Built Ford Tough

Curry seems to finally settled in out there. Tonight was his 4th straight game with 20+ points and 10+ assists and over his past 5 games he is averaging 21 points, 9.6 assists, 3 rebounds and 2.6 steals. He still isn't shooting up to his typical numbers (43.6 FG%) although he is lighting it up from deep (55.6% from three). Golden State is also 4-1 over those 5 games. Thompson went off in that 3rd quarter. 19 of his 27 came in the 3rd and 14 of those were in the first 7 or 8 minutes. He is a joy to watch when he is on a roll.

Lol. I never realized that DeRozan actually signed his contract extension in the tunnel of the ACC literally minutes before the tip off of the first game of the season. He ran out of the huddle after the introductions to go back to the tunnel to sign the contract and then ran to the floor for the opening tip. Speaking of DeRozan, I really wish he was more talented. His personality, work ethic, mentality and passion for the game is everything you would want in a franchise player. The only thing missing is the talent, which really is unfortunate. As far as this game goes, Davis looks good and DeRozan has stuck some jumpers, but those are about the only positives I can come up with. Lowry in particular has looked like ass on both ends of the floor.

Lol, I didn't realize people would take this so seriously. I thought it was pretty obvious it wasn't intended to be some super serious comparision. My bad. Anyways, Player A is Andrea Bargnani and Player B is Byron Mullens. For people who didn't know who the players were before hand, how does this change your opinion (if it does)?

Revised the question becaue I should've expected something like this would come up, although I don't blame you for the response considering it was probably the best answer.

Player A 17.0 ppg 4.5 rpg 1.4 apg 0.8 spg 39.7 FG%, 35.7 3PT%, 49.2 TS% on 15.8 FGA 13.4 PER 97 ORTG, 107 DRTG 34 mpg Player B 12.9 ppg 8.2 rpg 1.2 apg 1.2 spg 37.5 FG%, 28.2 3PT%, 46.7 TS% 13.3 PER 97 ORTG, 104 DRTG 33 mpg Gun to your head, who do you pick (and you have to pick one)? (Even if you realize who the players are, keep it to yourself for at least a little while please so that answers won't be swayed by names or what not).

Yeah, my heart breaks for you guys.

Yeah, it is a real thing. Hollins won the award for the Western Conference. As for the award, it has existed since the 1982-83 season and since the 2002-03 season both conferences have had a coach of the month award.

Nah, the play following that timeout was the one where Lowry got to the left side of the block, pump faked, and then got his shot blocked by Faried after he came over from the weakside. Ross' 3 came about a minude and a half earlier.

Speaking of Casey, I'm starting to wonder what exactly goes through his head at times. There were another two glaring blunders on his part that ended up playing a huge role in this game. 1) Toronto goes on a huge run and Denver looks awful missing everything, turning the ball over and not playing any defense. I'm sitting here thinking that Karl is going to be taking a timeout for 3 straight possessions and even Devlin and Armstrong are talking about how much of a surprise it is that Karl hasn't called a timeout yet. Casey then decides to inexplicably call a timeout after a 2nd Denver turnover in 3 possessions. I guess he wanted to do his old mentor a solid and call a timeout for him or something. 2. Lowry has Faried switched on him 23 feet from the basket with 10 seconds left on the shot clock. Lowry looks like he is just about to make his move and Casey calls timeout, which allows Denver to put their best defender (Iguodala) on Lowry, get their defense set and only gives Toronto 10 seconds to make their move. What happens at the end of the game? Toronto is down by 3 with 5 seconds left and are forced to throw up a desperation heave at the buzzer after going the full length of the court because they don't have any timeouts left.

I'll take it a step further and say that it would be the happiest moment in franchise history and I'm not being overdramatic. I genuinely think that would be the happiest moment in my time as a Raptors fan.

How sad is it that I didn't feel joy, excitement or any emotion at all during the Raptors late game comeback? I've become completely numb to this team.

Reminds me of the time Sam Mitchell won Coach of the Year.

5'10 Ty Lawson just got an offensive rebound over Bargnani.

When this team is bad, they are bad. This is just brutal to watch.

They didn't lose the game because of that. They lost the game because they couldn't hold onto a 15 point 4th quarter lead. That was a Raptors-esque 4th quarter performance. Even if Gay catches that pass and scores the two points, all that does is tie the game at 97 a piece. It's not like that would've taken away a game winning basket or anything. If you really want to get technical, that play never should've even happened anyways. It should've been the Grizzlies ball out of bounds in the backcourt. The play leading up to that was a clear 24 second violation on the Spurs. Not only did the shot from Neal not hit rim, he still had the ball as the shot clock expired.

