Everything Off Season

[The Great One]

I put ALL the blame on Siakam. You have to make an adjustment specially if you're the so called star player. Instead he just let Brown ate him alive the whole series. He played scared, he played with zero confidence, he played like he had no idea what he was doing.

Again, they played the Celtics SEVEN games. Siakam didn't have a single good game.. I've never seen anything like it. Great players stay confident through adversity. You have to be able to bounce back after a bad game. This dude was a no show the whole series.

[The Great One]

Like Mike Breen said: "The guys that can do it in the playoffs...those are the special players"

[DanH]

You're contradicting yourself by quoting wins and results without context, to support an argument. In reality, the series wasn't really that close. Take a closer look, as you say.

Huh? If we’re talking evaluating the value a player can have for a team over a large sample using team wins without regard for their actual impact on those wins is obviously foolhardy.

While when we’re talking about whether a strategy of hoping your good players play good again may or not have paid off if given 11 games to do so, it seems pretty reasonable to point out the indisputable fact that if the Raps scored a few more points in game 7 they would have won the series, thus showing that it was quite possible that strategy would have “paid off” in fewer than 11 games.

I’m not defending the strategy in the Boston series. I think it was poor, and it was a close enough series regardless that it would have been a win with some better strategy. But it’s also misleading to say that it didn’t have a chance of working out as they played it. It came down to the wire.

[TrueTorontoFan]

Huh? If we’re talking evaluating the value a player can have for a team over a large sample using team wins without regard for their actual impact on those wins is obviously foolhardy.

While when we’re talking about whether a strategy of hoping your good players play good again may or not have paid off if given 11 games to do so, it seems pretty reasonable to point out the indisputable fact that if the Raps scored a few more points in game 7 they would have won the series, thus showing that it was quite possible that strategy would have “paid off” in fewer than 11 games.

I’m not defending the strategy in the Boston series. I think it was poor, and it was a close enough series regardless that it would have been a win with some better strategy. But it’s also misleading to say that it didn’t have a chance of working out as they played it. It came down to the wire.

yeah honestly the raptors were literally one half decent siakam game away from winning.. and even with that the final game went down to the wire.. the team as a whole played like crap offensively. defensively everyone was really solid. Honestly I still believe they would have beat Miami if they went on.

[golden]

Huh? If we’re talking evaluating the value a player can have for a team over a large sample using team wins without regard for their actual impact on those wins is obviously foolhardy.

While when we’re talking about whether a strategy of hoping your good players play good again may or not have paid off if given 11 games to do so, it seems pretty reasonable to point out the indisputable fact that if the Raps scored a few more points in game 7 they would have won the series, thus showing that it was quite possible that strategy would have “paid off” in fewer than 11 games.

I’m not defending the strategy in the Boston series. I think it was poor, and it was a close enough series regardless that it would have been a win with some better strategy. But it’s also misleading to say that it didn’t have a chance of working out as they played it. It came down to the wire.

Dude, we were 0.5 seconds and a miracle away from potentially being swept. If you want to play "what if", then we were a heckuva lot closer to being swept than winning the series in 7 or even 11. Celtics blew us out 4 times this year... they were just a bad matchup for the Raps, especially the way Gasol, Siakam and FVV were playing and being stubbornly used. They had our number and the heart of a champion is the only reason why we didn't get embarrassed. It wasn't close.

I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore. lol.

[LJ2]

Boston is definitely a bad match up for the Raptors and especially for Siakam. I think the only game we won against them in the regular season was when Siakam was out.

[DanH]

Dude, we were 0.5 seconds and a miracle away from potentially being swept. If you want to play "what if", then we were a heckuva lot closer to being swept than winning the series in 7 or even 11. Celtics blew us out 4 times this year... they were just a bad matchup for the Raps, especially the way Gasol, Siakam and FVV were playing and being stubbornly used. They had our number and the heart of a champion is the only reason why we didn't get embarrassed. It wasn't close.

I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore. lol.

I never understood what we were arguing about when it is pretty clear the Raptors were a whisker away from advancing as is. No matter how lopsided the losses one 3 minute stretch of hot shooting (or, heck, boxing out on ONE freaking free throw...) in game 7 and we are likely in the Finals right now. That's not a series they had no shot in, no matter how lopsided a couple of losses are.

There are series where a team ekes out a couple close wins and gets blown out in the other 4 games (Raps in 2016 ECF comes to mind) where the series is never as close as it looked - the lesser team never really got close to competing in the most important games. This series was NOT that and I can't imagine how anyone could think so. Yes, two bad losses, but it literally came down to the final possessions of the deciding game of the series to determine which team moved on, how could you look at that and say the series wasn't close?

[DanH]

Boston is definitely a bad match up for the Raptors and especially for Siakam. I think the only game we won against them in the regular season was when Siakam was out.

Eh. Gasol being a shell of himself offensively, Pascal being a shell of himself offensively (for the entire bubble, not just against BOS), and FVV going cold are just huge blocks to get over for this team. Little to do with Boston. Heck, the first game we played them we lost but Pascal went off for 33 points on good shooting, so it wasn't a Siakam-matchup loss (it was a Serge loss, a bad sign for our ability to survive Gasol's offensive game disappearing in that series).

