Playoffs! Round 1, Game 1: Washington Wizards 106 - Toronto Raptors 114 (TOR 1-0)

[KeonClark]

Lowry played great. Look beyond the offensive line.

Also loved the composure of ibaka, Wright, og. Miles looked improved, and fred is on the way. I like where we're headed.

Also, right on bebe. *does the hang loose sign*

[blackjitsu]

yep. Wall is a great passer and gets alot of assists, but all the action is designed for wall to get a shot or an assist, not to get the ball moving around the court for a high percentage look. Which is almost exactly like the Raps used to be. And Wall dominates the ball so much that other guys may not even touch the ball on multiple consecutive possessions. Eerily similar.

I put it on their coach. He has a solid backup PG. But they don't utilize 2 PG lineups. It's the same issue he had when he was coaching OKC. It's not 2 Hall of Famers, but he doesn't utilize his best players well. He's not a coach that adapts. Unless they change what they're doing, this potentially is an easy series for the Raps. I'm not enthusiastic saying that, but the Raps are deeper, can adjust lineups, are better coached and are simply better on paper.

This current Wiz team has never won 50+ games. They're best run this season was without Wall. Wall can hit corner threes, but is rarely playing off ball. To have a chance, the Wiz need to have Beal and Wall off ball shooting 3s, otherwise, all the Raps need to do is not meltdown. This isn't as close as people are saying. Pierce gotta Pierce. Other people in the media simply don't watch enough games. Those lessons have already been learned.

Mind you, it's still the Raps, they can be stressful to watch, but this series shouldn't be close. Casey is a better coach with more tools to utilize. That SHOULD be what the series comes down to.

[golden]

Coach Of Year Casey with a great move throwing Bebe out there. Changed the whole game.


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Nice in-game adjustments by Casey. The coaching matchup is easily in our favour. Scott Brooks coaches like Casey before the culture reset.


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[DanH]

Nice in-game adjustments by Casey. The coaching matchup is easily in our favour. Scott Brooks coaches like Casey before the culture reset.


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Feels like a repeat of the Indy series from a couple years ago, with Hill and George sitting on the bench together way too long. It's not like the Wizards have a great bench like we do. And with FVV out Casey smartly staggered Lowry in the second half.

[Maury]

A lot of Wiz fans on realgm saying that the game was rigged against them by the refs. I noticed a couple bad calls on them but we had some bad calls on us too.

[DanH]

Yeah this is exactly why I wanted to play Washington. This is the best way for this team to exorcise some demons.

I have to admit, narratively speaking, if they can roll past the Wizards and Cavs and 6ers on their way to the Finals that's basically a full exorcism of all past demons, going right back to the Vince days.

[A.I]

yep. Wall is a great passer and gets alot of assists, but all the action is designed for wall to get a shot or an assist, not to get the ball moving around the court for a high percentage look. Which is almost exactly like the Raps used to be. And Wall dominates the ball so much that other guys may not even touch the ball on multiple consecutive possessions. Eerily similar.

Wall is terrific playmaker, but they're offense is very predictable, all you have to do is limit Wall's drives or contest him at the rim, Raptors did a good job of that for the most part. He is also turnover prone, had 5 in Game 1 and averages almost 4 turnovers for his career. Just put body on him when he is driving and he bound to make a few bad passes.

[JimiCliff]

I have to admit, narratively speaking, if they can roll past the Wizards and Cavs and 6ers on their way to the Finals that's basically a full exorcism of all past demons, going right back to the Vince days.

And making National Analyst Paul Pierce eat his dumbass words in public takes care of Brooklyn.

[Scraptor]

Imagine being one of Pierce's non all-star teammates and having to listen to him say over and over that ".... the playoffs are all about your stars." That ego is way out of control and what he's really doing is low-key putting himself and few others on a pedestal and congratulating himself all over again.

Pierce probably cannot even comprehend the concept of "team", and appreciate the fact that role players, coaches, GMs, medical staff, etc... actually do contribute to winning. He's probably still scratching his head trying to figure out how the Raps won game 1. This Raps team will win or lose in these playoffs with our depth advantage, because we've been down that other road before.

I don't know man, I think the playoffs have shown time and time again that in basketball the playoffs are indeed all about your stars.

In the 2015 ECF the Cavs top guys in minutes played were, in order:
Tristan Thompson
LeBron James
Iman Shumpert
JR Smith
Matthew Dellavedova
Timofey Mozgov
James Jones

The Cavs swept a 60-win Hawks team with 4 all stars and the coach of the year.

At the end of the day, the supporting cast matters, every corner of your team and organization matters, but you only go as far as your stars take you.

[Barolt]

Lowry played great. Look beyond the offensive line.

Also loved the composure of ibaka, Wright, og. Miles looked improved, and fred is on the way. I like where we're headed.

Also, right on bebe. *does the hang loose sign*

Even the offense. The 10 minutes that Lowry sat, the Raptors had a 100.5 Ortg. He might not have been scoring, but the offense wasn't nearly as good when he was on the bench.

[Rudy Bargnani]

A lot of Wiz fans on realgm saying that the game was rigged against them by the refs. I noticed a couple bad calls on them but we had some bad calls on us too.

I read that as well. They’re looking at it all wrong. We’re moving the ball and finding the open man to hit a 3, while they are doing John Wall iso’s for contested shots in the paint. I’ll take that trade off every day of the week. Even if they called a few more fouls it doesn’t change the style of play problems they are having. Move the ball and get Otto and Beal more involved.

I’m totally fine with Scott getting garbage points while Beal hangs out on the wing or in the corner not touching the ball.

[Barolt]

A lot of Wiz fans on realgm saying that the game was rigged against them by the refs. I noticed a couple bad calls on them but we had some bad calls on us too.

The reffing was plainly awful. Both ways. It wasn't biased, it was just bad.

That missed goaltend in the fourth quarter still gets me.

[The Great One]

This is different. I like it.

Wrote about Kobe's new inside-the-mind style show, "Detail," the other day, and can provide this update about his episode today: He's breaking down film of Toronto-Wizards Game 1 and analyzing as if he's DeMar DeRozan https://t.co/tPdYuPcW21

— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) April 15, 2018

[wayner]

I really love the way that we won this game with a balanced attack. I far prefer this to DD getting 35 and KL 25 since it is far harder to defend against us when guys like Serge, OG, Wright, CJ, etc are making signicant scoring contributions. If we can keep that up then we will beat anyone in the east, even Cleveland.

[Axel]

The reffing was plainly awful. Both ways. It wasn't biased, it was just bad.

That missed goaltend in the fourth quarter still gets me.

Yeah that goal tending call really stood out. The rim was severely shaking when Lowry shoots and they somehow completely miss it?