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Toronto at Washington


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  • 3 weeks later...

Great game tonight, it just makes too much sense to have Booker and Singleton as the starters.

 

Jan proves to be a solid pick for Ernie in this weak draft class, it's clear to me he won't bust, if anything he will be a good role player off the bench, which is fine to me because we really couldn't get anything better with the 6th pick (maybe Markeiff Morris, but I'm not convinced yet). Jan just has great basketball instinct, he knows what to do on the court, and has active hands. He keeps his hands up, gets a lot of deflections, and runs the floor well. He has no identity in the halfcourt set, but that's fine for now.

 

Wall was much more under control today, I think he had 2 turnovers tonight that came very early in the first. He found guys off the screens, and they finally hit their shots. But he must learn how to play off the ball, with his quickness, he needs to cut better to the basket.

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Am I a complete homer in thinking that Toronto lost this game as much as Washington won it?

 

I'm not trying to take credit away from Washington as they completely deserved the win, but the Raptors really made a lot of stupid mistakes on offense, committed a whole bunch of stupid turnovers with little defensive pressure and missed some good looks (looking at DeRozan mainly).

 

On defense they basically let Washington get whatever they wanted inside the paint, which was an area that they have controlled all season long (coming into the game they gave up the least amount of points in the paint).

 

I really am not trying to take away credit from the Wizards but they really didn't look much better than some other games of theirs that I have watched where they lost by double digit points. Toronto just played terribly.

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I understand where you're coming from, that definitely wasn't Toronto's best game, as soon as we built a 10+ lead, I just knew it was an off day for the Raps.

 

However, I wouldn't say Toronto lost it as much as Washington won it, simply because this was a completely different effort from the Wiz. When you're not playing hero ball, not forcing the issue, and instead relying on teammates to make plays, good things will happen. This was the first game in which we had over 20 assists, everyone that played today scored, it was a total team effort.

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For someone looking for a bad basketball game, Tuesday's NBA calendar offered an embarrassment of riches. The Charlotte Bobcats were hosting the Houston Rockets in a matchup of teams that were less than ten games into their respective seasons but already planning for the draft lottery. The Sacramento Kings were facing a likely rout on the road against the Philadelphia 76ers. And the Dallas Mavericks brought their championship rings and weary legs to Detroit to play the Pistons, who are beginning to make more sense as performance art or as a practical joke than as an attempt to create a winning basketball team. But even amid this wasteland, there was never any question which game would be chosen to christen the "Fate Worse Than Death" series: the Washington Wizards versus the Toronto Raptors in our nation's capital.

 

The stage was set: Wizards versus Raptors. Winless versus hopeless. After the tip, both teams missed jump shots on their opening possessions. I fought the urge to raid a tiny stash of prescription painkillers I glommed from my father's refrigerator over the holidays. A few minutes into the game, John Wall drove right, pulled up for a mid-range jumper, and watched the ball sail over and past the rim. Two minutes later, as if to give Wall a do-over, the Raptors' DeMar DeRozan toed the 3-point line, caught a pass, and shot the ball a few feet over the basket. Dueling air balls.

 

Near the end of the first quarter, Washington rookie Chris Singleton made a move to the elbow, picked up his dribble, and got stuck. First, he looked to shoot, but he reconsidered when it became clear that the only way to get the shot off would be to launch a turnaround fadeaway. Unfortunately, while Singleton held the ball and looked for an open teammate, none of the other four Wizards on the floor moved to get open. Maybe they were thinking, Take the shot! That's what I'd do! It was only their ninth game of the season, but the Wizards seemed to have already internalized the lesson that once a teammate started attacking the basket, moving without the ball was not worth the effort. Singleton eventually passed to Wall, who had about two seconds left on the shot clock to launch a contested 3. The ball bounced off the top of the backboard, followed by a close-up of Flip Saunders' aneurysm face.

 

Before the second quarter began, the Toronto broadcast team discussed a graphic depicting the Raptors' injury problems. Jerryd Bayless would return in a week, Aaron Gray was two weeks out, and Linas Kleiza would see action in the "near future." In other words, help is not on the way.

 

In the second quarter, Raptors analyst Jack Armstrong went in on Blatche. It started late in the first, actually, when Blatche threw the ball to Nick Young. "He passed the ball," Armstrong said. "Wow." I don't think I'd ever made myself watch a full Blatche game before Tuesday night. If you're like me, you probably wondered if all the things people wrote about his shot selection and near-total refusal to pass were exaggerated. Well, they weren't. Within minutes, I had scribbled "Blatche hole?" in my notebook, and not once in the game did I feel the need to revise or amend that description.

 

Over the years, several players have been called "coach killers" for feuding with and eventually getting their coaches fired. McGee, with his talent, his boundless but frequently wanton enthusiasm, and his apparent disconnect with reality, may literally kill a coach someday by attempting some foolish play at the worst possible moment that leads to a sideline stroke or heart attack.

 

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7450625/rafe-bartholomew-suffers-fate-worse-death-#8212-watching-wizards-raptors

 

:lol:

 

There are some more pretty funny comments in the article, but these were my favourites.

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