Game #69: Dalls Mavericks 115 - Toronto Raptors 122

[white men can't jump]

Nope. I disagree. Through the winning streak Ibaka nets an overall +33 (against opposing team's starters for the most part), and 11.6 points. Out of the 10 games he played in the streak, he only had two bad shooting nights: the wizards game, and the second Detroit game, which was a second night of a b2b, on the road, and went overtime. Outside these two games, he shot 37.7% from 3 within the streak.

The physicality that he brings to the interior defence is the other thing that has been huge for the Raptors through the streak and throughout the year overall. That doesn't show on the stats. He will get a tech, throw a punch and get ejected from time-to-time, but he will certainly make opposing teams think twice before "punking" us. He's another shot-altering bruising force on the inside besides JV that we lacked for years at the PF. He may not pass the "eye test" sometimes, but without him, we would have almost certainly lost to Houston and Indiana, and there wouldn't even be an 11 game streak.

As far as being "up-and-down", just about everyone on the team has been, including Derozan, Miles, OG, Lowry, and to a less extent Delon, Fred and Yak, with bad games here and there. And that's the beauty of this team: we're so deep that every time someone has an off night, the final product rarely suffers.

I agree that Serge's impact on the floor is highly dependant on how rested he is though, probably more so than any other player on the roster. So I would rest the heck out of him leading to the playoffs, because we're gonna need him in the playoffs, as we needed him all year.

Yes, if you take out the 2 games where he went a combined 0-6, and ignore the bad shooting inside the arc, it's easy to make him look good. He had 3 games without hitting a 3 and another couple of games shooting below 30%. He's had 6 games out of 11 shooting below 40% overall. His D has been inconsistent as well.

Serge brings good things when he's fresh. A bit low IQ offensively at times, but as long as he's converting on his easy looks that involve little decision making, he's fine.

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[white men can't jump]

Actually I was probably one of the few people not a fan of Ibaka for quite some time. Would have preferred Ilyasova (not as good as Serge, but a lot cheaper). I guess that's why my expectations of Ibaka are almost assuredly lower than most of this board.

Well I think most people knew we weren't getting a $20M dollar player and 3rd all star. He was still the best option on the market probably. And on fresh nights he can still play like a fringe all star.

He's pretty much playing as I expected, and I always assumed our progress would depend more on younger guys and coaching, all of which have been positives this season.

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[inthepaint]

Yes, if you take out the 2 games where he went a combined 0-6, and ignore the bad shooting inside the arc, it's easy to make him look good. He had 3 games without hitting a 3 and another couple of games shooting below 30%. He's had 6 games out of 11 shooting below 40% overall. His D has been inconsistent as well.

Serge brings good things when he's fresh. A bit low IQ offensively at times, but as long as he's converting on his easy looks that involve little decision making, he's fine.

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Yes, which is why I wanted to specifically point out that he did have 2 bad shooting nights , one of which was on a road back-to- back. I personally don't think having 2 bad shooting nights in 10 from deep qualifies as being "pretty bad" (but that's just my opinion), especially considering that aside from these two games, he was never a "minus" on the +/-, which is an indication that his defence made up for it when the shooting wasn't great inside the arc.

But I get your point. I also wish he was more consistent and had quicker/better decisions. One thing I noticed since the all-star break is that he's passing more, he's looking for it much more often, which I think it's the coaching trying to integrate him more into a motion offence. It feels like he's still getting used to it and that leads to some stalling/bad decisions, but he's also shown some good big-to-big action with JV, which is encouraging.

[S.R.]

It's crazy that the GSW can keep Curry, Durant, Green,Thompson and Iguodala all on the same team but we have to worry about which big salary to dump so we can sign a Fred VanVleet .... Lowry and DeMar should volunteer to make "just" 20M each so we can keep the gang together a la the Miami gruesome threesome some years ago ....

Yeah, GS was brilliant + lucky in taking advantage of the cap spike. Even they are feeling the pinch though, their supporting cast is the weakest it's been since this run started.

[white men can't jump]

Yes, which is why I wanted to specifically point out that he did have 2 bad shooting nights , one of which was on a road back-to- back. I personally don't think having 2 bad shooting nights in 10 from deep qualifies as being "pretty bad" (but that's just my opinion), especially considering that aside from these two games, he was never a "minus" on the +/-, which is an indication that his defence made up for it when the shooting wasn't great inside the arc.

But I get your point. I also wish he was more consistent and had quicker/better decisions. One thing I noticed since the all-star break is that he's passing more, he's looking for it much more often, which I think it's the coaching trying to integrate him more into a motion offence. It feels like he's still getting used to it and that leads to some stalling/bad decisions, but he's also shown some good big-to-big action with JV, which is encouraging.

But you're skewing it again. He had 2 nights where he took multiple 3s and hit none. One night taking and missing one. And a couple of below 30% nights. And he had 6 games shooting below 40% overall. So 5-6 bad shooting nights out of 11 games.

It's fine. It's been a rough stretch of schedule. He came out fresh after all-star and then the schedule got really busy.

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[Ebonhawke]

Yeah, GS was brilliant + lucky in taking advantage of the cap spike. Even they are feeling the pinch though, their supporting cast is the weakest it's been since this run started.

Gets even weaker as Omri Casspi is apparently out for a week or so with an ankle issue as well.

[charlesnba23]

Chris Boucher time!!!!