And I agree, Boston is tough to beat. That's why they ended up 3rd in the conference. It doesn't take some overwhelming mismatch in style for a 3rd seed to win a series against the 2nd seed in a nailbiter game 7. Sometimes one team just plays better than the other, it's not some sort of insurmountable mismatch to gnash our teeth over for years to come.

[A.I]

I've thought since we got closer to the Playoffs that the Celtics would be our worst matchup because they have a smaller and quicker center, a great ball handling guard and 2 long wings. Lowry or Fred won't let players taller than them back them down, but you could shoot over them and thats what Tatum and Brown did. Walker took advantage of Gasol and Ibaka on mismatches with his handles. It still took Boston 7 games to beat us when our top scorer and big man were struggling. Thats how I look at it.

[A.I]

Dude, we were 0.5 seconds and a miracle away from potentially being swept. If you want to play "what if", then we were a heckuva lot closer to being swept than winning the series in 7 or even 11. Celtics blew us out 4 times this year... they were just a bad matchup for the Raps, especially the way Gasol, Siakam and FVV were playing and being stubbornly used. They had our number and the heart of a champion is the only reason why we didn't get embarrassed. It wasn't close.

I'm not even sure what we're arguing about anymore. lol.

You could say the Celtics were a miracle Marcus Smart 4th quarter shooting performance away from losing Game 2. Shit happens. Series went to Game 7 and Raptors were close to winning the series.

[golden]

I never understood what we were arguing about when it is pretty clear the Raptors were a whisker away from advancing as is. No matter how lopsided the losses one 3 minute stretch of hot shooting (or, heck, boxing out on ONE freaking free throw...) in game 7 and we are likely in the Finals right now. That's not a series they had no shot in, no matter how lopsided a couple of losses are.

There are series where a team ekes out a couple close wins and gets blown out in the other 4 games (Raps in 2016 ECF comes to mind) where the series is never as close as it looked - the lesser team never really got close to competing in the most important games. This series was NOT that and I can't imagine how anyone could think so. Yes, two bad losses, but it literally came down to the final possessions of the deciding game of the series to determine which team moved on, how could you look at that and say the series wasn't close?

We're arguing about results vs. causes. Your thesis is that when we start Ibaka, we're a .500 team, at best. The results of the last 3 seasons, over very different players & coaches, show that when Ibaka starts, we're a > .700 team. You dismiss these actual results and go with the underlying data (e.g. net rating). And yet, in the same breath, you accept the 7 game series to indicate that it was a close series, and yet the underlying data (Raps outscored by a solid 5.3 pts/100poss) clearly shows that we were outplayed.

I'm actually agreeing with you on some of the causes: (1) Mis-use of Siakam/FVV, (2) Playing Gasol too much, when Ibaka was the better option, (3) Not playing bench guys like TD & Thomas.

I'm just pointing out how you easily you contradict yourself when you try to cherry pick and flip back & forth on the type of data you want to use to prove your point (wins, or net rating).

I mean, if Gasol doesn't completely crap the bed in game 7, we win that easily. I was praying that you were right about him.... the guy always "wins his minutes".... right?

[inthepaint]

We're arguing about results vs. causes. Your thesis is that when we start Ibaka, we're a .500 team, at best. The results of the last 3 seasons, over very different players & coaches, show that when Ibaka starts, we're a > .700 team. You dismiss these actual results and go with the underlying data (e.g. net rating). And yet, in the same breath, you accept the 7 game series to indicate that it was a close series, and yet the underlying data (Raps outscored by a solid 5.3 pts/100poss) clearly shows that we were outplayed.

I'm actually agreeing with you on some of the causes: (1) Mis-use of Siakam/FVV, (2) Playing Gasol too much, when Ibaka was the better option, (3) Not playing bench guys like TD & Thomas.

I'm just pointing out how you easily you contradict yourself when you try to cherry pick and flip back & forth on the type of data you want to use to prove your point (wins, or net rating).

I mean, if Gasol doesn't completely crap the bed in game 7, we win that easily. I was praying that you were right about him.... the guy always "wins his minutes".... right?

When Gasol "win his minutes" he's the knight in shinning armour "carrying" his teammates. When he loses his minutes, it's not his fault, others crapped the bed...

[DanH]

We're arguing about results vs. causes. Your thesis is that when we start Ibaka, we're a .500 team, at best. The results of the last 3 seasons, over very different players & coaches, show that when Ibaka starts, we're a > .700 team. You dismiss these actual results and go with the underlying data (e.g. net rating). And yet, in the same breath, you accept the 7 game series to indicate that it was a close series, and yet the underlying data (Raps outscored by a solid 5.3 pts/100poss) clearly shows that we were outplayed.

I'm actually agreeing with you on some of the causes: (1) Mis-use of Siakam/FVV, (2) Playing Gasol too much, when Ibaka was the better option, (3) Not playing bench guys like TD & Thomas.

