Built Ford Tough

Miami's defensive quickness is ridiculous. They can double anybody and not have to worry about it because they are so damn quick recovering that it doesn't make a difference. A more seasoned or talented offensive team would make them pay as their ball movement would be much quicker than the Bobcats', but even then, it is still impressive how swarming they are.

Nasty dunk by Bosh. White got dunked on so hard he lost a contact.

Calderon is such a terrible point guard. You have DeRozan lighting it up all quarter long and you also have Bargnani who has 20 points of his own. Who does he decide to pass to? Amir Johnson in traffic. Luckily they got a stop on the other end of the floor and he made up for it with a layup to cut the lead to 3. And West answers back with an 18 foot rainbow over Amir to extend the lead to 5 with 9 seconds left, likely icing the game in the process.

DeRozan with another huge 3. He has been absolute money in the 4th. 14 points on 6/7 shooting. Bargnani follows that up with an And 1 of his own to cut the lead to 2.

Granger travels, they don't call it. DeRozan literally misses him when trying to swipe at the ball, they call a foul. DeRozan really heating up in the 4th, though, just like last night. 11 points for him in the quarter including him nailing a corner three just now. Keep on feeding him the ball as Bargnani has gone cold after carrying the offensive load early in the game. If the Raptors have any chance of coming back in this game, they are going to have to have DeRozan continue his hot shooting and hope to get stops on the other end (and also hope the Pacers don't get bailed out with chincy calls).

The Raptors have been outplayed, don't get me wrong, but the reffing in this game has been completely slanted in Indy's direction. Some of the calls that they have gotten and gotten away with are ridiculous when you consider what has been called against Toronto.

Looks like Calderon's great play the other night was a complete anomaly. He is back to being the complete scrub on both ends of the floor. I don't understand why he continues to throw the ball to Bargnani at the throw point line when they are in transition. I could understand if he was spotting up or something, but throwing it to a 7 footer on the move in transition is just poor game management on his part. DeRozan really needs to stop chucking up these off balance jumpers. He hasn't hit one of them yet tonight and has been struggling with his shot all season long. Get in the paint and stop settling.

The Pacers better watch out. Pretty soon Magloire is going to come back in and throw Hansbrough to the ground and then jump off the rim frog splashing him Rob Van Damn style. Then James Johnson will give Danny Granger some Sweet Chin Music. The two of them look ready to blow at any minute now. I'm not even joking when I say that it wouldn't surprise me if some sort of mini brawl broke out in this game, esepcially if the refs continue to call it so one sided.

Magloire throws Hansbrough to the court and then falls on top of him for good measure. Highlight of the game so far, right with his airball free throw. Hansbrough is really chucking some elbows out there. This game is starting to get a bit chippy. EDIT: How exactly is that a foul on Davis when Hansbrough is the one throwing the elbow? I like the physicallity, but it is kind of ridiculous how the refs are letting the Pacers play physically, but calling fouls on the Raptors whenever they try to. Call it both ways.

Nice job of Bayless pushing the ball. They were playing at way too slow of a pace when Calderon was in the game. They are not nearly good enough to play in a half court game and really need to get out on the break in order to play to their potential. Glad to see Bayless pushing the ball at every opportunity since coming into the game. I alo like what I've seen from Magloire so far. He is doing a nice job of using his size down low to create space, has been setting some solid screens and is talking on defense. He is starting to fade, though, as he clearly doesn't have the legs to play for more than 2-3 minute bursts at a time. Of course once I type this, Magloire goes and airballs a free throw.

Raptors offense is so terrible without Bargnani on the floor. Defenses don't respect the jumper of anybody else on the team so the spacing is absolutely horrific when he isn't on the floor. It also doesn't help that they don't have anybody else on the roster who is even remotely capable of creating their own shot. DeRozan hasn't shown any signs thus far that he is capable of taking on that role. I realize it is only the 2nd regular season game and all, so I'm not counting him out by any means, but his two preseason games and the start of this season haven't really shown much of an improvement when it comes to creating off of the dribble. Some credit does have to go to the Pacers defense, though. They play very well positionally and make sure to contest everything. On another note, Paul George is going to be a stud. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he ends up being better than Granger by the end of the season. Awesome, BIeber sighting. The Knicks have Spike, the Lakers have Jack and the Raptors got Biebs. We win.

Putting Amir on Hibbert is a disaster waiting to happen. He is a solid defender, but he is giving up about 4 inches and probably around 30 pounds. If the Pacers were smart, they would go right at that matchup as not only will it establish an inside presnece but it will more than likely force Amir to sit with early foul trouble, especially considering his propensity to foul. EDIT: Good job of Casey to switch Bargs onto Hibbert and an even better job of Bargs to use his quickness to draw the charge on him.

Talk about playing to the crowd. Out of all the players that they can get to speak to the crowd, the get Jamaal Magloire of all people. Not DeRozan, Bargnani, Davis or Johnson, but Magloire. And they use Drake as the music for the introductory video. On a more serious note, you could tell that this meant a lot to Magloire. He could barely get the words out and his voice was really cracking up towards the end of his speech.