Not only that, but it was an overtime game where San Antonio took advantage late because they seemingly had more gas in the tank down the stretch. Memphis' offense got stagnant and struggled with the Spurs physicality and pressure. Their usual tenacious defense also got lackluster and had breakdowns that San Antonio took advantage of. Then on top of that, Duncan had 27 points, 15 boards and 4 assists with a TS% of 70.3%. He had 21 points and 8 boards on 9-12 shooting in the first half and him and Parker were the only reason why the game was just a 1 point defecit at the half. In other words, one of the 5 best games he has had since the start of the 2010-11 season. A nice little FU to Stern.

Nice article from Zach Lowe on Grantland about the much improved Warriors defense and how it has enabled them to get off to a very good start despite shooting struggles from Curry and Thompson, a difficult schedule, a season ending injury to Brandon Rush and no Andrew Bogut. http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/43662/warriors-come-out-and-play-defense There is also more good stuff that I didn't quote above. I remember having a discussion with Nitro before the season started about the Warriors defense and I was more optimistic than he was, but that was because of having a healthy Bogut. Even with a healthy Bogut, I didn't envision the Warriors playing this well defensively, let alone doing it without their defensive anchor. If they can continue to play this well defensively when Bogut returns to the lineup, they are going to be a playoff team in my opinion when you factor in that Bogut will only make them better defensively, as well as offensively with his passing ability and just being a vastly superior offensive player than Festus Ezeli. Even if Bogut gets injured again or whatever, they are still a threat to make the playoffs if they continue to defend and clean up the glass like this because odds are Curry isn't going to continue to shoot in the low 40's from 16-23 feet and barely above 30% from 3-9 feet. Same thing with Thompson as I don't see him continuing to shoot in the low 30's from 3, and under 30% from 3-15 feet.

Pretty simple really, how valuable is this pick for the Thunder? Toronto is looking like they are going to fall short of preseason expectations where many believed they'd be fighting for a playoff spot, but ultimately finishing 9th-10th in the East. Instead, Toronto is currently sitting tied for the 2nd worst record in the league and are about to enter a hellish 2 weeks in their schedule (a 10 day, 5 game west coast trip and then returning home to play Brooklyn, Dallas and Houston n a 6 day, 3 game homestand) that could easily see them sitting around 6-20 or worse. Their schedule is very home heavy towards the 2nd half of the season and should likely result in them working their way out of the bottom 4 or so in the league, but at that point will too much damage have been done? The pick is top 3 protected this season but I find it unlikely that Toronto will end up with a top 3 pick (unless they get lottery luck) but it is looking very likely that it will end up in the 4-8 range. If you were Presti, what would you do with this pick? Say Toronto is sitting with the 5th/6th worst record in the league at the deadline, would you look to flip the pick for a low post scorer? Would you keep the pick to use for yourself? Would you hold onto it and then look to possibly make a move on draft night?

Kentucky has some serious issues to work out that will be interesting to watch as the season goes on. Can Goodwin develop as a point guard and effectively run the offense? Or will he always be a 2 guard masquerading as a point? Will Harrow step up and be that guy which would allow Goodwin to shift to the 2 and do what he does best, which is score the ball? Where will the easy baskets come from? Noel isn't polished enough to dump the ball to and expect a basket and Wiljter is strickly a stretch 4. Who is the leader of this team? When things are going rough, like in this game against Baylor, who gathers the team and settles everybody down? Even though they've also been young under Cal, they had experienced upper classmen like Darius Miller and Josh Harrellson. They don't have that guy this season. I'm hardly a Kentucky fan, but it will be fun to see how they team progresses as the season goes along. I won't deny that it will be nice to see a possible down year for Kentucky because I fully expect next season to see them as a top ranked team yet again with their ridiculous recruiting class (which could get even scarier if they get Wiggins). On to the 2nd half of the Cowboys game. Looking forward to getting my 2nd look at Marcus Smart. As I mentioned above, I think he is an absolute stud and is going to be an awesome player.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121130_IND@SAC

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121130_MIL@MIN

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121130_DET@MEM

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/gametracker/recap/NBA_20121130_PHI@CHA

Awesome day of college basketball. Baylor and Kentucky now Oklahoma Sate and Virgina Tech in about 15 minutes. UNC playing in about 4 hours. Then to finish the day we have SDSU and UCLA. (these are just the games I'll likely be watching, not what I consider the best games of the day) Not to mention OSU, Duke, Creighton, Gonzaga, Michigan, Arizona and Indiana are all playing throughout the day as well. I definitely see myself vegging out and watching college ball all day today. You probably won't come away too impressed. His role on the team is basically that of a lesser version of Davis last year in that he doesn't really do a whole lot on offense and makes most of his impact on the defensive end. However, he isn't the same defensive monster that Davis was last year so he doesn't stand out as much. Not that he isn't a good player because he is, but I imagine you will notice somebody like Archie Goodwin or Alex Poythress (assuming he shows up since he has a tendency to disappear for games at a time) more.

I don't believe it, the Raptors win and it is because Andrea Bargnani played excellent defense on 4 straight possessions and then grabbed a huge defensive rebound at the end of the game. The world truly is going to come to an end in a couple weeks. If this isn't a sign of the world ending, I don't know what is.