Game #39 Toronto Raptors 89 - Miami Heat 90

[Scraptor]

Jakob is the son of two national team volleyball players. Not a very physical sport....but a lot of nice huddles and hugs. Jakob seems to be a really friendly, pleasant sort of guy. Sometimes those types transform on the court into beasts.....but more often not.

I watched the game high on opiates after a day in the ER with kidney stones. Seems like many of you might have enjoyed it more that way. There was a lot wrong with our D and Miami's young bigs played better than usual but to me the real story was all of the missed shots; jumpers and shots at the rim. If more of those had dropped early it might have been a very different game. I really do think that with Kyle out (or even when he's not) they need to utilize JV more.

I'm officially very worried about Delon Wright's shoulder and I think he is too. He looked very upset during a timeout when he was trying to massage it back into playability. Surgery for a dislocated shoulder often results in somewhat limited mobility...probably not good for an NBA guard. So I assume they did something a little unconventional which clearly didn't work. He dislocated it a couple of months ago on an innocent looking play as was tonights. It will happen again and again and every time it does the labrum (which lines the joint and sort of holds it in) gets damaged a bit. He might well need to have another procedure eventually and this could be career limiting. This would be a shame as he looks to have a chance to be a very good player and I love his attitude. Hope I'm wrong but......I'm worried. I expect him NOT to play in the next game....or two. I hope Lorenzo Brown is up to it

Damn. 0-100 real quick.

Oh well, every team faces adversity. Let's see how we handle this.

One good takeaway from this was that DeMar continues to be clutch. Nearly had back to back game winners for us.

[consmap]

Oh and forgotten underneath the depression: Thank you for your services 007. But you are no longer required.

[enlightenment]

Physically you can see this team is starting to tear at the seems. I hope we can keep it together, but prepare for tough times ahead.

[CNinja26]

After last night, I penciled this game in as an L. Glad to see the Raps made it close at the end, but really they didn't deserve to win this game anyway.

Some thoughts:

- If there is an excuse for the Raptors to play bad, they'll play bad (2nd night of back to back, playing at altitude, trap game, playing on US National TV, etc.). It's just what they do.

- Norm needs to get his shit together. He's a good player making terrible decisions.

- That last play is inexcusable. Either you have a foul to give and you give it or you simply just stay in front of your man. There is no excuse for anyone to get a blow by and lay up to win a game. I've been noticing Siakam's terrible play as of late.

- I understand guys get heated, but you're down an All Star and you have a tough schedule coming up. Now, we're looking and suspension(s). Shitty.

[007]

Miles, one of the first Raptors out of the shower, walks over and swipes the boxscore from DeRozan's seat. Given the loud, DeMar-sounding F-bombs coming from the back, I'm guessing he won't miss it.

— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) January 10, 2018

Happy to hear DeMar is pissed off too. Hopefully he can help rally the team and come out with fire against Cleveland

[tDotted]

Throwing a punch is an automatic suspension. NBA will very likely hit Ibaka with at least 1 game, maybe 2 on account of his track record. My view of the DeRozan altercation: his wasn't a punch. Doubt there's any fallout there. Maybe a fine, at most.

— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) January 10, 2018

Serge was just knocking Johnson's hand away

Lol if they give Serge a game suspension and Isaiah Thomas gets nothing for going at Wiggins' neck

[tDotted]

Man rewatching that last few possessions. Wtf was norm doing

Missed open three
Missed point blank layup
Let’s dragic blow right by him for a layup
Left Olynk wide open thus leaving the baseline open for Ellington layup

Literally lost us the whole game


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Yeah one or two mistakes in crunch time is excusable because everyone makes mistakes right?

But all 4 of those game costing mistakes in the span of 2 minutes?? Craziness. I'm so sad he's fallen off a cliff this season

[MixxAOR]

They will learn from this and Raptors will get better. Great comeback nonetheless.

[KeonClark]

Serge was just knocking Johnson's hand away

Lol if they give Serge a game suspension and Isaiah Thomas gets nothing for going at Wiggins' neck

Nobody threw a punch today. Just shoves and elbows

Anyway, this one pissed me off. This is loss is on powell and casey. In a game where we desperately needed shooting and offense, Miles is glued to the bench in the 4th. I was stunned to see it, in a game he made a few already. But no let's go to norman "I lost my skills to the monstars" powell for the last 10 minutes of the game. Let's also make sure he gets way more offensive opportunities than miles. Let's also ignore the idea of jv in at all, instead let's go with bebe-pascal-powell-vanvleet-brown. For over 3 minutes.

These last 2 games were the poorest I've seen casey coach all year. It's like he was trying to drop one before the cleveland and golden state games for whatever reason.

[inthepaint]

Any 1-point loss is infuriating but, this one in particular truly felt like Casey was actively trying to lose,I mean I know this is an absurd thing to say but it felt that way:

1. You start the the 4th quarter of a very winnable game, with 3 players that up to a week ago were out of the rotation altogether (bebe, norm & g-league brown), plus 14% 3p-shooter Siakam and your 3rd-string PG FVV. You ride this lineup almost all the way through half the 4th.

