

it's weird, after the game and most of last night i was fine with the game and what transpired for the most part, yet this morning i'm enraged. in my experience, if you sleep on something and somehow hate it more, its a bad, bad thing.

[Nilanka]

it's weird, after the game and most of last night i was fine with the game and what transpired for the most part, yet this morning i'm enraged. in my experience, if you sleep on something and somehow hate it more, its a bad, bad thing.

lol, so true. It takes an atrocity of monstrous proportions to make one feel worse about it the next morning (excluding drunken booty calls....).