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Was actually a pretty fun game again. I love how the Raptors play. Even with half the team injured, they play tough on defense, and swing the ball on offense. It's really actually beautiful basketball.
Lowry had an off game again. You can really see how tired he is trying to carry the team. The missed free throws sucked. But he nailed that wide open 3 which was really helpful at the time. Great defense as usual.
Serge had a Serge type game. Was mainly our main offense spark plug (other than TD) but he makes so many dumb decisions. Tugging on that jersey at the end there. Now if he didn't get that foul, there was a chance that the Hornets would have tried to score early in the clock to take the lead back. So them keeping the ball until the last second might have only happened because it was a tie. In the end it worked out. His legs were so tired but he grinded it out in O/T. Huge free throws at the end. Caught that errand pass from TD before that. Hit a nice jumper as well which I really thought was going to be a miss.
McCaw got a lot of hate and I get it.. he's not good. But last night he was actually okay. Got 11 assists. Only 2 turnovers. I mean that's pretty awesome. But we saw both turnovers turn into 3's. The first one lead to the 9-0 run at the end of the third. The second one was in O/T. So even though he only had 2 turnovers they came at really bad times. I find that he's getting more comfortable with the ball. My theory on McCaw is that he has memorized Nurse's playbook better than anyone not named Fred or Kyle. Doc had an interesting article on ESPN the other day where he mentioned that he had given his playbook to Pat Bev and he had only done that twice before (to Rondo and Paul). And part of the reason is to not slow down the game by having him yell plays on each offensive set. Maybe Nurse likes that McCaw knows the playbook well enough that he can hurry up an offensive set. No idea but he's actually such a mediocre player. Right now we have no options though since Fred is banged up and TD is a SG. But I thought he was good enough yesterday. Some of his assists were fire.
Speaking of TD.. man what a game. He made some bone headed plays (like that pass to Serge), but he more than made up for it. Two big 3's in O/T. Career night. And really humble in the post game interview. This kid is going to be a star. Love that he's on the team.
OG came up big. Some huge rebounds in traffic, and that was one area that I was concerned with last year. Kawhi was able to get those kind of boards, and OG was always passive on the rebounding despite having the size to be good at it. I'm glad he's getting into the thick of things. We need that from him. He's not going to be a Pascal type player, but he can be a really good role player. Every team needs a guy that can defend well, hit 3's and grab boards. Those guys are needed on championship teams.
The bench was pretty bad. Zeller got into Boucher's head, and really took him out of it. His 3's were really off. Pretty terrible +/- for those guys. O'Shea was invisible. RHJ took a really bad wide open 3 which we could have used and was a team low -16. Thomas made some nice 3's again. He's still pretty raw though overall. Didn't even realize SJ played until I saw the boxscore. Doesn't help when we're forced to use McCaw to run the point for them, but yeah they could have been a lot better.
After that huge Charlotte run, was expecting a loss. Surprised we won to be honest and will take it. Can't wait until at least one guy comes back.
Lowry had an off game again. You can really see how tired he is trying to carry the team. The missed free throws sucked. But he nailed that wide open 3 which was really helpful at the time. Great defense as usual.
Serge had a Serge type game. Was mainly our main offense spark plug (other than TD) but he makes so many dumb decisions. Tugging on that jersey at the end there. Now if he didn't get that foul, there was a chance that the Hornets would have tried to score early in the clock to take the lead back. So them keeping the ball until the last second might have only happened because it was a tie. In the end it worked out. His legs were so tired but he grinded it out in O/T. Huge free throws at the end. Caught that errand pass from TD before that. Hit a nice jumper as well which I really thought was going to be a miss.
McCaw got a lot of hate and I get it.. he's not good. But last night he was actually okay. Got 11 assists. Only 2 turnovers. I mean that's pretty awesome. But we saw both turnovers turn into 3's. The first one lead to the 9-0 run at the end of the third. The second one was in O/T. So even though he only had 2 turnovers they came at really bad times. I find that he's getting more comfortable with the ball. My theory on McCaw is that he has memorized Nurse's playbook better than anyone not named Fred or Kyle. Doc had an interesting article on ESPN the other day where he mentioned that he had given his playbook to Pat Bev and he had only done that twice before (to Rondo and Paul). And part of the reason is to not slow down the game by having him yell plays on each offensive set. Maybe Nurse likes that McCaw knows the playbook well enough that he can hurry up an offensive set. No idea but he's actually such a mediocre player. Right now we have no options though since Fred is banged up and TD is a SG. But I thought he was good enough yesterday. Some of his assists were fire.
Speaking of TD.. man what a game. He made some bone headed plays (like that pass to Serge), but he more than made up for it. Two big 3's in O/T. Career night. And really humble in the post game interview. This kid is going to be a star. Love that he's on the team.
OG came up big. Some huge rebounds in traffic, and that was one area that I was concerned with last year. Kawhi was able to get those kind of boards, and OG was always passive on the rebounding despite having the size to be good at it. I'm glad he's getting into the thick of things. We need that from him. He's not going to be a Pascal type player, but he can be a really good role player. Every team needs a guy that can defend well, hit 3's and grab boards. Those guys are needed on championship teams.
The bench was pretty bad. Zeller got into Boucher's head, and really took him out of it. His 3's were really off. Pretty terrible +/- for those guys. O'Shea was invisible. RHJ took a really bad wide open 3 which we could have used and was a team low -16. Thomas made some nice 3's again. He's still pretty raw though overall. Didn't even realize SJ played until I saw the boxscore. Doesn't help when we're forced to use McCaw to run the point for them, but yeah they could have been a lot better.
After that huge Charlotte run, was expecting a loss. Surprised we won to be honest and will take it. Can't wait until at least one guy comes back.
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