Subtles changes and new looks

You know what I wish I had today? A bonnet.

A good, old-fashioned bonnet.

Happy Easter.

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THREE POINTERS

Who’s your man?

Well, as we saw Saturday, you’re never quite sure.

Not certain how many noticed it, but at the start of the third quarter, Jay went to a switch of defensive assignments that was entirely out of character.

He put Sonny Weems on Jrue Holiday, moved Jose Calderon over on to Jason Kapono and had Antoine Wright stick with Andre Iguodala.

The reasons had to be two-fold.

First, it kept Holiday from getting past Calderon and into the paint to create havoc and, second, it gave Holiday a new look to deal with and the rookie had some difficulty.

Because it was successful, I imagine we’ll see a bit of it Sunday night against Golden State, when Weems will get some time on Stephen Curry and Jose moves over to perhaps guard CJ Watson.

The man-switch was just one of the various tricks Triano had up his sleeve yesterday. We saw more zone in one game than we have in weeks, and n different circumstances, too. Usually, they only like to go zone after made baskets because it gives them time to set up but we saw some in transition Saturday. For a team that can’t keep guys in front of them, it’s not bad to throw some zone in there.

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Sonny, where are you?

Or where were you might be the better question.

Lots of in-game angst on the non-use of Sonny Weems for much of the fourth quarter – he only played 2:09 – and now I’ll tell you why and then what I think.

(I know. You’re really interested in the latter)

As perhaps you’ve noticed over the course of, oh, 67 games, Jay likes to have Hedo on the court down the stretch of games for his ball-handling and facilitating abilities. Against the pressing Sixers, who were scrambling the game, the coaching staff felt that because Turk’s a better passer and ball-mover and dribbler than Weems that they would give up some athleticism for a veteran presence. And I know this because I asked people.

Me? I’m entirely fine with it, as I said during the game. Sure, Weems was scoring – primarily against the non-defending Jason Kapono, who wasn’t on the court (yes, he also made eight straight Wednesday but at least four of them came in transition on breaks led by Jack) – but Sonny doesn’t have the handle or the court vision to add anything to a group trying to solve a junked-up game.

And, for a couple of defensive possessions in the dying minutes, Jay did use Weems as he always does in offence-defence situations.

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Fun with numbers

All right. This might be the statistical anomaly of all time with this collection of rebounding-challenged Raptors.

Did you know that the Sixers did not have a single individual rebound in the entire third quarter. None. Zip. Nada. Not a single-solitary board credited to a person.

Two team rebounds; that’s it. One came off a Weems miss 90 seconds into the quarter and one came on a buzzer-beating, 76-foot heave by Wilile Green at the final buzzer.

That the Raptors only missed five shots and had three offensive boards takes care of that end of the court but the amazing thing to me is that Philadelphia shot 9-for-16 from the floor in the quarter and did not get one offensive board off the seven misses.

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And now, some little things:

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Let’s say you’re in your workplace trying to finish the day.

Let’s say all of a sudden about 50 kids come trundling in and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of some meet-and-greet with some apparently famous lacrosse player before some Philadelphia team called the Wings plays some Toronto team called the Rocks.

Think that’d be distracting?

Only a bit.

But I will say this: They do run stuff through the Wachovia Center like few arenas.

Raptors-Sixers at 1, Wings-Rock at 7 and the pucks are there Sunday just after noon.

Busy, busy, busy. And I can’t imagine why Mr. Boss didn’t ask me to stick around and cover a lacrosse game.

I can only assume it’s because he could have guessed the answer.

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And here's how things read to the folks who first click on a Philly paper.

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You caught the breath-taking news about the roster addition, right?

Oh, you missed it in the in-game blog thingy?

Well, let’s catch you up.

The Raptors are going to add Joey Dorsey to the roster today or tomorrow and it means nothing.

Really, it doesn’t.

The deal is for the rest of the season and the summer, it’ll take some calamity of apocalyptic proportions for him to even dress for a game but what it does is lock him up for the summer and give them another live body for the summer league.

