Game #75: Toronto Raptors 114 - Denver Nuggets 110

[Other Scott]

The Cavs won't be playing Love at center for that many minutes in the series anyways. That lineup would be such a defensive sieve that I think in the long run I'm not sure how playable it is for long stretches. It's going to be more like a break in case of emergencies lineup when Cleveland really needs an offensive boost.

I agree playing JV against that lineup is iffy at best, but "not playing JV when Love is at center" is a LOT different than "not playing JV in the Cleveland series".

[Barolt]

The Cavs won't be playing Love at center for that many minutes in the series anyways. That lineup would be such a defensive sieve that I think in the long run I'm not sure how playable it is for long stretches. It's going to be more like a break in case of emergencies lineup when Cleveland really needs an offensive boost.

I agree playing JV against that lineup is iffy at best, but "not playing JV when Love is at center" is a LOT different than "not playing JV in the Cleveland series".

Either way, and I have a piece coming out about this tomorrow, the answer to Love at center IMO shouldn't be matching small. The Raptors don't have a small ball lineup that can keep up with the Love at center lineup. It should be to punish with big lineups and force Cleveland to go bigger.

[planetmars]

First play of the Raps/Cavs game last time around.. Lowry passed it into JV, and he immediately got double teamed and turned it over. That will be the Cavs game plan. JV is going to have to learn to pass the ball out of the post immediately or figure out a way to keep the ball high so he's not losing it.

Lebron/Cavs do a good job of keeping the ball away from the post (or at least they did in the past). Just as much as we want them to go big, they'll want us to go small.

[DanH]

First play of the Raps/Cavs game last time around.. Lowry passed it into JV, and he immediately got double teamed and turned it over. That will be the Cavs game plan. JV is going to have to learn to pass the ball out of the post immediately or figure out a way to keep the ball high so he's not losing it.

Lebron/Cavs do a good job of keeping the ball away from the post (or at least they did in the past). Just as much as we want them to go big, they'll want us to go small.

Punishing small teams inside has absolutely nothing to do with posting up JV. There are far better ways to attack with a size advantage than to isolate.

Also, they didn't double team, they like quadruple teamed him on that possession, completely blitzing his passing angles at the same time. You'd hope some proper prep would help with that.

[The Great One]

Millsap was scoring just as much when Ibaka was guarding him. Besides one dumb play where JV fouled Millsap on a jump shot, he did OK keeping pace with him. As good a job as Ibaka did anyway.

This is fake news. One dumb play? just one? did you actually watched the game last night or are you just making things up?

Millsap schooled JV last night. Like schooled him. Specially in the 3rd. He didn't even play the rest of the game after subbing out mid 3rd because he couldn't guard either Millsap or Jokic.

Ibaka on the other hand did a great job on Millsap last night.

[Sonny]

Ibaka's D on Millsap in the 1st wasn't great but he locked him down in the 3rd/2nd half. JV on the other hand was brutal. Like, jesus christ, stop jumping on every pump fakes. Millsap completely demolished him last night.

[DanH]

This is fake news. One dumb play? just one? did you actually watched the game last night or are you just making things up?

Millsap schooled JV last night. Like schooled him. Specially in the 3rd. He didn't even play the rest of the game after subbing out mid 3rd because he couldn't guard either Millsap or Jokic.

Ibaka on the other hand did a great job on Millsap last night.

Millsap drove past JV a bunch, but didn't get super easy shots out of it.

In the first half, where he was guarded exclusively by Ibaka, he basically got whatever look he wanted in the post. He was 4/5 in the first half. Ibaka blocked one of his shots. He also had one really nice challenge inside, but Millsap had backed him close enough to the rim to make it anyway. Ibaka had a good contest in the second half as well, where Millsap finally missed one of those step back jumpers.

In the second half, he made 5 FGs. The first, although he was guarded by JV, he scored on an open layup after JV had to help after Jokic blew by Ibaka. The second, the Raptors were cross-switched in transition (Ibaka on Millsap), then switched a screen so Lowry was stuck on Millsap, who scored in the post. His third made FG was the dumb play where JV recovered out to the three point line late and fouled him for the 4 point play. Millsap drove past JV on the closeout for his 4th FG. He made a step back jumper out of the post on JV like he was making on Ibaka in the first half for his final FG. Once Millsap drove on JV and JV kept pace with him, blocking his shot.

Both bigs did an OK job defending Millsap, with only a couple real mistake plays getting Millsap easy points. It was just a night where he hit everything - he missed only one shot that wasn't blocked.

My issue with JV last night was he wasn't boxing Jokic out very well. A lot of tap outs.

[GLF]

Either way, and I have a piece coming out about this tomorrow, the answer to Love at center IMO shouldn't be matching small. The Raptors don't have a small ball lineup that can keep up with the Love at center lineup. It should be to punish with big lineups and force Cleveland to go bigger.

Normally I would agree with this but the problem is we just end up switching 2's for 3's. If JV cannot guard love he is going to get wide open 3 after wide open 3 and love doesn't miss very often. He's an elite 3 point shooter. I think Cleveland will take JV punishing them inside if it means love is going to get open 3's. Until we learn to defend Cleveland I don't see that strategy working. But you are absolutely right that our small ball lineup cannot keep up with theirs at all. This is why I still can't see us beating Cleveland in a 7 game series. I do think we'll play them better than we ever have and not get blown out this time but I still think they beat us. When you can't show Lebron any type of resistance and everyone is over helping all over the place because of the fear of Lebron you're screwed.