I'm just pointing out how you easily you contradict yourself when you try to cherry pick and flip back & forth on the type of data you want to use to prove your point (wins, or net rating).

I mean, if Gasol doesn't completely crap the bed in game 7, we win that easily. I was praying that you were right about him.... the guy always "wins his minutes".... right?

No, I didn't say that we were a .500 team when we start Ibaka. I said making decisions like signing Ibaka to be your starting C (something we have never done) are the sort of decisions that lead to being about .500. The team has been fantastic the last few years, so when Serge has started at C our depth and other key players have been enough to counter the poor overall results from Serge with the starters. Lowry is getting older, we don't have Kawhi anymore, and we are going to lose some depth soon (never mind having Gasol to help shield Ibaka). If all our moves are on the level of "sign Serge to be your starting C" we will trend to mediocre pretty quickly.

Obviously the Raptors were outplayed on aggregate. No one said otherwise. But the series was still close. It's an insane discussion - can a team lose a game by 3 points while being outplayed? Of course! Right? That's still a close game. It's not a good performance, but it's a close game. I feel like I'm losing my mind with this, no one said the Raptors played well, I just said they almost won the series even with all the bad play, bad process, bad strategy and bad luck. Because they did. The series came down to the final few minutes of game 7, that's a close series no matter which way you slice it.

I agree, if the team didn't lose Gasol's minutes heavily in the 1st half of game 7, they would have won the game. Where we differ is that you think it is obvious they would not have lost the minutes if Ibaka had been in there instead while I don't think Gasol was the primary cause of those lost minutes and that Ibaka playing those minutes would likely not have helped (as shown pretty clearly in the 2nd half when the game got away from us while Ibaka was on the court, a sad waste of his great effort in the first half to keep us in it, similar to how the series loss was a sad waste of Gasol's effectiveness in our three wins).

I never said playing Gasol too much was a problem. I said Gasol not playing well by his standards was a problem. Playing Ibaka more was not an answer. Frankly if they play Gasol more in game 2 the series looks very different. Though playing TD or Thomas over Boucher would also have done it that game. Lots of problems we agree on but don't pretend I think Gasol should have played less, that's an answer that doesn't hold up with any real close inspection.

Point being: if we want to have a nuanced discussion about what the best options are, who should play, who should be signed - I absolutely welcome any and all deeper looks at impact, statistics, effectiveness, strategy, rotations, lineups, context... I would think that would be obvious.

But we weren't having that discussion. I was simply refuting your stance that MAYBE if the series was 11 games long they would have had a chance to see the main guys recover their games enough to win the series. My one and only point was that if your goal is maybe getting a performance good enough to win the series, they got that in the 7 games they did play. They absolutely could have won the series. They were right there. It was a bad performance nonetheless, but it was good enough to give them a real chance to win.

[DanH]

When Gasol "win his minutes" he's the knight in shinning armour "carrying" his teammates. When he loses his minutes, it's not his fault, others crapped the bed...

Never once have I claimed that Gasol carries his teammates. Gasol is a great facilitator for others' success. Which is why he does tend to win his minutes, because we have good players for him to make life easier for. Serge has better individual success but does not help his teammates the same way, which is why the both of them have similarly limited offensive impact while defensively they are a world apart. If our roster was a bad roster and we wanted to rely on Serge's scoring, Serge would be of more value than Gasol. On a good roster, not so much.

In small samples, every player is prone to winning or losing their minutes depending on 9 other players more so than themselves. Which is why we rely on larger samples and more complex impact stats to establish whether the small sample results we see are in line with what a player tends to experience or not.

I think failure or success for a team tends to start at the top. Your star players will carry most of that - Pascal's rough bubble is the main reason, far and away, that we lost that series. Fred not being able to shoot and also handling the ball too much and struggling in that role because of the aforementioned Pascal struggles was probably 2nd. Gasol and Serge are further down the list, then rotation stuff like not playing TD and Thomas enough.

Note I say Gasol and Serge, not Gasol vs Serge, because neither had a great series. Serge's scoring saved us in some stretches (game 7 1st half in particular) but that's unreliable (which is funny comparing him to Gasol, but the point is Serge NEEDS to score to provide value while Gasol typically does not) and when he's not scoring he's hurting you (game 7 2nd half being the most recent example). It's a pretty bad indictment of Serge that Gasol had probably the worst stretch of offensive games of his career, Serge was on absolute fire in terms of his individual shooting and scoring, the team played heavy starter minutes meaning Serge got to play alongside the Raps' best players nearly as much as Gasol did, and yet they lost his minutes by about as much as they did Gasol's.

[planetmars]

It only became a close series because of OG's miracle shot. 99.9% of the time Boston wins that game, and would be up 3-0 in a series. Raptors might get one of those back.. but they would have lost in 4 or 5. It went to game 7 because of OG (and Lowry's) heroics. But the mental fortitude to make it a series would be really tough, even for our beloved Raptors if they had lost that one.