He’ll have a make-good, minimum-value contract for next year with absolutely no guarantees so if they whack him after summer league, it hasn’t cost them much at all.

He’s 6-9, 26-years-old, has done nothing in the NBA and was waived by Sacramento after the Kings got him in the Kevin Martin trade for Houston and the word out of Sacramento was there were some “maturity issues.”

And since he’s an absolute non-factor this season and may not even be around at training camp, I can’t imagine I’ll type his name again until October.

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Yes, we’ll be here tonight at 6 for the in-game blog thingy for the Warriors and I have to offer heartfelt thanks to the close to 1,000 of you who showed up on a nice holiday Saturday afternoon.

That’s very cool of you.

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Quick question:

What’s the shot clock in college basketball? About four minutes?

Honest to goodness, those Final Four semis were almost impossible to watch.

What’d Michigan State have? 100,000 turnovers? Butler didn’t score for a week but won? I can’t see how the backboards didn’t beak with the bricks being tossed in the wrestling match between Duke and West Virginia.

I know Sixers-Raptors was a dog but it looked like Lakers-Celtics from the 80s in comparison.

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I’m sure you noticed in the boxscore that you and I combined for as many rebounds Saturday afternoon as Elton Brand and Jason Kapono did, right?

That’s right. Two starting forwards, zero rebounds.

Was the first time in 713 games that Brand has played and not grabbed a board.

It was the first time in three games for My Man JK.

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Comments

[JHP]

A win ia a win. But confused why BC would bother to even sign a player. Was it simply because he was available ? Weird.

Blogger's note: He signed him for the summer league before anyone else could.

[Walk-One]

Good explanation on the Weems situation except maybe it needs to be taken one step further. If they had left Weems and Jack on the floor they may not have got over the time line on several possessions. As for guarding Holiday, no one did a good job as he scored just as often whether it was Weems, Jack or Jose. The problem was in the rotations and on top of this, for an American point guard, the kid can shoot from outside 10 feet.
I also am dismayed at Jack Armstrong and his comments which border on bias towards certain players. "Their hiding Calderone". He had to make the point several times. Watched the Laker game on Friday night and Williams was torching the Lakers in the second quarter. They switched the coverage to Artest and Williams night was done. Artest is longer and bigger and Williams couldn'thandle it. When the Raps play Dallas, Bosh on most possessions doesn't guard Dirk. Not once do I hear they are "hiding him" nor did I hear that the Lakers were hiding Fisher on Friday night. Armstrong does not like Jose-period and it shows. How many times did we see a replay of the play to end the half? It was outstanding yet we didn't see or hear about it on the commentary. This man needs to go and be replaced by a Canadian.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=612860564]

I missed some of the second half. Was Weems on the floor when they lost their 17 point lead?

[Blake Kennedy]

I suppose NBA vs. NCAA comes down to tastes. For example, many people are disgusted at having to watch this year's Toronto Raptors, who would end up being one of the worst 20 defensive teams in the NBA since 1974 if the season were to end today, as measured by points allowed / 100 possessions worse than league average (we're currently the worst defensive team in the league, allowing 5.5 points / 100 possessions more than league average). I'd rather watch a team like Michigan State who plays with great intensity and desire on both ends than these Raptors, personally; I'm just stuck watching the Raptors because of the market I live in. But your tastes obviously run more to having perimeter ball skills than to hard defensive effort and rebounding desire. Me, I'd rather see some kid not getting paid to play step up and accept the challenge of applying pressure to the ball defensively and to move his feet and guard people for the betterment of his team than to see a guy like Calderon, being paid $9 million/year, run away from the ball in transition so he doesn't have to guard it and have the team switch him off the ball in every ball screen or crossing action and hang his teammates out to dry. To each his own, I suppose.

[chris]

Walk-One --- Jack Armstrong is awesome. You have no idea what you're talking about, and we're very lucky to have him.

Doug -- people love college ball because the players work their asses off and really compete. I guess its easier with their sched, but to the fan that shouldn't make it less entertaining.