Blah, I completely forgot that this game started an hour earlier than normal. Hopefully ED gets some more minutes tonight. He played really well in the 17-18 he got last night and was the Raptors best player in the preseason.

He put up 22 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks in 24 minutes today. In the Lithuanian league, he is currently averaging 17points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.6 blocks on 68 FG% and 90 FT% in 25 minutes a game. He has also toned down his foul issues as he is averaging 2.9 per game. In comparision, last year he averaged 3.2 in just 20 minutes a game. Ty Lawson averaged 7.7 points and 1.7 assistsin 16 minutes in the same league during his time over in Lithuania. Just throwing that out there.

The last two meetings between these two teams had interesting endings. There was also this magnificent quote from Danny Granger: Lets see if Granger talks a big game when he has a 6th degree kick boxing black belt in James Johnson on him. What I wouldn't give to see Granger try and start shit with Barbosa only to have Johnson walk up to him and see Granger tuck tail and shut up.

Oh, I completely agree with that. I don't think that they are a playoff team with a healthy Lopez either, but I don't think that they are a bottom 3 team in the league, either, which is exactly where they project to be until he comes back. It also doesn't help that Deron is shooting like 30% and has as many turnovers than assists in the first two games. They are just so short on talent that losing somebody like Lopez, who isn't anything special in his own right, makes this team look like they should be playing in the D-League (aside from Williams, of course).

I didn't mind Love taking the shot either, although if it were up to me I would've tried to get Beasley the look first rather than immediately going to Love. On most nights, I would give the ball to Love but he was really struggling with this shot last night (as evident by his 6-18 shooting) and he was doing most of his damage from the foul line. Beasley, on the other hand, seemed to be feeling it in the 4th and, I may be mistaken, but he had hit something like 4 of his last 5 shots. I'm not criticizing the decision by any means since Love has proven that he is more than capable of hitting that shot and he is the franchise guy. As for Rubio, his problem is that teams don't have to worry about him scoring the ball at all. He has no jumper and isn't really all that quick either. He is very crafty and does a nice job of finding the open man and using screens, but in a one-on-one situation he isn't all that tough to defend because of how predictable he is. That is why he is really going to have to develop his jumper if he ever wants to be a great player. He won't be able to get by without a jumper like Rondo has because, unlike Rondo who nobody can keep in front of, Rubio doesn't possess that insane ability to create off the bounce.

Great 4th quarter effort from the Wolves to make a game of this. They could've easily rolled over and died after the lead got to 20 points, but they battled back and cut into the lead behind Beasley's strong 4th quarter. They showed a lot of hear to come back, but ultimately they dug themselves into too much of a hole to get out of and ended up falling 3 points short. Love had a rough night shooting the ball, but he more than made up for it by taking 24 free throws and grabbing 20 rebounds. Ideally you would've liked to free up Beasley for an open three considering how hot he was in the 4th (or Ridnour since he was hot all night long) and that Love had struggled all night with his shot, but I can understand going to Love for the final basket considering he is the best player on the team and its not like he had a terrible look. For the Bucks, I was really impressed by Leuer who hit some big shots and came up with some solid defensive plays at the end. For a rookie, he showed a lot of poise out there. Jennings was the best Buck on the floor, though. He didn't have a lot of assists, although I guess 7 could be considered a lot for him, but he had an excellent floor game to go along with his 24 points. I thought he did an excellent job of running the offense and when the rest of the Bucks got jump shot happy in the 4th, he made an effort to get into the paint and not settle, including setting up Leuer for the big 3 point play that pretty much sealed the game for them. Very impressed by his game tonight.

Miami is terrible against the zone. They were useless against Dallas in the Finals and can't do anything against Boston in this game. They really need to sort out their zone offense. Cole has hit some big shots in this quarter, though. They haven't been difficult ones, but still impressed none the less.

Big 3 from Beasley who has really come on in the 4th. What was once a 20 point lead for the Bucks has been cut down to just 5.

No way was that a charge. Huge call there. Instead of a Boston basket, or, at the very least, a trip to the line, Miami comes down and extends the lead to 10. Huge 4 point swing.

Bucks really falling in love with the jumper right now and that has allowed the Wolves to get on a run and make a game of this. Jackson especially needs to stop chucking as he is ice cold from the floor. He took the ball to the rim off of a nice pass from Bogut earlier and they need more of that if they want to close this game out, not outside jumpers. Give credit to the Wolves, though. They've done a nice job of shutting down the paint in this quarter. They couldn't guard the paint at all early in the game but they made the adjustment and it has allowed them back into the game.

Evans doing a great job of attacking Felton in transition for back-to-back easy baskets. Good recognition on Evans' part to go right at the slower Felton.

It is kind of ridiculous that it took them an entire year before they realized that there is not a team in the league that can stop the Heat in transition. Better late than never, though.