Game #56 - Toronto Raptors at New Orleans Pelicans; Feb 14th, 2022 on SN1

[Kagemusha]

Remember they're playing on the road and they also probably have to work out.
You do that over 5 months, it will take its toll on your body.

OG's legs has been giving up lately.
Obvious sign of fatigue.

[golden]

I didn't watch the game (probably a good thing), but it looks like the bench sucked as usual, Nurse just went to them more probably because the starters played poorly. Precious was 1/4, Flynn 0/4, Banton 2/6, Svi and Yuta 0/3 combined.

Starters had horrible nights and when you have no one on the bench to rely on, this is the type of night you get.

We move on, hopefully the starters are back to it next game.

Nah, the bench was somewhat okay. The stats you’re quoting are like extended garbage time. The real bench was Boucher, Birch, Thad and Precious. Weird rotation, but we’re used to it.

OG, Scottie and Trent didn’t have it on offense and the Pels exploited our help defense for open 3 after open 3 as well as pounding us inside with size. That’s the story tonight. It was a thorough ass whupping.

Can’t use box scores to tell the game story… you’re way off.

[Kagemusha]

Super bowl hang over.
let's just put it at that

[TrueTorontoFan]

Nah, the bench was somewhat okay. The stats you’re quoting are like extended garbage time. The real bench was Boucher, Birch, Thad and Precious. Weird rotation, but we’re used to it.

OG, Scottie and Trent didn’t have it on offense and the Pels exploited our help defense for open 3 after open 3 as well as pounding us inside with size. That’s the story tonight. It was a thorough ass whupping.

Can’t use box scores to tell the game story… you’re way off.

I feel like if we are able to pair Thad with a solid scorer off the bench things will open up on that side.

[A.I]

Nah, the bench was somewhat okay. The stats you’re quoting are like extended garbage time. The real bench was Boucher, Birch, Thad and Precious. Weird rotation, but we’re used to it.

OG, Scottie and Trent didn’t have it on offense and the Pels exploited our help defense for open 3 after open 3 as well as pounding us inside with size. That’s the story tonight. It was a thorough ass whupping.

Can’t use box scores to tell the game story… you’re way off.

Even among those 4, no one is capable of scoring if the starters are having off nights, thats the point I'm trying to make. Thats going to be the problem with this team. Most of the starters need to be on their game to win games. Thats how they got the 8 game win streak.

I'll chalk it up as one of those games. Pascal has been dominant recently and haven't seen Gary go 2/15 in a long time, even before the hot streak.

[chris]

oof. maybe spending superbowl sunday in new orleans during mardi gras wasn't a great idea, in retrospect

[slaw]

Stinker. It happens. On to the next one.

[Kagemusha]

oof. maybe spending superbowl sunday in new orleans during mardi gras wasn't a great idea, in retrospect

Even the great Klay Thompson shot 3/14 tonight.

[golden]

oof. maybe spending superbowl sunday in new orleans during mardi gras wasn't a great idea, in retrospect

The youngest guys in the starting lineup definitely played like they were hungover. Team bonding & chemistry would be the cost-benefit.

[DanH]

The small starters once again got destroyed right out the gate. Difference is this time they didn't do much better come the third Q. -16 in 11 minutes. If the starters do that, you are going to lose. Throw in Nurse punting the end of the 1st Q with that nonsense 3 centres bench lineup (-7 in like 2 minutes) and there's your blowout loss. To be fair, there were a few other small minutes lineups that make more sense on the surface that also got caved in smaller margins, was a bad night. But the biggest issues were pretty glaring.

I get the whole everyone-is-6'9" thing, so it shouldn't matter who comes off the bench, but there are skillsets involved too, and the reality is you need a certain portion of every lineup to be able to create, and having all three of Precious, Khem and Boucher out there at once is just leaving a huge part of the lineup completely unable to function outside of a very narrow role.

