Everything Round 2 (2016)

[Barolt]

Ross is going to have a hard time getting traction from here on out. Norm really dug in that last game. They have no reason to go back to Ross unless there's an injury or someone is in foul trouble.

Disagree.

Miami loves to play small. In order to match small, we will need Ross.

[psrs1]

DeMar is going to explode this series. His eyes must be lighting up thinking about playing without Paul George guarding him.

Seriously, it must be like when guys train with ridiculously heavy wooden training swords, then switch to the real thing it's like it's lighter than air.

Or maybe he won't, but I'm all optimism tonight.

JV should have fun on the boards again. Whiteside is good but very help conscious and JV should get chances to get behind him a lot. Wouldn't mind seeing him in PnR action too - Whiteside can be made to overcommit.

Hey DanH. How about changing your aviator to Heat ? Reverse psychology seemed to work for Pacers.

[Apollo]

Disagree.

Miami loves to play small. In order to match small, we will need Ross.

The best ball the Raptors played last series was slowing it down and running half court with ball movement. They should strive to force Miami match up to them, to stop them. The Raptors don't need to change their team to match the Heat, they play good team defense. If they're going to win it its going to be by playing their game and not playing into Miami's hand.

[LJ2]

Ross KILLED it against the Heat this year, and struggled against Indiana.

IND: 36.1/36.8 shooting splits.
MIA: 54.5/53.3 shooting splits.

Well there you go. He could very well rebound and play a more important role against the Heat in the 2nd round.

I think DeMar has seen the worst of what he could possibly face against anyone here on out in the East. His offence should return somewhere to where it was in the regular season. Kyle is not going to shoot any better, but without that top 5 defence to deal with he should have more of an impact as well.

We just have to play good defence and we punch our ticket to the ECF.

Let me just say though...and I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, but if thee was a match up the NBA would love to exploit, it would be LeBron vs. his old team. Calls should be heavily in Miami's favour this round.

[LJ2]

This series likely gets decided on the 3pt line, one way or the other. Miami likes to take them since getting JJ, and hits a lot of them. We're bad at defending them.

On the other side, they like to pack the paint defensively and shut down lanes. So if we can't hit 3s and punish them, it could be hard for us to score.

We win with defence, and I'm not scared of Johnson the way I was in the past, now that we have Carroll.

[Joey]

I got a hard on just reading it

[slaw]

The best ball the Raptors played last series was slowing it down and running half court with ball movement. They should strive to force Miami match up to them, to stop them. The Raptors don't need to change their team to match the Heat, they play good team defense. If they're going to win it its going to be by playing their game and not playing into Miami's hand.

I think we are slowly seeing the move an 8-man rotation (JV/Biz/PP/DC/DD/KL/Norm/CJ) with Ross getting the first half to see if he has it and if he doesn't he's out. Those 8 guys will be shuffled around but that's effectively the team from here on out barring injuries.

[Joey]

Disagree.

Miami loves to play small. In order to match small, we will need Ross.

Why are we even "matching" anything? We should be the ones setting the tone, with the lineup we know works. And PowPow, Carroll, CoJo and PP offer us enough tools in the toolbox to get "small". I'd love to see Ross make on impact on this series, I just don't see how he does.

[Bendit]

not to brag or anything but powell and i use the same aveeno moisturizer

But...the question must be asked....does Aveeno work as well for you as it does for him?

[GLF]

We win with defence, and I'm not scared of Johnson the way I was in the past, now that we have Carroll.

Agreed. We HAVE to play good defense to win this series. Defense in this series is much more important than the last one. They are a very good offensive team, especially in the playoffs so far, so we have to slow them down. My worry really is Demar having to guard JJ or Wade. He can't stop either of them still to this day. The good thing is neither of them are as dominate as they used to be. So you would hope that even with Demar's horrid defense they won't go off for crazy numbers. But we shall see. Also Kyle's defense is hella overrated and I don't think he is going to be able to keep Dragic in front of him at all. And if Dragic is getting in the lane with ease that spells disaster. We as even though Dragic is not a good defender with Kyle and his bum elbow he will probably be just fine. But I really want to believe Kyle and Demar step up this series because JV is not going to look as dominate as he did against the Pacers, that's for sure. Also I would like to believe our bench is better overall. So hopefully that helps as well. The same way Gerald Green can go off at any time so can Ross when he's engaged. Let's hope he's engaged this series.

[thead]

It absolutely will not happen, let me start with that BUT

the ideal situation is we sweep and Cleveland needs seven games so we can buy a full week of rest for Lowry.

[DanH]

This.

We technically executed. It's too bad the gameplan was a blank white board, DD somehow got it done.

Wut. DeMar did not get it done. He was 0/5 in the 4th Q and turned it over, scoring only 2 points, and was a -10 in 9 minutes.

If anyone got it done, it was a team effort between the game clock and Kyle Lowry making a few winning plays (hit a couple tough layups). And mostly Patterson, JV, Biyombo, Powell and Joseph just killing the Pacers for the first 3 Q's to build a big enough lead that we couldn't flush it down the toilet no matter how hard Casey tried to.

Because I'm a terrible human being.

Yes, yes you are.

Ross can play good defence, but he only occasionally does, as opposed to his 3 pt shooting which regularly excels.

Yep. I wouldn't really list Ross as a 3+D. His defence is way too spotty - he's capable of game changing defensive possessions but 90% of the time he's subpar. He's a pure shooter in my mind.

Ross KILLED it against the Heat this year, and struggled against Indiana.

IND: 36.1/36.8 shooting splits.
MIA: 54.5/53.3 shooting splits.

I know you were responding to a question, but let's not do this. 4 game splits for a shooter? Irrelevant. More noise than signal there.

I thought JV did great last series but he almost lost the last game for us. They continuously screened with JV's man and he is terrible at guarding the ballhandler's drive and then switching back to him man. JV is still more valuable than BB and I don't blame him. But Casey really needs to know when the other team's gameplan is catered toward screwing over JV, and then throwing in BB to mess it up.

JV was the right guy to have in there, if they were going to actually run any offence. He would have helped the team score enough to stay ahead of the Pacers even if he struggled defensively. But we didn't run any offence, we wasted possession after possession trying to kill the clock. If that was the strategy we absolutely should have had Biyombo out there, because the offence was going to be trash regardless. Of course, that should never have been the strategy.

Hey DanH. How about changing your aviator to Heat ? Reverse psychology seemed to work for Pacers.

Not my call.

[rocwell]

lol NBA

[Just Is]

The key match up to watch n Game 1 will be Scola vs Bosh for obvious reasons.

[planetmars]

Lots of Ross talk.. he's pretty insignificant in the big picture. And that's okay.

Raptors need to take game 1. It's hard playing on the ropes and the Raptors need to come out with confidence and not lay an egg. If this series goes to 6 games win or lose, the season was a success. But I think they can take them. Heat playing 7 games against Charlotte only makes it harder on them.

Deng had a really good round one. I'd suspect that 2Pat (assuming he starts) will be covering him for the most part as Carroll should be on Johnson, and DD on Wade (with Powell off the bench). Dragic is another guy that can go off. Lowry's going to have a tough cover.