[white men can't jump]

Normally I would agree with this but the problem is we just end up switching 2's for 3's. If JV cannot guard love he is going to get wide open 3 after wide open 3 and love doesn't miss very often. He's an elite 3 point shooter. I think Cleveland will take JV punishing them inside if it means love is going to get open 3's. Until we learn to defend Cleveland I don't see that strategy working. But you are absolutely right that our small ball lineup cannot keep up with theirs at all. This is why I still can't see us beating Cleveland in a 7 game series. I do think we'll play them better than we ever have and not get blown out this time but I still think they beat us. When you can't show Lebron any type of resistance and everyone is over helping all over the place because of the fear of Lebron you're screwed.

The game where we blew out the Cavs, we didn't go small, we went big. Love is a horrible inside defender (horrible defender in general), and not as good a rebounder as he's made out to be if he has to play bigger guys like JV and Poeltl.

If we try to make it through the playoffs playing small, it will harder than it needs to be.

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[GLF]

The game where we blew out the Cavs, we didn't go small, we went big. Love is a horrible inside defender (horrible defender in general), and not as good a rebounder as he's made out to be if he has to play bigger guys like JV and Poeltl.

If we try to make it through the playoffs playing small, it will harder than it needs to be.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

Going big definitely makes sense in that love cannot guard JV for shit down there. I completely agree with this. But my point is JV cannot guard Love for shit either. So JV will be getting 2's while love will be getting 3's. I don't think that's a good recipe for a win lol. But the main Key is Lebron does as he please against us with little resistance and when he does that it's over because he has one of the best court visions in the game. Double team him or have to help on him too much and that's a quick pass to the weak side and for some reason the role players on Cleveland rarely miss their 3's when they play us lol. While ours can't hit shit. Fred and obvi Kyle (but he isn't a role player) are our only consistent 3 point shooters. If you ain't gon play defence against Cleveland you gotta outscore them and when you only have two consistently reliable 3 point shooters it's going to be very tough. Cleveland has like 6-7 elite 3 point shooters lol. Oh we have CJ as well but he isn't reliable, very streaky guy. If he gets hot for the whole series maybe we pull it out. And someone else pointed out his 3 point shooting in the playoffs falls off significantly.

[DanH]

Love shoots 49% on wide open threes. But JV doesn't even have to guard Love, they can hide him on a lesser shooter like Green, or in all likelihood there will be a lot of Nance or Thompson minutes as well. Still, Love hitting half his three pointers means to break even the Raptors have to hit 75% with their inside scoring. That's tough. But not crazy, as the Raps showed in their recent game against the Cavs where they were small all game. Raps scored to keep up just fine for the most part.

Either way, Poeltl is a way better choice as a mobile C than Ibaka is, if you go that way. Weird that our best defensive look against LBJ-Love is probably our backup frontcourt. Good weapon to throw at them, especially since I doubt they start small when they have all their guys back.

[G__Deane]

Love is in concussion protocol so you never know, I don't think his heart is with this team or rather LeBron throw-you-under-the-bus James.

And Embiid left their game tonight after colliding noggins with Fultz. Head contusion but no concussion diagnosis yet. Looked nasty so we'l see

[Rudy Bargnani]

There are two considerations when Cleveland puts Love at Center and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive:

-Do the raps match small vs small?
-Do you try to stop their small ball lineup or try to outscore them. (Naturally you want to do both but you know what I mean).

I agree with the point above about not wanting to trade 2’s for 3’s. That said I think JV can still be on the floor against Cleveland’s small ball lineup. Just cause JV is on the floor doesn’t mean they need to post him up every time. If the raps are shooting enough 3s he can still be very useful out there. One of the (many) things that went wrong last year was that Cleveland shot way way way more 3’s than us, and we weren’t in a position to outscore them. With the change in playing style the raps can outscore Cleveland and JV can potentially dominate at the rim and kick offensive rebounds back out to our shooters.

[Other Scott]

Love shoots 49% on wide open threes. But JV doesn't even have to guard Love, they can hide him on a lesser shooter like Green, or in all likelihood there will be a lot of Nance or Thompson minutes as well. Still, Love hitting half his three pointers means to break even the Raptors have to hit 75% with their inside scoring. That's tough. But not crazy, as the Raps showed in their recent game against the Cavs where they were small all game. Raps scored to keep up just fine for the most part.

Either way, Poeltl is a way better choice as a mobile C than Ibaka is, if you go that way. Weird that our best defensive look against LBJ-Love is probably our backup frontcourt. Good weapon to throw at them, especially since I doubt they start small when they have all their guys back.

I just wonder if our best option is to put a small player on Love like a Lowry or Wright and have someone like Poeltl or Val play a free safety role more in the paint. If Lebron drives, you help with the center. If Love tries to post up on the small player, you help with the center. You'll be leaving someone wide open around the three point arc, and Love will still get shots that are only semi contested because he can shoot up and over those small players, but I feel like that's better than letting Kevin Love rain fire on you with wide open 3s.

[DanH]

I just wonder if our best option is to put a small player on Love like a Lowry or Wright and have someone like Poeltl or Val play a free safety role more in the paint. If Lebron drives, you help with the center. If Love tries to post up on the small player, you help with the center. You'll be leaving someone wide open around the three point arc, and Love will still get shots that are only semi contested because he can shoot up and over those small players, but I feel like that's better than letting Kevin Love rain fire on you with wide open 3s.

This is essentially what the Raptors did, hiding JV on Green for stretches of that game. I'd rather bet on Green missing open looks than Love. The good news there will certainly be some Cavs looks that are not 5-out, so it will be easier to hide JV at those times.