Game Twenty - Raptors at Pacers - Friday, Nov. 26th 8:00pm on TSN

[golden]

another day, another L

Fall-o for Paolo.

[MixxAOR]

another day, another L

[inthepaint]

I think our rebounding and size hurts too much with birch out. Depending on the match up, perhaps precious in some games......
I get that Gary is scoring well but we can't sacrifice defense unless we plan on scoring 130 a game.....

Well that's the thing, with Gary in you don't sacrifice defence, matter of fact you might be sacrificing defence if he's out (he's one of the best defenders on the team and actually on the DPOY conversation), whereas birch has a hard time switching onto quicker guards, which Nurse's system calls for.

Offensively, Gary is one of the best scorers on the team (one of the few options of shot creation when the offence dries up), whereas birch has very limited outside shot, so hangs near the paint with his defender, right where Pascal and scottie like to operate, so...

Will be interesting to see what Nurse does. We do get some pnr functionality with birch which is nice, but we'll lose a lot of impact on both ends of the floor with Gary sitting.

[Dvdvideo]

There's team defence, and there's individual defence. Team defence will understandably suffer when a good defender is out, but one player's individual defence shouldn't depend on another player being out. Siakam is a very good individual defender, but wasn't so this past game. Ok to call a spade a spade.

Also, who's the starting centre? Legit question and I may be missing a game here, but I don't remember there being a game where Fred, trent, scottie, OG and Siakam (our 5 best players), plus Achiuwa and birch were all available, so the starting lineup has been just defaulting to the 5 best non-injured players (we had games where Siakam, Birch and Achiuwa started at C)

I think our rebounding and size hurts too much with birch out. Depending on the match up, perhaps precious in some games......
I get that Gary is scoring well but we can't sacrifice defense unless we plan on scoring 130 a game.....

[Dvdvideo]

I mean even in the games OG played with Siakam, the defense wasn't good. Probably at its worst in the Detroit and Portland games, but I say thats more of a lineup issue with Fred, Trent, Scottie, OG and Pascal. Precious has shown to be a pretty good rim protector and Birch does a lot of good things as well. When they're all healthy, we go back to the problem of who do we bench. Scottie or Gary.

I don't really blame Siakam since the team defense hasn't been good, but you can see why people are pointing at Siakam since the defense was 6th and fell hard when he returned.

Well for one, that lineup is undersized, you have to play it with either precious or birch instead of Gary. He needs to come off the bench when freddy is off. The defense needs some time to gell together.

[inthepaint]

Pretty sad that some of you are blaming Siakam for all the defensive issues, outside of one half of one game he has been mostly excellent. Shows a distinct lack of basic understanding of how much ground he is forced to try and cover. You don't suppose the drop in defense has, ummmm, I don't know, a lot to do with our best defensive player being out and our starting center being out?
Wow.

There's team defence, and there's individual defence. Team defence will understandably suffer when a good defender is out, but one player's individual defence shouldn't depend on another player being out. Siakam is a very good individual defender, but wasn't so this past game. Ok to call a spade a spade.

Also, who's the starting centre? Legit question and I may be missing a game here, but I don't remember there being a game where Fred, trent, scottie, OG and Siakam (our 5 best players), plus Achiuwa and birch were all available, so the starting lineup has been just defaulting to the 5 best non-injured players (we had games where Siakam, Birch and Achiuwa started at C)

[slaw]

Also, is Nurse’s job on the line? Cause he’s playing FVV like it is. The guy is clearly hurting and was limping around out there half the game while Nurse has him out there playing 38 minutes. Fred’s going to injure that leg and be gone for a month.

He’s a genius right? Get something out of your bench genius.

[slaw]

Really missing OG on the defensive end. The lack of role definition, consistent playing time and production concerning the bench is also an issue.

Next 30-odd days will probably determine the season.

[A.I]

Pretty sad that some of you are blaming Siakam for all the defensive issues, outside of one half of one game he has been mostly excellent. Shows a distinct lack of basic understanding of how much ground he is forced to try and cover. You don't suppose the drop in defense has, ummmm, I don't know, a lot to do with our best defensive player being out and our starting center being out?
Wow.

I mean even in the games OG played with Siakam, the defense wasn't good. Probably at its worst in the Detroit and Portland games, but I say thats more of a lineup issue with Fred, Trent, Scottie, OG and Pascal. Precious has shown to be a pretty good rim protector and Birch does a lot of good things as well. When they're all healthy, we go back to the problem of who do we bench. Scottie or Gary.

I don't really blame Siakam since the team defense hasn't been good, but you can see why people are pointing at Siakam since the defense was 6th and fell hard when he returned.

[LJ2]

Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t have a chance to catch this game. Sounds like it was a stinker from reading this thread.

We have the talent to compete much harder that the score implies. The problem seems to be the system and how hard of an adjustment it is for the players to perform well within it. I’m not saying they should abandon it, but they could definitely have won a few more games if they used a simper system. All about the bigger picture this season.

[Dvdvideo]

Pretty sad that some of you are blaming Siakam for all the defensive issues, outside of one half of one game he has been mostly excellent. Shows a distinct lack of basic understanding of how much ground he is forced to try and cover. You don't suppose the drop in defense has, ummmm, I don't know, a lot to do with our best defensive player being out and our starting center being out?
Wow.

[Jclaw]

great game in LA

[Jclaw]

good game going on in LA.

[inthepaint]

Siakam's defence has regressed significantly

[Jclaw]

I think we're at an Indiana level about now. We beat them when they were missing a core piece and they did the same to us. Hopefully the difference is that they might be maxing out at five 8/10 players we might have one that goes to 11 (Spinal Tap reference intended)