Like, I'd get it if the starters were killing it. Why break what ain't broken? But the starters are getting caved in to start every game (and generally playing much better later in games, to be fair, but overall barely breaking even on the year). You have two complementary problems: too many C's coming off the bench and not enough C's in the starting lineup. However could we solve this...

Throw in the physical strain that is really showing in OG and Barnes' games in particular, having to guard centers, and added awkwardness trying to slot Thad into that existing group of three centers off the bench... I just don't get it. Heck, I'm pushing for an every night solution, but even starting a C (heck, I want Khem but throw Precious in there, whatever) on nights where Jokic or JV are the opposition would be a step in the right direction.

[planetmars]

That felt a lot like the game against the Cavs when the team was decimated with Covid and we had those scrubs coming in from the G-league. That was such an epic disaster of a game. Everyone struggled. Gary decided to just unload his clip.. took 15 shots, and only made 2. OG missed bunnies at the rim. He's been a disaster in the last 3 games. Scottie has just not been good at all. Fred wanted to put his team on his back but he's so limited because of his size. I've never seen Fred's 3pt shot get blocked like that.

JV had it so easy all game long. We couldn't even really expose his lateral quickness. CJ McCollum hit every corner 3 he took. The Pelicans just rammed it down our throats on every play, and we struggled hard to just make a layup with nobody around us.

Khem had a little bit of size to help against JV when he eventually subbed in, but JV toyed with him. You basically throw this one out and hope we burn the game film.. maybe throw some salt on there as well just in case.

I didn't even enjoy Thad's minutes. Just couldn't get into it since they were down so big for most of the game. The 5 second turnover wasn't great. He had a pretty ugly 3pt shot that completely missed. But he sets good screens, and is pretty quick when going down hill after a dribble hand off. So that's cool. But he really does feel redundant.

[G__Deane]

I think NN should consider making a lineup change. They need a C in the starting lineup. This whole small ball thing isn't going to work especially against big teams. And it's really unfair to let Barnes guard the other teams big(not the reason why he struggled tonight). Maybe put Precious in the starting lineup in place of Barnes.

Everyone keeps talking about Embiid and Jokic as the two teams that the Raptors need to worry about. Look at the C of the top 6 teams in the East. Bam, Vooch, Mobley and Allen, Giannis and Lopez, Embiid and Rob Williams.

Everyone kept saying the Raps need a legit C just for Embiid and Jokic. Then you watch them get owned by the likes of Steven Adams. Raptors had a good team rebounding stretch not long ago where Siakam was more than holding his own. But earlier this year and now again, the Raps are getting killed on the boards and it's cost them games. Achiuwa is not a starter and Birch is just a guy. Centre-less teams might do OK over 40 games but in the post season against only the better teams, it's not a winning formula imo

[TrueTorontoFan]

Everyone kept saying the Raps need a legit C just for Embiid and Jokic. Then you watch them get owned by the likes of Steven Adams. Raptors had a good team rebounding stretch not long ago where Siakam was more than holding his own. But earlier this year and now again, the Raps are getting killed on the boards and it's cost them games. Achiuwa is not a starter and Birch is just a guy. Centre-less teams might do OK over 40 games but in the postseason against only the better teams, it's not a winning formula imo

I maintain what I said to start the season. Top 5 that we have should be our closing line up

[Kagemusha]

This center-less scheme will get DESTROYED in the playoffs.
We will be lucky if we win one game.

[The Great One]

Remember they're playing on the road and they also probably have to work out.
You do that over 5 months, it will take its toll on your body.

OG's legs has been giving up lately.
Obvious sign of fatigue.

OG is 3rd in mpg averaging 36.8. Who's 1 and 2? FVV and Siakam are doing just fine, no? Siakam was just named player of the week last week.

Btw, Tatum is 5th in mpg averaging 36.1. The point blank layups that OG missed last night, I don't think Tatum or LeBron(who's 4th in mpg) would miss those.

All these excuses are hilarious to me. Missing layups is not a sign of fatigue. It's a fucking layup lol. The reality is OG has never been a good finisher. Why? because he's ALWAYS off balanced.