A night when a lot of things worked out

Fun game, no?

They play like that and they’ll beat a bunch of bad teams and it seems there are some bad teams throughout the league.

Anyway …

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THREE POINTERS

Twice is not a coincidence

Two times in the last two games, we’ve seen plays that are designed and have worked to a tee and show that, yes, sometimes a lot of thought does go into rare instances.

Wednesday in Philly, Jose throws a nice little lob to Reggie from an out-of-bounds play on the baseline that the Regend finishes like he’s some smooth in-the-paint operator.

Fast forward to last night and I think it’s in the first quarter when Reggie’s making the in-bounds pass and he throws a nice soft lob that DeRozan catches and finishes with a lay-in.

Coincidence? Nope. Those are end out-of-bounds plays designed entirely for late shot-clock situations, plays they work on every now and then at practice and it’s nice to see something work like they expect it to.

Yes, we sometimes do minutia here.

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A charmed life

We know that Jay likes to go offence-defence late in close games and worked to near perfection at the end of last night’s win.

And almost didn’t get a chance to.

With about 2 1-2 minutes left and up five, he went to Sonny for Kleiza but it took a while for the bench to get the substitution in motion, or it almost took Sonny too long to get to the table because the refs had almost given the ball to the Rockets to inbound when the Raps were screaming “sub, sub, sub.”

Sonny eventually got there, got in the game and a second later, he helped team up with Amir for a key steal that led to a free throw and a few seconds ticking off the clock.

A couple of possessions later – and there was no stoppage when Toronto had the ball to get Kleiza back in for the offence part of the offence-defence move – Weems punctuated the night with a dunk off a Johnson block and a Bargnani outlet.

Sometimes small moves do pay off.

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Changing it up

Saw a fair bit of zone defence from Toronto last night and it seemed to confuse and confound the Rockets when they played it.

How do they decide what to do and when?

Well, it’s basically simple: If they score or if there’s a whistle, they go zone because they’ve got time to get everything set up; if they miss and in transition they go back to man so everyone can find someone to guard.

Not sure of the success rate of the zone on the handful of possessions they played it last night but it seemed they had a large measure of success and it might be something we see a bit more of.

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The rest of the stories? Sure.

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Stevie Boy Russell was at it again.

Here’s some crack photography from the game for your viewing enjoyment.

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Okay, I am inundated lately with Michael Beasley and Roy Hibbert questions as the Hindsighters are out in full force.

Hence this one early from the mail bag that will appear as usual tomorrow morning, my travel plans willing.

Q: Doug. I haven't been following the Raps as intently this season, but it seems to me that the TO media is overlooking what should be THE story of the Raps season: the Raps passing on Michael Beasley. Minny got him for two 2nd rounders, and he is two years removed from being the #2 overall pick. The Raps could have had him in the Bosh transaction, and still been left with a fairly significant trade exception (Beasley makes $5 mil, so the exception would be $9-10 mil instead of $14-15). I have friends who say that we have to wait until we see what happens with the bigger trade exception, but from where I am typing, this is an epic BC FAIL.

Your thoughts?

 

Ira U, Richmond Hill

A: THE story of the season? Um, don’t think so. First off, Mike Beasley’s definitely had a few good games for a very bad Minnesota team so far this season but it’s not like he’s leading the Lakers to a perfect record or anything.

But, truth be told, if there was a chance to get him last summer as part of the Bosh transaction, I would think the off-court issues that have plagued him since he got in the league had something to do with any decision that was made. I know nothing untoward has happened – yet – in Minnesota but back in July Bryan and 27 other GMs obviously thought there might be some trouble.

So, too, would be the fact he plays pretty much the same position as a guy they’ve invested a lot in (DeRozan) and if Beasley’s a four, well, there’s that Bargnani fellow there.

Beasley may indeed turn out to be a pretty good player, I have my doubts, and in the middle of last summer that was very, very, very questionable situation.

Hindsight’s great, isn’t it? What if Beasley had, you know, sucked on a bad Minnesota team, would I be hearing how smart Bryan was not to take him?

I wonder.

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What’s Jonathan’s take on that one?

Well, here it is from the Chronicle’s chronicles.

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So Friday is the first night I get to bust on Jose a little bit for Spain’s 4-0 football loss to Portugal and as I hold up four fingers on one hand and the other’s fist as he walks on to the court warm up, he knows what’s coming.

And of course he’s got an explanation.

He thinks that because Spain and Portugal planning to submit a joint bid to host a future World Cup it would have been bad form for the Spaniards to go into Portugal and win easily.

Guess it makes as much sense as anything.

