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Despite the Suns raining a bunch of 3s, the Raps hung on for a narrow win. Jonas Valanciunas had a career-best 27 points and added 12 boards to lead the home squad.
Phoenix showed a lot of character, playing to the last buzzer despite it being the last game in a long road trip.
Still no Hansborough, though James Johnson was back but only played about 4 minutes. He's obviously not 100% yet.
Next up, the Hawks in Atlanta.
(Sorry for the late post. Storm knocked out the net for 18 hours.)
Raps caught the Hawks on the 2nd night of a back-to-back and pulled away in the 4th. A peek at the score will tell you neither team paid much attention to defense.
DeRozan led the Raps with 27 while Greivis Vasquez and Lou Williams combined for 43 off the bench. Seven Raptors, including all five starters, scored double digits.
Atlanta fans have to be shaking their heads after giving away Williams.
And Toronto fans have to be thrilled with the team's start but must be realistic. The easy part of the schedule is over. And no opponent is going to take them lightly now.
I just heard on the postgame that when the month ends they would have only played 6 road games all season (and that includes the game @ Lakers on Sunday) so obviously those road & home games even out over the season, so we're going to have a couple of long trips coming up. But couldn't be happier: They are taking care of that extended home court streak, they are beating the teams they should beat as well as teams that are evenly matched with them (Grizzlies, Suns), and they play in by far the worst division in basketball. Happy that we gave ourselves a bit of a buffer with the Nets & Knicks slow start out of the gate so if (when) they go on a streak where they go like 2-8, 3-7 over a 10 game stretch we'll likely still have a decent-sized division lead working. But as you said, the hard part is coming up, Mavs on Friday before they go out West to face the Lakers, Kings & Jazz. Even though the Jazz & Lakers are near the bottom of the league they are more than capable of knocking us off if we don't take them seriously, and the Kings have been one of the biggest surprises out West so far.
Toronto has NOTHING to worry about in terms of winning it's division. It's a good team, IMO top 3 in the east and I'm not sure where in the top 3 until the playoffs are upon us.
The rest of the division is clearly 2 notches below and will be lucky if the nets or knciks manage to grab an 8th seed with a losing record.
While the Raptors have only beaten 2 teams with a winning record, they've still won the games they were supposed to win.
Hats off to the Raptors.
**this is all impartial, I'm not a Raptors fan** Just calling it like I see it.
Raps couldn't get anything going 'til the 4th quarter against a Mavericks team that played better D than I expected. Monta Ellis had a big game, scoring 30 whereas the Raps' #1 scorer, DeMar DeRozan, was 0 for 21 minutes. And then, to add injury to insult, he strained his groin and had to leave the game.
All in all, a fair result. Raps played 'til the final whistle but deserved to lose. They were overdue for a wake-up call.
It's a typical creative misspelling but this guy is true blue as they come. I'm not surprised that he has surreptitiously molded a winner in Toronto. I think he will wind up in the same breath as great NBA coaches like Phil Jackson, Greg Popovich, KC Jones, Pat Riley, etc.
It's easy to respect Casey. He's a good man first, and a fine coach second. I was really concerned the Raps were not going to extend him if they didn't have a breakthrough season. Luckily for all in the organization, they did.
DeMar DeRozan goes down with a tendon tear--a tendon I had never heard of , the "adductor longus. " He is the leader in both points and minutes thus far for the Raptors.
The NBA needs to cut back its schedule. Playing one game every two days on average does not allow enough recovery and creates an overtraining effect, which any physiologist will affirm sets the stage for injury and illness.
Of course freak injuries can happen to athletes regardless of recovery, but when people like Rose, Westbrook, Durant, Anthony, Howard, George, Wade, ad infinitum are all having injury problems, one would think that NBA execs would get a clue. NBA Basketball Injuries - National Basketball Association Injuries - ESPN
Yeah, no doubt that's gonna hurt. I think we'll see more of Landry Fields and an even further emphasis on defense. Raps are going to have to win some 91-88 games instead of triple digits all the time.
1) Either shorten the season to 70 games (keep 4 games vs. your division opponents [16 total], 30 vs. the other conference [1 home, 1 road 46 total] and 24 vs. the other 10 teams in your league). Cutting 12 games may not seem like a big number, but when each team averages around 6 or 7 back-to-back's a season cutting 12 games would eliminate the back-to-backs which cause the injury in the first place.
2) Stretch the season out like the NHL does. The NHL plays a same 82 game schedule. Their opening night was October 8, 20 days before NBA's opening night. The NHL regular season ends April 11 which is 4 days before the NBA regular season ends. So, the NBA is basically cramping the same amount of games into a window 16 days shorter than the NHL does. You'd probably still play some back-to-backs, but they wouldn't be as often as they are now, and if you do have a back-to-back in that new stretched-out window you would likely have a longer break between games. Over in the NHL, the New York Islanders just finished a stretch where they played 6 games in 9 days (which includes 2 back-to-backs), there next 6 game stretch stretches out over 14 days (and no back-to-back's).
Obviously neither is happening because the NBA has to much money to cut days or cut games, but of the 2, which one do you think would be better overall??
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