Game #11: Toronto Raptors 101 - Sacramento Kings 107

[Joey]

Geez, what the heck guys, where's our Game Thread for Golden State?!?

[Nilanka]

Geez, what the heck guys, where's our Game Thread for Golden State?!?

I liked the world better when the Warriors were a happy-go-lucky fluke led by Baron Davis.

[Jangles]

Geez, what the heck guys, where's our Game Thread for Golden State?!?

Does anyone even want to stay up to watch an actual murder take place

[consmap]

Geez, what the heck guys, where's our Game Thread for Golden State?!?

I'm 0-1 for game threads so far this season and I'm scared to go 0-2

[Demographic Shift]

Not really reality. Going against the stream yes, but that doesn't make any of his points correct. Reality is, playing any player, especially a back up player, for 18 consecutive minutes is a poor decision.


This hindsight line is a complete cop out. If Casey had announced this plan before the game or at half-time, it would have been immediately met with disagreement for specific reasons:

- Biyombo's lack of offence makes the defence focus more on his teammates
- Biyombo's defensive production isn't better than JV's enough to off-set the lost offence
- JV is the future of this team and needs to play in these situations

All of these items have been discussed here on the forum BEFORE the game. All hindsight has provided us in this case is the final score, but the result was very predictable. A capable coach should have been able to predict this because many fans would have predicted it.

If you want to defend Casey, that is fully within your rights, but don't insult our intelligence by pretending that what Casey did wrong was only obvious with hindsight.

If we take everything you have said to be true, then it still at least demonstrates that Casey has poor judgement, because it was clearly the wrong call.

There are enough reasons for a team to lose a basketball game that we don't need to add "coach stupidity" working against us.

First and foremost thanks to all for an engaging discussion and thanks for not predicating or ending your arguments by questioning my lineage. What started out as a plausible explanation as to why JV sat and Biz played all the crunch mins in the 4th Q turned into a full throttle discussion on why I don't comprehend that JV is being hard done by by Dwane Casey, who seems to be the lighting rod for a good group of you who want him run outta town.


Axel I fail to see why its a cop out.. How could you or anyone predict the circumstances and how they would play out inside the flow of game.... in advance ? Your statement "If Casey had announced this plan before the game or at half-time, it would have been immediately met with disagreement for specific reasons" is the classic assumptive close. Just because you say it doesn't make it correct. My thoughts were that Casey made a coaching decision in real time that didn't work out. Lots of em are made.. in every game in every sport. Some work out some don't. It is entirely plausible that if we scored 12 more points instead of 8 and got a couple of stops the Raps might have won that game and his decision pans out .. but they didn't and by extenstion it didn't. What I said simply doesn't agree with your position. Because people don't agree with you or your line of reasoning make doesn't make them wrong. It simply means they have a contrarian view.

For the record I am ambivalent towards Casey as a coach.

S.R Those are just pure stats. How many minutes do guys who take the opening tip play on average. They show that JV plays pretty much the same minutes as most C's do. That he isn't grossly underused compared to the league as one guy tried to say. I think that the simple metric shows he does by and large play about the league average in minutes per game.

HotfuzzIs he a better player than Biz ?A 64M deal vs a 6M deal says he is. You really don't need any more than that. I don't ever recall saying or intimating that Biz was a better player than St. Jonas.

CB4CHAMP First you have a very unique writing style. Its not always easy to follow but its you so keep on writing.
Yes.. there are other guys who play more minutes on average.. I used a bunch of recognizable names with a pretty good sample size... So I looked over more teams and to balance out the higher MPG totals of Brook Lopez and Monroe and Gobert here are the minutes played by Steven Adams in OKC at 25.. the other Lopez in NY at 26.. Roy Hibbert at 27.. Ezili/Bogut in GSW who play about 21...
The idea is the average number of minutes seems to be around 30ish.. of which our guy plays 28. He is not wasting away.

Tonight is Golden State. A tough one. But GSW isn't going to go 82up and 0 down so maybe tonite we get a win. Why not us ?

[raptors999]

First and foremost thanks to all for an engaging discussion and thanks for not predicating or ending your arguments by questioning my lineage. What started out as a plausible explanation as to why JV sat and Biz played all the crunch mins in the 4th Q turned into a full throttle discussion on why I don't comprehend that JV is being hard done by by Dwane Casey, who seems to be the lighting rod for a good group of you who want him run outta town.


