Raptors @ Horcats Friday April 5th 7pm on SN1

[A.I]

Missed the game, Lamb beat the Raptors again.

Also Green played 19 minutes, I wouldn't worry about Fred playing over him in the Playoffs.

[S.R.]

Your right, I was thinking maybe 1 or 2 guys stay home on their best shooters, make the 3rd or 4th guy beat you. Have help on Kemba, just don't have everyone help.

Yeah it was a mess. Siakam was a step slow rotating and didn't manage to cut off the drive at all, but then he was on Kemba's hip. I mean at that point if Kemba ends with a layup contested by Siakam looming over his left shoulder, more power to him I guess. Lowry and Kawhi collapsing late (leaving the corners open) and FVV following 7 feet behind the play all accomplishes nothing but leaving shooters open for the drive and kick. Fred had no chance to get back into that play and could have rotated out to Lamb on the perimeter.

Seems like everybody should stay home on shooters (Lebronto PTSD) but guys always collapse. A step quicker and any one of three Raptors could have gotten a hand on that ball or cut off the drive. Sometimes you just get beat.

[slaw]

Weird loss. Felt like Raps were totally in control and then they just couldn’t hit shots and Hornets made everything.

[TacoBreath]

This form says "Write something." Ok, I will.

Pardon me for noticing, and I hope it doesn't give too much offense, but your coach is a moron.

[inthepaint]

The only excuse for not playing Danny in the 4th and giving Lin 10 min on this game is minute/load management. If Nurse's decision was that a loss was acceptable so long as Danny's minutes were down, then maybe you can rationalize it, if not, then it was just poor coaching.

I'd like Lin to succeed like everyone on the team, but I feel like every time he's on the floor the other team invariably goes on a run. He's been a negative on both ends of the floor. To me he should only see the floor this year at the T-Wolves game, and that is only if we have clinched finals homecourt by then (in the event we get there).

[A.I]

Yeah you can chalk Danny's minutes up to rest, especially since he had an injury recently and this was our 80th game. You can expect more players to rest/play low minutes the last 2 games.

[The Great One]

Pierce is right. He's better than Wade. Wade is just much more popular and more flashy. People will mention championships, PP only won 1, Wade 3. But PP was the Celtics best player in 08 when they won the championship. Wade in the Heat 3 championships was always the 2nd best player.

[MixxAOR]

Gasol with 6 pts...attempted 2 shots...wtf

[chris]

Pierce is right. He's better than Wade. Wade is just much more popular and more flashy. People will mention championships, PP only won 1, Wade 3. But PP was the Celtics best player in 08 when they won the championship. Wade in the Heat 3 championships was always the 2nd best player.

have a gander at literally every single number of every player on the 2005-2006 heat and let me know who was better in the regular season or playoffs. i can't stand him but the dude might have been the best player in the league in the stretch from that season through when lebron joined the heat, and was certainly in the top 3. pierce never reached those heights. he was also their best player in the playoffs and especially the finals in year 1 of the heatles as lebron pulled one of his famous shoulder shrugs.

[bertarapsfan]

Pierce is right. He's better than Wade. Wade is just much more popular and more flashy. People will mention championships, PP only won 1, Wade 3. But PP was the Celtics best player in 08 when they won the championship. Wade in the Heat 3 championships was always the 2nd best player.

lol get the fuck outta here Paul. he's not even close to wades level. if it wasnt for ray Allen and garnett coming to bring that title he would be looked at like Melo. a elite scorer but 1 dimensional guy who didn't have what it takes to carry a his own team to playoff success. wade won 3 title one with the aging Shaq as his 2nd fiddle. he has the same amount of rings as lebron. wade will probably go down as the top 3-4 sgs of all time.

[bertarapsfan]

even if Paul believes this what a douchbag thing to say and generate headlines when dude is about to play his last 2 nba games ever. trying to steal his spot light cause no one wanted to give him a retirement tour. same when he couldn't have a video tribute to Isiah Thomas on his jersey retirement night. always wants the story to be about himself

[Zak24gege]

The only excuse for not playing Danny in the 4th and giving Lin 10 min on this game is minute/load management. If Nurse's decision was that a loss was acceptable so long as Danny's minutes were down, then maybe you can rationalize it, if not, then it was just poor coaching.

I'd like Lin to succeed like everyone on the team, but I feel like every time he's on the floor the other team invariably goes on a run. He's been a negative on both ends of the floor. To me he should only see the floor this year at the T-Wolves game, and that is only if we have clinched finals home court by then (in the event we get there).

That's the issue at hand. We are now tied in losses. We have the tie breaker, but I would not count on GSW losing so for us to secure home court advantage we need to win our last 2 games. JLin has been the +/- loser almost evety game. He was a brutsl pick-up. Career over.

[golden]

Gasol with 6 pts...attempted 2 shots...wtf

That's unacceptable in a loss. I don't care how much intangibles you're bringing to the table.

[planetmars]

That sucks... wanted this win so that we can get closer to that 2nd seed overall.. going to be tougher considering we know everyone will be sitting for that last game against Minny.

Magic number is still 2.. but I don't see GSW losing any of their last 3. LAC is the toughest team they face, but that should be an easy win I would imagine.


As for the game itself.. firstly I didn't mind the ISO to Kawhi. He got a good shot off in his spot. Same spot he beat Portland with. Damn wedgie!

Our bench was brutal again. We got bad Norm last night. Lin was typical Lin (not good). OG was rusty but had some nice defensive moments and overall meh. Serge was great again though. Didn't see much from Gasol tonight. Forget if it was the 2nd or 3rd.. but the ball movement during our run where we took the lead by 10 or 12 or something was so damn beautiful. We need more of that in the playoffs.

I hope Fred was getting the minutes to give Danny some rest. He does have an injured thumb. But I mean the defense on that Lamb 3 was pretty brutal. Need to clean that up. Who lost Lamb anyway? Was that Kawhi? Open 3 from Lamb.. geez.

Lowry with a solid +15 to lead all Raptors. He had to play 36 minutes though.. that's not good. Damn wish we found a way to keep Wright in that trade. Lin is still garbage (-11 in 10 minutes - yikes).

[GLF]

Looking more like Van Vleet will close out the quarter moving forward.

Lol.

Please don't put that out into the universe. Hopefully this game shows Nurse that that should not be the case. Danny would have hit that 3 Fred missed down th stretch and danny would have played better D