[HopeCaper]

Hey Doug,
You know while you are enjoying the sun we are getting fog here by the bay. After all the overcast we've had this winter even on sunny days we can't win. Actually the weather and Raptors seem to have a lot in common! As in can't win that is.
While Jack A has a lot of pertinent comments most of the time I got to agree with walk one re: Jose. Same as his angst re: the zone. He seemed quite befuddled. Actually I didn't time it but it seemed to me that the lead disappeared right after Jose sat down and I kept waiting for Jay to put him back on. I gotta tell you most of the time I agree with Jay but I thought he mishandled the 4th quarter. The 6rs put pressure on Jack in the 4th and he is not the ball handler Jose is.
Hedo does not, has not brought much to this team. In fact the nite he rode the pine was the start of the Raps playing with some intensity. It seems Hedo was much ado about nothing!
For those critical of the Raps' skills you might try watching a few games that their competition are playing. Seems other teams are having the same issues the Raps are having. The Bulls\Cats was a dog.
As to the coaching staff's rationale for sitting Weems that makes sense in the last 3 minutes but uhhhh what about the rest of the quarter?
Anyway, Happy Easter Doug to you and yours, enjoy your day.

[Blake Kennedy]

Walk-One:

It's no secret that Jose Calderon cannot guard the ball. And other than Antoine Wright, who also got lit up last night, he gave up more scores than anybody else on this team - the worst probably being in transition where he ran away from the ball and got Bargnani dunked on. (Unlike Wright last night, however, Jose actually did mix in a couple of stops: not many, but a few.) Jack has every responsibility as a former coach and honest broker to point out the fact that the Raptors are trying to maximize Jose's "value" by limiting his exposure to guarding the basketball.

Anybody who knows about this team and knows about defensive basketball knows that this team has entirely different sets of rules defensively for Jose than they do other players. If you'll pay attention, you'll see that every ball screen Jose's involved in, he switches. Automatic call. Why? So he doesn't have to guard the ball, and the Raptors believe they're better off helping Jose on a post up than they are relying upon him to stop the ball on the perimeter. Same thing applies to dribble-handoffs and dovetail cuts: they will switch him off the ball every time. That is not something they do normally, those are team rules exclusively for Jose.

The downside is that Jose now believes that he has no responsibility to guard the ball and puts in an appalling lack of effort at times. I'll mention again the instance on a 3-on-2 with about 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter with Bargnani and Calderon getting back, Bargnani ran to the basket to protect it and get into the standard tandem with Bargnani low. Top man has to stop the ball and get it out of the middle. Calderon ran away from the ball to the wing (!), Holiday's eyes went as wide as saucers and he flew at Bargnani with a full head of steam and dunked on him. Bargnani stepped aside as he had absolutely no chance of stopping him, his only two options would have been to hard-foul him and plant him about 2 feet into the floor or give up the score without a foul. Frankly, he should have just hammered him and taken the foul, but he had zero opportunity to stop that because Jose ran away from the ball.

No coach in the world would ever stand for one of his players thinking he doesn't have to guard the ball, that his teammates are there to bail him out from that responsibility. But if you're going to play Calderon, do you have much choice?

[Penny]

Chris - I agree with Walk-One. The number of comments Jack Armstrong makes against Jose is unbelievable - granted there are times when he actually admits that Calderon made a nice pass or basket. Jose had a double double yesterday but we didn't hear anything about that, did we? The difference is that Jack always praises what JJ does and never criticizes him even though there are lots of time when he could - eg yesterday when he was having difficulty in getting the ball over center court. We also never hear him say that CB4 has to do a better job of stopping his man when the player blows by him as we have seen several times in the last few games.

[ConfusedandConcernedRaptorFan]

I don't know much about basketball but I did see Weems making just about everything he tried, and I don't think the zone defense stopped a single trip down the floor. I also saw them blow a huge lead. Weems didn't play in the 4th and they didn't change up a defense that couldn't stop even one try.

I'm I just stupid or is it that I don't appreciate the subtleties of expert coaching?