(He’s joking, of course).

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Solomon Alabi goes for 13 points, seven rebounds and seven blocked shots in his D League debut and I’m thinking two things: What’s the D League really like? And is this kid Olajuwon or Ibaka?

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I’m usually the first one to suggest attendance figures may seem a tad, um, inflated some nights.

Now I’m wondering if they didn’t under-report Friday’s crowd.

According to the boxscore we got, there were 16,322 souls in the stands and it really looked and felt like a couple of thousand more.

And, as I’ve said from the start, I think people might end up liking this team because it plays hard and I’d suspect bigger audiences are in the future.

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Okay, you can take one last shot at the mail by clicking here but I’ve got a fair drive ahead of me and some reporting to do for a piece the stat of next week so no promises on how much we get to for the morning.

And no promises on when I get to the inevitable “Isn’t Andrea great” and “Man, Jose’s got to start” comments.

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Comments

[Chris]

If Michael Beazley had been a bust in Minni, do you think people would be giving BC any credit for not bringinig him in? He has had some good games, but is way to volitile a personality to justify the risk. Plus we needed some stability after bustalu, JO, Marion, and others in and out of the revolving door. Rigth now we are 1 win outof a playoff spot!

[dave]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5828835

no comment on this breaking news story!? Raptor 5 player trade? True??

[Jim]

Wow doug, talk about missing the boat on the Beasley issue. Does Bryan personally pay you your salary??

Blogger's note: Shockingly, I am capable of independent thought. Sorry it doesn't concur with yours. Mine happens to have been shared by 28 NBA general managers on the issue and I'm quite confident I'll be proved right.

[Jim Rootham]

I just saw a trade story that had Jack, Anderson, and Banks to the Hornets for Stojakovic and Bayless. The Globe has it. Either you are not available at the critical instant (bad luck for you) or somebody is jumping the gun.

[thomaz]

how come you're not reporting the potential trade with the hornets? could it fall through?

[Jc]

I know you don't like to get involved in rumors but is the NO thing more than a rumor yet?

[Andrew]

Beasley is currently averaging more than 20 points a game for the T-Wolves, he was worth taking a chance on cuz he is still on his rookie contract, I mentioned this to some co-workers in June. He's not a shooting guard like Derozan and he and Bargnani could play on the court at the same time. The Raptors could have really used Beasley cuz he can create his own shot, something which is vitally important in the NBA. Why are u always sticking up for BC? He's paid a lot of money and needs to do a better job. We have the 4th biggest market in the league and it would be nice to put a better product on the floor.

[RyanS]

Sorry you have to deal with all Beasley nonsense. I suspect most of it is being drummed up by Capt. Hindsight himself, Bill Simmons.

Any news on this rumoured TOR-NO trade?

[np]

Jarrett Jack traded to New Orleans Hornets? no way.. why trade him..we are stuck with calderon i guess

[np]

Do you think Peja Stojakovic will start at SF?

[GM]

Since the Raps use the same inbounds play in late-clock situations in games close together, what's all the fuss about running certain things in the preseason for fear that they'll be playing the same team in a few days? Presumably every play has options to run if the main thing is taken away.

While I have nothing against offense/defense substitutions, doesn't it seem odd that Kleiza would be in for offense and Sonny for defense? They seem about equal to me on offense.

I want to clarify one thing I posted yesterday since a couple people responded to it. I wasn't suggesting Amir doesn't foul or that the calls he gets are made up out of whole cloth. What I meant was that you could foul every single player out of every single game if you called everything. There's a foul on every possession somewhere if you want to call it. But refs take into account who is out there, who they're matched up against and the situation and time of game when they decide to blow their whistles. That's why you always hear things about certain players (rookies and bench players primarily) not yet having the respect of the officials and once they gain that respect, they'll be allowed to get away with more. Which is bogus and, dare I say it, disrespectful of the game. A foul is a foul (or not a foul) no matter who commits it (or doesn't commit it).

[Walla with the Raps]

I think Beasley might have been offered to BC but not sure what he was offered with.

Doug probably has only heard the same thing as we have on this potential trade. BC keeps a tight ship which is how I think it should be league wide, until things are a done deal. My bet is Doug will not comment until we know if the trade is a-go or a no-go. Great work on the blog Doug, as ways a pleasure.

[GM]

Not sure 28 other GMs got it wrong on Beasley, just as I'm not sure Colangelo did. After the fact, we can only know who got him, not who *could* have got him. Maybe Colangelo made a play for him but Miami decided to send him out of conference. Maybe 12 other GMs made a play for him, too. We can't know. All we know is Minnesota got him.