Axel I fail to see why its a cop out.. How could you or anyone predict the circumstances and how they would play out inside the flow of game.... in advance ? Your statement "If Casey had announced this plan before the game or at half-time, it would have been immediately met with disagreement for specific reasons" is the classic assumptive close. Just because you say it doesn't make it correct. My thoughts were that Casey made a coaching decision in real time that didn't work out. Lots of em are made.. in every game in every sport. Some work out some don't. It is entirely plausible that if we scored 12 more points instead of 8 and got a couple of stops the Raps might have won that game and his decision pans out .. but they didn't and by extenstion it didn't. What I said simply doesn't agree with your position. Because people don't agree with you or your line of reasoning make doesn't make them wrong. It simply means they have a contrarian view.

For the record I am ambivalent towards Casey as a coach.

S.R Those are just pure stats. How many minutes do guys who take the opening tip play on average. They show that JV plays pretty much the same minutes as most C's do. That he isn't grossly underused compared to the league as one guy tried to say. I think that the simple metric shows he does by and large play about the league average in minutes per game.

HotfuzzIs he a better player than Biz ?A 64M deal vs a 6M deal says he is. You really don't need any more than that. I don't ever recall saying or intimating that Biz was a better player than St. Jonas.

CB4CHAMP First you have a very unique writing style. Its not always easy to follow but its you so keep on writing.
Yes.. there are other guys who play more minutes on average.. I used a bunch of recognizable names with a pretty good sample size... So I looked over more teams and to balance out the higher MPG totals of Brook Lopez and Monroe and Gobert here are the minutes played by Steven Adams in OKC at 25.. the other Lopez in NY at 26.. Roy Hibbert at 27.. Ezili/Bogut in GSW who play about 21...
The idea is the average number of minutes seems to be around 30ish.. of which are guy plays 28.

Nobody else is backed up by Biyombo. JV should be playing close to 40 if the option is to play 4 v 5

[tDotted]

The Celtics are now 6-4.

The Celtics are well coached.

[Demographic Shift]

Nobody else is backed up by Biyombo. JV should be playing close to 40 if the option is to play 4 v 5

No centre in the leauge plays 40 mpg. If he played that many minutes the odds are pretty good that the Kill Casey crew would be saying he is burning him out. He is playing 28 right now.. .Its not unreasonable to expect him to be playing 30-31 mpg given his progress and his importance to the Raptors progress as a whole.

[raptors999]

No centre in the leauge plays 40 mpg. If he played that many minutes the odds are pretty good that the Kill Casey crew would be saying he is burning him out. He is playing 28 right now.. .Its not unreasonable to expect him to be playing 30-31 mpg given his progress and his importance to the Raptors progress as a whole.

Just saying Biyombo should be playing 2-3rd Q when the goals is to keep the game close. There is no lead big enough to justify shutting an offense down for 8 minutes straight. Really with Biyombo, there should be cases where JV will be gassed since BB is really limited as a backup C

[Demographic Shift]

Just saying Biyombo should be playing 2-3rd Q when the goals is to keep the game close. There is no lead big enough to justify shutting an offense down for 8 minutes straight. Really with Biyombo, there should be cases where JV will be gassed since BB is really limited as a backup C

I think we saw that bet of playing biz a lot of minutes vs Sacto backfire... Be interesting to see if that coaching decision ever gets revived again in similar circumstances. I think not. I also think we will continue to see Biz in for 4Q minutes

[Demographic Shift]

The Celtics are well coached.

Just wanted to give a reprint to a great response on the genius status of St. Brad Stevens...
This is courtesy of SLAW
and yes the sarcasm is simply dripping from every syllable

But Brad Stevens is a coaching genius! The players don't matter as long as Brad Stevens is coaching. I know it's hard to keep track of all the coaching geniuses in the NBA (there are so many geniuses and gurus now) but Brad Stevens is definitely one of them.
Amir put up 15/7 in one game! Amir isn't capable of something like that - Brad Stevens showed him how to do it cause he's a genius. I mean, and to do it against the 76ers! Wow. But that's what having a true coaching genius gets you: he can teach a scrub like Amir Johnson who has been awful for his entire career how to play

[Snooch]

First and foremost thanks to all for an engaging discussion and thanks for not predicating or ending your arguments by questioning my lineage. What started out as a plausible explanation as to why JV sat and Biz played all the crunch mins in the 4th Q turned into a full throttle discussion on why I don't comprehend that JV is being hard done by by Dwane Casey, who seems to be the lighting rod for a good group of you who want him run outta town.