[Matt M]

Good game by the Raptors last night. I figured they could have gone with Sonny in the fourth last night but then also remember the games against Miami and Charlotte where the Raps could have used Turks presence on the floor to finish the game. I've been impressed with Weems this year and the sky is the limit for this kid, but he has a ways to go on the offensive side of the before he's closing games. I have no doubt he will get there, especially if his work ethic is as good as reported.

[Dave]

I have to agree in part with your take on the final four games yesterday...Butler had a ten minute stretch with no FG but still won!!?!...And in my estimation, watching the games, it didn't seem like stellar defense, just poorly-executed offense. Michigan State had the same issue. Most games throughout the tourney havn't been in that mould, thankfully. I also agree that the shot clock is too long...I understand it is that long to provide teams the opportunity to run plays and not be forced to take the first option; it was explained to me as a provision for the players to learn more about the game. What I generally see is dribble hand-offs, or 3-man-weaves for 20+ seconds, and then far too often a bad, contested shot. Not all teams play this way, though. Seems as though if the NCAA wanted to prepare players for the NBA, the shot clock should be at 24...or maybe 28, but 35 is too long.

Go Butler!

[jim]

Maybe you and the Raps should take in a lacrosse game.
It might be good for some of these highly-overpaid, lazy stiffs to watch a bunch of guys givin' it all for basically nothing more than the enjoyment of playing the game.
You could do worse than a lacrosse game: at least it's an honest sport.
A Vince Carter trade, and 5 top ten draft picks in the last 5 years, and we're gonna barely beat out a pathetic Bulls team. Woo-hoo!
Hey Raptor fans; finish this statement...
"When the going gets tough, the Raptors get...".

[Johnn19]

A good job by Jay Triano in making the correct calls vs the 76er's.

Any time you win a game on the road that you are both supposed to win, and also must win, it's a great job.

I also agree about the bias shown toward Calderon by the broadcast crew.
Jose had a great game,double double, with 10 assists, 16 points, the 3pt FG that sent the game to OT, played outstanding late in the 4th/OT (6pts 2 ast)with Bosh and Andrea, with 5 fouls.

In the Post UP summary his name was not mentioned by the crew.

[knickz]

jack armstrong takes cheap shots at jose every game...he will never ackmowledge when jarret is playing bad

[doug]

I liked watching college ball 10 years ago or so...not now, kids are leaving school to early and the skill set in these players has been diminished and the teams are not nearly as good, as most of these kids are 1 or 2 years out of high school....plus this statement I'd rather watch these kids play as their playing for nothing is quite frankly non-sensical...I would rather watch the pros where they get paid as they should, then college ball where the schools are making millions off these kids, the television contract itself is worth over a billion dollars, BCS football is the same, its a money making machine for the schools, and the coaches whereas if a player gets caught with so much as a phone card they are in violation.... plus people neeed to read about graduation rates, and how scholarships are pulled out from kids and they are just sent home...Sports illustrated has did some excellent investigative journalist work in this regards exposing the NCAA for what it is.....ESPN won't and doesn't as they make millions off the proverbial cash cow....last nights 2 games were not well played at all....the talent pool has been watered down....but the NCAA doesn't care they make millions upon millions....give me the pros and paid players any day of the week.....oh and thank god Huggins lost, he is the worse of the worse for his shenanigans.....

[tony de carlo]

Why oh why do people buy the explanations provided by the coaching staff. It really is not that complicated. Weems did not play the fourth quarter and the raptors where life and death to win the game. He played the third quarter and the raptors were world beaters. It does not take deep thinking the results speak for themselves. Weems should have played more in the fourth quarter. The coaches were wrong.

[norm]

Doug, I hope right, but wouldn't history show that when it comes to absolute non-factors on the Raptors, that you'll be fielding dozens of questions about Dorsey between now and October?

Blogger's note: Of course I will, especially if he lights up the utterly inconsequential summer league

[Tomas P.]

I find Jack Armstrong a bit annoying sometimes, but I admit his commentaries are not bad. If He is replaced by a Canadian that would be perfectly fine by me.

And as far as NCAA , it's just bad basketball most of the time, and I dont care how hard the young guys try to play.

