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Toronto @ New Orleans


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  • 2 months later...

Like the New York game, Paul will put up big numbers but it won't be enough. Toronto has too many offensive weapons and the Hornets don't have the defense to close them out.

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This game has a lot of interesting matchups though. You have the big matchups of Bosh and Bargnani vs. Okafor and West.

 

Then you have the tall, white, jumpshooting European matchup of Hedo "Turkey-glue" Turkoglu vs. Peja "Brokeback" Stojakovic.

 

You have the unproven, athletic swingmen matchup of Julian Wright vs. DeMar DeRozan.

 

Lastly, you have the massacare waiting to happen matchup of Chris Paul vs. Jose Calderon (defensively at least).

 

Should be fun to see. I'm especially looking forward to seeing the battle of the European jumpshooters. It is going to be one fast paced, high octane matchup of these two speedsters. :lol:

 

Seriously though, these two teams have some very interesting matchups. Many people will probably consider the key matchup to be the battle of the point guards, but I think that whichever team gets the better of the big man matchup will walk away with the victory.

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So Calderon is going to break out of his 4 year defensive slump against the best point guard in the NBA? Right....

Listen I was being optimistic so give me a break. I know he is not the best defender but we can hope for the sake of this team that Calderon can do a better job defensively.

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Bosh and Bargnani should have their way with Orlando's front court. Okafor has been struggling, and David West needs to crash the boards more to give his team more second chance points. I like Tonronto in this one, but you can never count out Chris Paul.

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I do have to admit that Calderon has looked A LOT better tonight, well, offensively. His defense is still terrible but he has looked good offensively. His jumper has been falling, he has been making good passes by giving his teammates the ball in a position where they can do something with it and is looking more like the efficient Calderon of last season. He is playing with the fire that he showed last season and that fire was missing during the first 4 games.

 

If Calderon plays like this I won't bag on him (well, as much) because this is how I expect him to play. I don't expect him to be locking anybody down as I know that he is a terrible defender and that won't change, but the Raptors need his offense.

 

Raptors with a huge 3rd quareter shooting the rock. I don't know how many 3's they have hit for sure but Bargnani, Turkoglu and Calderon have done a great job shooting from deep. Even Chris Bosh is getting into the act as he drained a 3 right in Okafor's face earlier in the quarter.

 

New Orleans has not looked good at all. I am starting to wonder how short of a leash Byron Scott is on because this Hornets team has looked terrible and are nothing like the team that was within one game of the Western Conference Finals two years ago.

 

Raptors up 83-65 at the end of the 3rd.

 

EDIT: The Raptors were 8/13 from deep in that quarter .

Edited by Built Ford Tough
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Calderon had a tough match up against Chris Paul and I felt that Calderon did a respectable job considering that hornets did a lot of pick and roll. In the first half they did a poor job of not allowing Chris Paul to split them down the middle which is why he ended up with 17 points and 10 assist. Second half was much better and they only held Paul to 10 points and 8 assist.

I loved the overall intensity that the raptors played with and offensively this team is very scary and it’s a matter of put together 48 minutes of good defence.

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Jose always seems to shows up against CP3. He played his best game easily, was nice to see us passing the ball but and finding the open man, NO's transition D was atrocious.

 

Bosh played amazing, there was a play that stuck in my head where Bosh got it in the post, looked to the perimeter, saw the double wasn't coming. Backed down, the double came and rather than throw it up awkwardly and get the foul he kicked it out to I don't remember who and I don't even recall if he made the shot. I just remember how awesome it was to see Bosh kicking the ball out of the post for once, it was something I wished he would do more. When you are 9-9 and they don't double you, you make them pay, but when they double you have to make them pay by kicking it to one of our shooters, but just played fantastic.

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