Game #70: Toronto Raptors VS Detroit Pistons - 17/03/19 - 4:00PM ET - TSN

[golden]

Some like Smitch (and still do) ..... which I've never understood

I still have a bit of a soft spot for Butch Carter . It's worth noting that we never had a single winning% coach until Casey, a run of 7 head coaches before him.....

Dwane Casey burner account confirmed.

Butch, Wilkens and Smitch (first Raptor COTY) all had seasons with winning records. Casey didn't have a winning season until Masai showed up. If Colangelo hung around, he would have signed Rudy Gay to a max contract and axed Casey quickly for not being able to win with Gay as the face of the franchise. Masai has never experienced a losing season as the top basketball guy of the Toronto Raptors. Chew on that..... when you consider the length and depths of futility we have seen. And consider that we just lost Casey and have hardly missed a beat with a new coach who's playing in a sandbox half the time, by design.

[KeonClark]

Dwane Casey burner account confirmed.

Butch, Wilkens and Smitch (first Raptor COTY) all had seasons with winning records. Casey didn't have a winning season until Masai showed up. If Colangelo hung around, he would have signed Rudy Gay to a max contract and axed Casey quickly for not being able to win with Gay as the face of the franchise. Masai has never experienced a losing season as the top basketball guy of the Toronto Raptors. Chew on that..... when you consider the length and depths of futility we have seen. And consider that we just lost Casey and have hardly missed a beat with a new coach who's playing in a sandbox half the time, by design.

He's talking about career record with Raptors, not single season. But I mostly agree with the rest.

The 2 MVP's of the We The North era are Masai Ujiri and Kyle Lowry and I'm not willing to debate facts

[golden]

He's talking about career record with Raptors, not single season. But I mostly agree with the rest.

The 2 MVP's of the We The North era are Masai Ujiri and Kyle Lowry and I'm not willing to debate facts

Ok, and not debating KLo + Masai at all. Pretty sure if Masai had brought in a Nate McMillan or Mike Brown type of coach, we would have seen the same 7 year run. They are basically Casey doppelgangers.

[Puffer]

Raptor fans have never liked a coach in the history of the franchise, we're not about to start now damnit

I liked Malone. Got a lot of somethin' out of nuthin'. And refused to lose on purpose.

[inthepaint]

You're not going to find that here ..... it's dump-on-Nurse day, every day. Note the post on here earlier that said every contributor on RR could coach this team to no worse or a better record .... a 2nd place team in the entire NBA with all the injuries and trades and load management they've had.

And not one single person bothered to disagree.... that's the problem with the current hot takes after every loss. Poster here actually think they know better than an experienced Assistant or Coach that has made his way to the friggin' NBA over thousands of professional hopefuls

Armchair coaches making eye test ploclammations are actually pretty hillarious. The odds of the Raps making the NBA finals are X% and the odds of winning the NBA finlas are considerably less. But at least were all ready to blame the coach who's doing pretty damned well with the odds stacked against him.....jmo

It's not dump on Nurse day everyday. He deserves credit for having a team with the 2nd best record on the league this late in the year, as a rookie coach, despite lots of injuries. A lot of it is sheer talent and adaptability by the players, but Nurse has shown he's got strenghts too (like smart ATO plays and ability to recognize player stregnths)

That said, he has also made questionable/bad decisions, including running black-hole all-bench lineups, or bench lineups anchored by Lowry or Siakam, but without them handling the ball. A lot of it is being chalked to experimentation, and that can have its benefits, but there's nothing wrong in questioning the drawbacks of that approach on a forum like this, especially given the playoffs are right around the corner, and the them achiles heel is cohesiveness/chemistry.

I don't think anyone is purporting to be a better coach than Nurse (if anyone was they wouldn't be writing here they'd be actually coaching a big league), but this forum has lot of people that have been watching ball for a long time, some of which have also played & coached before. Sure you get the odd troll now and them, the ever present bias for/against certain players, and it gets toxic sometimes right after a loss, but at the end of the day this forum is pretty knowledgeable overall and has picked up/anticipated stuff that ended up materializing on the court (and in off-seasons). I really like this team and the way it's constructed, and will always cheer for the Raps no matter what, but when something feels off I'll call it too...

[GLF]

I truly never thought Kyle would still be this important to the team when Kawhi came here but he really is our MVP and Most important player. Our offence and defence just runs so much better when he's playing and on the floor. Like significantly better. You can just see it

[GLF]

Damn this lineup is moving the ball right now. Beautiful basketball. Knicks are terrible but still lol

[G__Deane]

Dwane Casey burner account confirmed.

Butch, Wilkens and Smitch (first Raptor COTY) all had seasons with winning records. Casey didn't have a winning season until Masai showed up. If Colangelo hung around, he would have signed Rudy Gay to a max contract and axed Casey quickly for not being able to win with Gay as the face of the franchise. Masai has never experienced a losing season as the top basketball guy of the Toronto Raptors. Chew on that..... when you consider the length and depths of futility we have seen. And consider that we just lost Casey and have hardly missed a beat with a new coach who's playing in a sandbox half the time, by design.

I'm not a Casey fan at all but it's true that he's the first coach in out history to have a Raps career winning percentage @ .573
That is, until a certain Nick Nurse .... @ .700

https://www.basketball-reference.com...R/coaches.html

[GLF]

Fred looks SOOOOOOOO much better coming back from injury than he ever did while he was playing before the injury. I definitely think he had a lot of nagging injuries before he took the time off that was slowing him down. Also we are using him better right now by always having him alongside another point guard and having him be the floor spacer. But even when he does run the pick and roll he's doing a much better job the last two games than he's ever done. I think having a big body to play alongside like Gasol helps everyone. Gives them more space. Kyle's played better as well. JV would have done the same thing but yea we see how they struggle a little more offensively when Serge is the screen setter.