GAME 3: Toronto Raptors vs Boston Celtics 09/03/20 6:30 PM ET TSN

[DogeLover1234]

Watch that final dunk again. Watch who Kyle Lowry turns to yell at after the play. It ain't Marc Gasol. Gasol did what he was supposed to do. But the Raptors' aggressive defence only works if everyone is on a string, or there will be breakdowns like that. They should be better prepared for those actions in future anyway, but just better legs and focus late game should help anyway. Real important to find some rest for guys, need a functional bench look that doesn't require all three of our top offence creators on the floor to survive. Luckily that's an easy answer, just hope Nick decides to trust TD more.

Gasol can do plenty of wrong, and has done. In this instance your blame is misguided - every trip down the court, a good offence will attack one defender or another, a good defence will use that to their advantage or be ready to contain that action through one strategy or another. The Celtics would attack Serge exactly the same way if he were in the game (he's just as slow in space, except dumber) - it's not just to "hunt blow bys," it's to get the big men defending at the perimeter and open up the rim no matter how effective the attack by Kemba is. And the Raptors would have an aggressive scheme to deal with that too. But no matter which center is being asked to hard double on the screen and chase until the guard can get back in front, the team behind them is going to be responsible for defending the rim.

I'd have to rewatch the be sure of the other possessions, but on the final defensive possession Siakam did not rotate down to defend the rim as Lowry moved up to cut off Kemba's path across the paint before swinging out to defend the shooters on the wing that Siakam stayed attached to, leaving the rim undefended.

Siakam had a number of blown rotations. Even though he started scoring, his second have left something to be desired. Immediately the dunk you mentioned and Robert Williams and 1 come to mind but there were several other late rotations.

OG and Lowry were mvps doing their jobs perfect plus some in that second half. I cant remember a time OG played that well, he was truly all over the place without losing control - fighting bigs for rebounding positioning, rotations on time, switching onto whomever + that nice steal against Tatum. Its hard to make that role fun to watch tbh

[Hotshot]

[GOLDBLUM]

to your point...

Nick was quoted as saying that’s also potentially a factor as to why Pascal stepped out of bounds at the end of game 2. It’s possible that extra distance has both hurt us and helped us. All comes out in the wash.

[DanH]

These defence videos are fantastic. They mostly go over highlights but in games with defensive lapses go over what went wrong as well. Really makes you appreciate the defensive talent and effort this team consistently displays.