Axel I fail to see why its a cop out.. How could you or anyone predict the circumstances and how they would play out inside the flow of game.... in advance ? Your statement "If Casey had announced this plan before the game or at half-time, it would have been immediately met with disagreement for specific reasons" is the classic assumptive close. Just because you say it doesn't make it correct. My thoughts were that Casey made a coaching decision in real time that didn't work out. Lots of em are made.. in every game in every sport. Some work out some don't. It is entirely plausible that if we scored 12 more points instead of 8 and got a couple of stops the Raps might have won that game and his decision pans out .. but they didn't and by extenstion it didn't. What I said simply doesn't agree with your position. Because people don't agree with you or your line of reasoning make doesn't make them wrong. It simply means they have a contrarian view.

For the record I am ambivalent towards Casey as a coach.

[B]S.R Those are just pure stats. How many minutes do guys who take the opening tip play on average. They show that JV plays pretty much the same minutes as most C's do. That he isn't grossly underused compared to the league as one guy tried to say. I think that the simple metric shows he does by and large play about the league average in minutes per game.[/B]

HotfuzzIs he a better player than Biz ?A 64M deal vs a 6M deal says he is. You really don't need any more than that. I don't ever recall saying or intimating that Biz was a better player than St. Jonas.

CB4CHAMP First you have a very unique writing style. Its not always easy to follow but its you so keep on writing.
Yes.. there are other guys who play more minutes on average.. I used a bunch of recognizable names with a pretty good sample size... So I looked over more teams and to balance out the higher MPG totals of Brook Lopez and Monroe and Gobert here are the minutes played by Steven Adams in OKC at 25.. the other Lopez in NY at 26.. Roy Hibbert at 27.. Ezili/Bogut in GSW who play about 21...
The idea is the average number of minutes seems to be around 30ish.. of which our guy plays 28. He is not wasting away.

Tonight is Golden State. A tough one. But GSW isn't going to go 82up and 0 down so maybe tonite we get a win. Why not us ?

as per the bold.

Among all starting centers JV averages:

19th most minutes. Tied with Miles Plumblee.
20th most fga
21st in usage

among those who played at least 8 games:
4th fg%
tied for 11th in rebounds per only 2 out of top 5
1st raw plus minus
1st in net rating
2nd in offensive rating
tied with drummond for 4th in defensive rating
3rd ts%

[hotfuzz]

@ Demographic_shift: I would understand Casey's decision if he was locking down Cousins, but he as utterly ineffective against him. Why wouldn't you put JV out there instead, who at least offers you offensive production? I mean, he could put him back around the 8 min mark in 4th q, around the 9 min mark, around 10 mark, but nooooo, he decides to put him in with 30 SECONDS LEFT!!!!

I mean, this is right up there with putting in Vasquez for defensive purposes and playing Ross at the 4 against GSW. Casey makes some of the dumbest decisions I've ever seen.

[JimiCliff]

No centre in the leauge plays 40 mpg. If he played that many minutes the odds are pretty good that the Kill Casey crew would be saying he is burning him out. He is playing 28 right now.. .Its not unreasonable to expect him to be playing 30-31 mpg given his progress and his importance to the Raptors progress as a whole.

I'm pretty much okay with how many minutes JV's playing right now. I'm not okay with how much he plays in the 4th quarter.

[Demographic Shift]

as per the bold.

Among all starting centers JV averages:

19th most minutes. Tied with Miles Plumblee.
20th most fga
21st in usage

among those who played at least 8 games:
4th fg%
tied for 11th in rebounds per only 2 out of top 5
1st raw plus minus
1st in net rating
2nd in offensive rating
tied with drummond for 4th in defensive rating
3rd ts%

Miles Plumlee is playing 7 mins per game.. 6.7 to be exact.. Jonas is playing 28 mpg.. how is that in any universe a tie ?
If you meant Mason Plumlee then yes.. he and JV are tied at 27.4 mgp

Curious.. whats 18th most minutes... 27.5 ? and what is the statistical mean on minutes played by C's 30 ? 31 ?

Your other stuff says that our guy seems to be making the most of those 28 minutes .. but colour me skeptical that if he got even 3 more minutes than he does now to bring his average to 31 MPG we would be say 9 and 2 vs our current 7-4.