#FireCasey

[Chr1s1anL]

And I've said the raptors outplayed them, but let's not pretend it was at their best, or that this was a telling game in any way.

They played like the spurs for a quarter and almost beat us. We played about as well as we could especially with two starters out, and still depended on them basically gifting us the lead we built in the first half.

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Let me ask you a question. Were the raps at their best?

[Jrice9]

Not recently, but early in Paul's career when he was with the Hornets and his minutes during the regular season were really high, he wore down in the playoffs. Since his second season with the Clippers, Paul's regular season minutes have been below 35mpg and his playoff stats have been better.

I dont know man those stats don't seem to back that up, look at his 2010-2011 playoffs for instance. in two of his three playoff appearances he led the league in PER as a Hornet.

This year paul is playing alot less minutes but his MPG as a Clipper have been 36.4, 33.3 35.0, 34.8 and these are artifically skewed down a couple of 0.1 mpg by him getting hurt in the middle of games an rehabbing etc.

Lowry is at 35.8 mpg this season, 34.5 mpg last year.

Its right in that range.

Its definately high and i would like it come down a bit but not everyone has the depth/guarenteed success etc that the Warriors/Spurs have

[Jrice9]

By outplayed also its important to note that the Spurs biggest advantage over us was in terms of rebounding. This is in a game where we were missing two centers (including our starter) and our best wing rebounder.

The result was we played some pretty small ass lineups against a power house rebounding team.

[white men can't jump]

Let me ask you a question. Were the raps at their best?

Lineup wise? No. Performance? Pretty much. It's hard to picture them having a better night than they did.

For the spurs it's no on both counts. And that happens in the regular season. Sometimes a great team has a bad night and you capitalize. The raptors did that. But again, hard to take anything away beyond that.

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[Just Is]

The Bulls have struggled mightily this year. They're currently 8th in the East(11-8) and now this:

Jimmy Butler critical of Fred Hoiberg for removing him to start 4th quarter. https://t.co/MuZnRRzqkC pic.twitter.com/mqjPoXDm2R

— theScore (@theScore) December 10, 2015

There were a lot of pro-Hoiberg here last year from what i remember

It's not that Hoiberg is bad; but Thibs was really damn good (granted this was also known).

[Chr1s1anL]

Lineup wise? No. Performance? Pretty much. It's hard to picture them having a better night than they did.

For the spurs it's no on both counts. And that happens in the regular season. Sometimes a great team has a bad night and you capitalize. The raptors did that. But again, hard to take anything away beyond that.

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So, a team without two starters shots .578% from the field against the best defences in the last couple years and there's nothing to take away from that? Really, man c'mon. You have to give credit where it's due. Raps straight up just beat Spurs.

[mcHAPPY]

Let me ask you a question. Were the raps at their best?

Let me ask you a question: what is your point? Do you honestly think the Raptors are a better team than San Antonio?

Like seriously, WTF are you debating?

The Raptors played really good and won.

They got the better of San Antonio on Wednesday, December 9, 2015.

[Jrice9]

Let me ask you a question: what is your point? Do you honestly think the Raptors are a better team than San Antonio?

Like seriously, WTF are you debating?

The Raptors played really good and won.

They got the better of San Antonio on Wednesday, December 9, 2015.

I guess his point is, its a really quality win and that should be attributed to the coach. This would especially be the case when the team has several really nice wins (Cavs, Thunder, Clippers, Hawks, Mavs etc) and played the Warriors super close.

[Nilanka]

I guess his point is, its a really quality win and that should be attributed to the coach. This would especially be the case when the team has several really nice wins (Cavs, Thunder, Clippers, Hawks, Mavs etc) and played the Warriors super close.

The counter point is that we've seen this all before. This is nothing new. Over the past 3 seasons, there have been many times where the Raps beat real quality teams, and it ends up meaning nothing come April.

Same coach, same core, same mistakes, same reluctance to adapt.

[mcHAPPY]

The counter point is that we've seen this all before. This is nothing new. Over the past 3 seasons, there have been many times where the Raps beat real quality teams, and it ends up meaning nothing come April.

Same coach, same core, same mistakes, same reluctance to adapt.

To which I'd add....

OK what about the losses?

Denver, Phoenix, Utah, Sacramento, NY, Miami, Orlando


Those were all shitty losses that should also be attributed to the coach?


Now, I really don't care to be honest but for once I'd like to see some consistency from one side of the coin to the other.



Big picture: Casey has shown he can win in the regular season over the last 2+ seasons. Now what?

[white men can't jump]

Let me ask you a question: what is your point? Do you honestly think the Raptors are a better team than San Antonio?

Like seriously, WTF are you debating?

The Raptors played really good and won.

They got the better of San Antonio on Wednesday, December 9, 2015.

Yeah it's not like their best defensive player wasnt at his best....oh wait...

It's not like their turnovers weren't mostly due to unforced mistakes....oh wait?

I've given them credit, but only as much as they deserve. Giving them more is stupid, ignorant and just plain blind.

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[Wild-ling#1]

Let me ask you a question: what is your point? Do you honestly think the Raptors are a better team than San Antonio?

Like seriously, WTF are you debating?

The Raptors played really good and won.

They got the better of San Antonio on Wednesday, December 9, 2015.

Sadly, the bolded assertion is what's being argued. Nothing more.

Some want to emphasize San Antonio's poor play as the "real" reason for the win ... and so insist Raptors fan ought not to be lifted by the win, or draw any positive conclusions from our play. Even though it comes as another of a string of impressive performances against all the league's top teams.

[Jrice9]

The counter point is that we've seen this all before. This is nothing new. Over the past 3 seasons, there have been many times where the Raps beat real quality teams, and it ends up meaning nothing come April.

Same coach, same core, same mistakes, same reluctance to adapt.

I think there is some validity there buut I hesitant to say just because we havn't suceeded int he playoffs the last two years, we won't this year.

Teams improve, players improve and their is evidence that has happened (Lowry's ascension but also JV's improvement are important and DeMar has got better as a floor distributer and defender for instance as well)

Also the 2013-2014 Raptors didn't really fail in the playoffs if you are looking at it objectively. They played a deadlocked series against a basically equivalent team in terms of some of the underlying recent numbers and had no playoff experience. (I'm repeating myself here a bit but its important to achnowledge)


Finally, I'm not completely convinced the team's composition is the same. Like Corey Joseph, DeMarre Carroll are dramatically different players than lets say Greivis Vasquez and John Salmons/Lou Williams and it might have an important effect in a playoff matchup. There are some other fringeish changes like Biyombo and Scola as well (though of course Amir is gone).

Unless you think the playoff success is entirely dictated by your stars and coach and they have not had meaningful improvement in the last few seasons, then yes we can expect the same results.

EDIT: This is something that just came to me. There is pretty mcuh literally nothing the Raptors could do during the season based on your logic that would demonstrate improvement right?

Like for you, we won't know if the team is better at all untill the playoffs? I'm really asking this question, not just making a point.

[Chr1s1anL]

The counter point is that we've seen this all before. This is nothing new. Over the past 3 seasons, there have been many times where the Raps beat real quality teams, and it ends up meaning nothing come April.

Same coach, same core, same mistakes, same reluctance to adapt.

Except this team is way better defensively than those teams and has way more playoffs experience than those teams as well.

[Barolt]

I mean, last year at this point in the season we had a much better record including some quality wins, and we fell apart down the stretch because Lowry got worn out. This year we have a good record with some quality wins, and Lowry is playing more minutes with a higher usage rate. I wonder if making him do more early in the season will make him better rested at the end of the year?