2. You don't create a solid defensive pressure scheme at a time you're winning and the the Heat has only 3 secs to score. Looked like half the team did not know they had a foul to give

Sure, we won two games in OT this season, that's a plus, but we need to dramatically tighten up late game executions/planning. Stop with crazy lineups that hardly play together while expecting it to generate offence out of thin air. Stop 3 PG's lineups (only reason it didn't happen today was cuz Lowry was hurt)

An finally, quit the cop-out of dumping on Demar the whole responsibility of creating the play AND scoring it at the end. Demar is on fire and yeah he's your best bet for the final shot, but for fucks sake, design a play for the guy. Otherwise is 5 on 1 on the poor fella, and as amazing as he is, that's tough. Design a Miles corner 3 on the clutch, and maybe an OG back cut or something. Have a few plays that keep the other teams guessing.

We didn't deserve to win this one, but nevertheless it was there for the taking, and largely due to Casey we lost. I'm gonna chalk this to "experimentation", but once the second half of the season rolls over we better have a better grip on what we do at closing time

[Superjudge]

I haven't read the whole thread, so I apologize if this has already been covered, but the most troubling thing I saw from ALL of that nonsense was that STIFF Bruno Coboclo hive fiving Johnson as he exited the court.

This kid is useless on all levels. How the HELL do you high five the guy from the other team after he just tried to knock your teammates teeth out. Sorry boys, there is no technicality here to let him off for that one, thats just the rules, you dont do that. If thats where this team is as far as cohesiveness is at, then this isn't a competing team...not in the real season anyhow, not with guys like that on the squad.

[Superjudge]

As for the rest...i see its still...Derozan sucks, Fire Casey around here.

Classic.

[rocwell]

As for the rest...i see its still...Derozan sucks, Fire Casey around here.

Classic.

[Nilanka]

I haven't read the whole thread, so I apologize if this has already been covered, but the most troubling thing I saw from ALL of that nonsense was that STIFF Bruno Coboclo hive fiving Johnson as he exited the court.

This kid is useless on all levels. How the HELL do you high five the guy from the other team after he just tried to knock your teammates teeth out. Sorry boys, there is no technicality here to let him off for that one, thats just the rules, you dont do that. If thats where this team is as far as cohesiveness is at, then this isn't a competing team...not in the real season anyhow, not with guys like that on the squad.

Except, Bruno isn't really part of the team. He's the equivalent of someone's kid, whose sole purpose is to sit on players' laps during post-game press conferences.

[DanH]

This one hurts. So close, even with all the bad play. DeRozan couldn't score (25 points on 30 possessions) and forgot how to pass for stretches (though he did end up with 6 assists, which surprised me). Ibaka couldn't shoot and got himself tossed. No one could hit a layup except Wright. No one could box out, even with JV on the court the Heat grabbed 35% of their available offensive boards (not quite as bad as BeBe's 42% or Poeltl's 50% but still).

They fought defensively all night, which was good to see. Even with all the rebounds given up they held the Heat to a pretty low point total (even on a per possession basis).

Shame about how Powell ended the game, I thought it was one of his better games of late up until he bricked a couple shots and screwed up on defence to close. Of course, he was like... the third offender on that last play? He just picked the wrong uncovered guy to recover to after OG and Siakam fucked up a switch (shocking turn of events, young players miscommunicating) and then Siakam ran around like a chicken with his head cut off and OG couldn't find a player to cover for a split second too long - leaving him too late to help at the rim.

That decision was the worst in a game full of odd coaching decisions. I hate switch-everything defences on plays like that. It's a high risk, high reward gamble - best chance of not letting the opposition get a shot off, and best chance of someone fucking up a switch, especially with young players involved. The last thing you want is to risk a layup - any jump shot outside of 10 feet is roughly a 40% chance shot - so you probably still win, even if a guy isn't smothered. So how you don't have a rim protector in the game (I was 100% sure we'd see BeBe check in) is beyond me.

Heck, remember what Casey was known for when he was hired here? And what sort of defence basically guarantees no layups and takes time and passing to break? Yeah, maybe throw a zone out there for a possession. There's not much time left, so little risk of a put-back (and with your small lineup out there it's just as much a risk anyway). It kills screen actions with guys defending space, and you keep the rim protected. Worst case, they get a jumper, and only a good one after a couple of passes, which they may not have had the time for.

Anyway, that's just a tough, tough loss. Bad coaching decisions, bad play from your star, missing the other star, your third guy getting tossed, your 4th guy not getting used enough (same old, same old), your young defenders messing up key defensive plays... and we lost by 1 on a back to back. Ugh, it seems like a perfectly reasonably loss, but it just sucks that it could have been a win so easily.