[sm]

Blake Kennedy - A Stat geek poster that doesn't care for a certain players and feels compelled to let us know - A new wrinkle he prefers the NCAA over Jose Calderon and his 9 mill a year paycheck and follows the Raptors because of Geography - Needs to have his opinion heard and have people tell him he's right - but not as in Antoine Wright - if memory serves me correctly he has little use for him too....
To each his own....I suppose

[VikZ]

New Jersey won again last night, but they're also 4-6 in their last 10 games. Who would've guessed that would happen?

[greg]

a win is a win but blowing a 17 pt lead against the sixers this season is inexcusable. This raptor team need to know how to play until the final buzzer, their was a clear attitude shift on the part of the team once they had the big lead.Lazy passing , shoulders slumping, no running, The sense of urgency was gone by the end of the 3rd and did not come back until the lead was less than 10. By then they were scrambling and playing flat footed. They should be thankful for Philly's poor execution in the final 3 minutes and overtime. 2 blown 17 point leads in one week.

Of course nobody was happy with Triano not playing Weems either, seemed like whatever the plan was before the game Triano stayed with it even if it wasn't giving results for about 10 minutes. Lets hope they can play a full 48 against the Warriors.

[Aditya]

Just for folks who didn't know, when Joey Dorsey was drafted in 2008, there was a pre-season prediction on NBA's MVP, Best Defensive Player, Best GM etc..... on NBA.com. Well, Joey Dorsey got one vote that year from an NBA GM as the toughest guy in the league. And this guy at that time hadn't played a single NBA game. Wow.

[Mike Ulangot]

"But Sonny doesn’t have the handle or the court vision to add anything to a group trying to solve a junked-up game."

You probably don't care what I think either, Doug. But you, and others like yourself also thought Sonny Weems was the 11th or 12th man in the rotation. I know the Raps won, but having Turk on the floor in the 4th did not stop Philly from pushing it to OT. Raps Defense was bad in the fourth but the OFFENSIVE PLAY WAS BAD TOO. Weems would have been a better option overall because no $50-$60m player could have enough "ball-handling and facilitating" abilities to not be a liability on the defensive end. I hope that made sense.

[Jeff B.]

Well if he doesn't give Sonny a chance, then no one will ever know what he's capable of in fourth quarters. Jay Triano should know more than anyone that taking risks by giving Weems PT has only resulted in good things all season long. Turk on the other hand has been a disappointment yet Triano insists he's the "only" option for fourth quarters. Give me a fricken break!

[GM]

"We saw more zone in one game than we have in weeks, and n different circumstances, too." Ahem... I have no idea what "n" means but it keeps me fearing for the future of our world and the written word. (Just ribbing you!)

Yeah, I'm not buying the coaching explanation on Weems, either. Has the Raptors been winning maybe I'd buy it. Or if they hadn't started giving up their big lead as soon as he sat down, I would have bought it. It's not as if they started getting stagnant on offense so they brought in Turk (and lord knows I have nothing against Turk, like a lot of people here -- I just think he keep going with what's going well until it's not going well anymore; you don't base your decision on the whole season, especially given that the whole season has been pretty uninspiring and Weems has improved all season). And so what if most Weems' baskets came in transition with Jack? I recall at least a few coming in the half-court set. And I also recall Sonny scoring in the second unit with Jose a few weeks ago. And maybe the Raptors could have got some fastbreak points in the 4th with him in there. Yes, it's a maybe, but I just think you try it until he shows he's either getting tired or ineffective, and then make a quick hook.

As for the NCAA, I don't watch. But I have nothing against it. I can watch and get into any level of basketball no matter what the quality. It's just that I prefer the NBA and waste enough time watching it that I can't possibly add another set of games to follow. But if I ever see a game I can get into it. It is what it is.

I also agree that Jack Armstrong seems not to like Calderon. That's okay. I don't like Jack Armstrong. Not for his opinions but because he's just a caricature, a loud goofball New Yawker who seems to model his broadcasting off the cartoonish Dick Vitale. But he's entitled to his opinions and it's even half refreshing he's critical at all given he's an employee of the Raptors.