Game #14 Toronto Raptors 110 (12-2) - New Orleans Pelicans 126 (7-6)

[KeonClark]

Silver lining: the continued ascension of OG anunoby and rise to stardom of Pascal siakam.

[grindhouse]

He's the biggest culprit of the iso to be honest.

Coaching

[KeonClark]

Coaching

Leonard is an iso player. 80% of his games have been really good. I'm not too concerned, the guy will get buckets.

[planetmars]

Some of the lines that a few Pelican players had were crazy.

Davis - 25, 20, 6 and 2 blocks
Randle - 17, 12, 4
Holiday - 29, 3, 14
Moore - 30, 2, 3

Moore was a +21. Their starting unit kicked our asses. And wasn't even close.

[planetmars]

JV didn't even score a bucket.. and he usually owns the Pelicans.

[white men can't jump]

JV didn't even score a bucket.. and he usually owns the Pelicans.

He barely got to touch the ball.

[inthepaint]

Not the reason we lost, but Brown in 7 minutes: Zero points, 2 boards, 1 assist and 1 live ball turnover at a key moment. That along with poor boxing out on defence.

Again, more than likely it wouldn't have made a difference, but how is it that splitting those 7 minutes between Lowry/Delon/Wright is a worse option? You give an extra two minutes on the court to each of these guys, it might be just enough for one of these 3 guys knock down a couple of 3's or make some big plays and swing the momentum of the game.

We didn't deserve to win, but we didn't make it easy on us either by having Brown there for over 1/8 of the game.

Oh well, losses like this on random November nights are expected and actually good to keep them humble and have them refocus on the little things that win you games. On to the next one.

[Ball]

Anyone catch Siakam iso-ing on AD there in the 4th? I'm more convinced than ever that Siakam's gonna be a star someday!

[The Great One]

Any news on Miles? how long will he be out?

[G__Deane]

Any news on Miles? how long will he be out?

No timetable yet.

[veda-parabolist]

Pels were hungry this game. They know they should be better than 6-6 (this team is good... remember how they dominated the Blazers in the playoffs last year?), and playing in the West, they need every win. Caught us sleeping. The hungrier team won this game.

It happens. Good learning experience. You gotta lose a game every now and then. At least we got the first home loss out of the way.

[Nilanka]

Leonard is an iso player. 80% of his games have been really good. I'm not too concerned, the guy will get buckets.

I'm totally fine with the ISO-ing, as long as it doesn't result in low-percentage long 2s.

Leonard is usually good at creating an advantage for himself, or drawing a 2nd defender.

[A.I]

I'm totally fine with the ISO-ing, as long as it doesn't result in low-percentage long 2s.

Leonard is usually good at creating an advantage for himself, or drawing a 2nd defender.

Its a result of what Kawhi said a few days ago of trying to get familiar with the offense and take some pressure off Kyle. Kyle also needs to get familiar with where Kawhi likes to get the ball. Its a work in progress.

[DanH]

Two things.

First, the Pelicans were just hitting shots and the Raptors could not. That's most of what the issue was.

Second, the rest of the issue is the rotations are wrong. I'm getting to that point where the "experimentation" is grinding on me, because there really isn't much experimentation so much as defaulting to a poorly constructed rotation unless forced off that by a huge opposing starting C. It's still early, the overall success is fantastic, but man do I disagree with the direction we're going in terms of who plays with who and what skill sets are on the floor at any given time.

[golden]

Two things.

First, the Pelicans were just hitting shots and the Raptors could not. That's most of what the issue was.

Second, the rest of the issue is the rotations are wrong. I'm getting to that point where the "experimentation" is grinding on me, because there really isn't much experimentation so much as defaulting to a poorly constructed rotation unless forced off that by a huge opposing starting C. It's still early, the overall success is fantastic, but man do I disagree with the direction we're going in terms of who plays with who and what skill sets are on the floor at any given time.

I think it's more about Nurse wanting his players to get comfortable playing with as many different combinations as possible so that we have the flexibility in the playoffs to overcome adjustments, matchups, injuries, etc.... We saw how Pascal 'needed' FVV last year which rendered the whole bench mob useless when FVV got hurt. Not the only reason, but I think flexbility factors a lot into Nurse's thought process.