Chicago @ Toronto

[alcstarheel]

Chicago @ Toronto
Time: 7:00 PM ET
TV: --

[Real Deal]

This could be a great game to watch. Toronto has been struggling defensively, and the Bulls are beating (or almost beating) some of the league's contenders.

 

Rose had a good scoring night against Billups, so I can only wonder what he's going to do to Calderon...and we also saw Noah eat up the glass, and the Raptors are currently 26th in total rebounds, while the Bulls should be hanging out with the top 15 of the league.

 

Watching the Raptors choke in the fourth, and seeing how they have tons of trouble defending most spots on the floor, I can't give them the win here, despite it being a back-to-back for the Bulls.

[Lemon]

I think this one goes to Raptors. They're still one of the most efficient offensive teams even if defense isn't there. The only way I see Chicago winning is if Salmons steps up.

[BasX]

This Raptors team is so hard to gauge. Part of that has to due with the 9 new players and the earliness of the season. I think BFT will post his thoughts and it will be essentially what I feel as well.

[BasX]

Am I Naive to think we need to get DeRozan the ball alot more. Like ALOT more.

[Check my Stats]

We should be running a couple more plays for him or getting him some touches. With him out there at times it feels like we only have 4 guys on the floor because he just gives the ball to Jose once he gets it.

 

But Bargs, Bosh and Hedo all come first. I prefer Demar staying within himself rather than trying to create. If he gets consistent with his spot up jumper he will become more involved.

[Check my Stats]

Over/Under 230 combined?

 

Anyone else concerned Bargnani is falling back into his jump shots only mode again?

 

EDIT- Lol then he does the drive

Edited November 12, 2009 by travesy3

[Built Ford Tough]

So it looks like Taj Gibson will star in today's edition of "Which Scrub Will Torch the Toronto Raptors". 10 points already for Gibson.

[Real Deal]

So it looks like Taj Gibson will star in today's edition of "Which Scrub Will Torch the Toronto Raptors". 10 points already for Gibson.

LOL, to put some light at the end of the tunnel, Gibson is a decent player with loads of potential. He shouldn't be dropping that many points yet, though, but with some rooks, you really don't know what you'll get.

 

Bosh needs to step up his game, both sides of the ball...and I have this gut feeling that Rose is just toying with Calderon, preserving his energy for the fourth.

[Built Ford Tough]

LOL, to put some light at the end of the tunnel, Gibson is a decent player with loads of potential. He shouldn't be dropping that many points yet, though, but with some rooks, you really don't know what you'll get.

 

Bosh needs to step up his game, both sides of the ball...and I have this gut feeling that Rose is just toying with Calderon, preserving his energy for the fourth.

 

I agree with you about Gibson. I actually really liked him coming out of USC and thought that he was a great late 1st round pickup for the Bulls. On NBAD I said that he could end up being the steal of the draft (before Blair dropped to the 2nd round). I don't actually consider him to be a scrub, but it just sounded so much better saying "which scrub" rather than "which role player" lol.

 

Bosh has always seemed to have troubles with Noah. His length really seems to bother Bosh on the offensive end. He is starting to pick it up though and is attacking the rim.

 

And Wright is starting to think he is Kobe Bryant again with all of these pull up jumpers with hands in his face. God does this guy annoy me.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Built Ford Tough

[Check my Stats]

Why do we help everytime someone, regardless of who they are, get the ball 8 feet from the basket, would rather them get the 2 then a wide open 3.

 

Co-sign that notion on Wright, also wish Jack would stop shooting and start slashing.

 

Bosh gets his eyes gouged out no call, and Miller gets that. Bosh got mugged for a no call, the refs are so suspect sometimes damnit.

Edited November 12, 2009 by travesy3

[Built Ford Tough]

This has been the best game of the season so far for DeRozan (9/8 so far). Not that I am complaining about his play so far this year because I have actually been very impressed by him so far, but he has really stood out tonight. He is being aggressive on offense, doing a good job of keeping the ball alive on the offensive glass and just being active on the floor in general. He could've had a couple of more easy baskets as well if his teammates looked for him more. I have counted a couple of times so far that he was wide open in the corner with a clear lane to the hoop but Calderon or Bargnani took a semi-contested jumper instead of swinging it to him.

 

Hopefully his solid play gives him some etra minutes so I don't have to put up with Wright lol.

 

Hopefully that last dunk of his can ignite the Raptors because they have looked like the team on the tail end of a back-to-back, not the Bulls. They have played very flat all game, especially in the 3rd quarter thus far.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Built Ford Tough

[Lemon]

i'm not watching, but is Hinrich trying to do some pretty passes to get those Turnovers?

[Real Deal]

i'm not watching, but is Hinrich trying to do some pretty passes to get those Turnovers?

Nah, he's fitting passes into tight spots (some that he shouldn't be), and some of the guys aren't handling passes well, either. Just a collective effort, really.

[Built Ford Tough]

i'm not watching, but is Hinrich trying to do some pretty passes to get those Turnovers?

 

Not that I have noticed. He had some miscommunication with teammates a couple of times and he has left his feet to make the pass a couple of times as well, but other than that he hasn't been forcing it too often. He has had some passes bounce right off of teammates finger tips as well. Just some bad breaks both ways really.

 

That was a huge swing on the clear path foul. Bargnani makes the 2 freebies and Calderon sticks a jumper afterwards. Big 4 point swing right there.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Built Ford Tough

[Check my Stats]

Nice... played COD for a bit and come back to watch the Raptors getting stops and Bargs getting a steal.

[Built Ford Tough]

Fatiuge is defintiely setting in for the Bulls right now. Their shots are all flat and short, they are having passes bounce off of their hands and are just making plenty of mental mistakes.

 

Another flat shot from Rose right there. Earlier in the game the Bulls were getting more arc on these shots and there were falling as a result.

 

Chris Bosh has been an absolute monster tonight. He has been battling down low on offense all game long. I can't even count how many times he has battled on the offensive glass and kept the ball alive. The greatest thing about this is that Bosh isn't just fighting with one Bull, but he is outrebounding multiple Bulls to come away with it. He has been an absolute monster tonight. I love the way that he is playing so far this year.

 

Raptors defense has really stepped up in the second half, 4th quarter in particular though. The Bulls are shooting 19% in the quarter and although some of that can be attributed to fatigue, the Raptors have stepped up their defensive intesnity and it is showing. The Bulls only have 28 points in the second half. The Spurs didn't have a single quarter on Monday night where they didn't score at least 30.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Built Ford Tough

[Real Deal]

Wow, Chicago's shots just...stopped falling. Credit Toronto for getting in their faces on a lot of them, though...but even open jumpers were rimming out.

 

Good win by the Raptors. They didn't allow over 90, haha.

[Check my Stats]

Noah is making Bosh work his [expletive] off, refs seem to be pretty hesitant to call fouls on Bosh compared to usual, at least from what I've seen. I agree with you on Bosh he is playing on a completely other level right now, some Vince Carter type stuff we are witnessing in terms of domination right now, 7 straight games over 25 which is 1 game shy of the record set by Vince.

 

Has Wright been covering Rose a lot in the second half? I just saw a couple plays where he was on him and I am just curious. I would like to see Wright get a lot more of the assignments against the quicker PG's. Would rather see a SG post up Jose than see PG's burn his [expletive] play after play.

 

This was a huge win though, we absolutely could not go back on the road 3-5. We go in 4-4 and we can now afford to lose 2 of those games, if we come out of this gross schedule 5-6 that would be satisfactory. Besides Memphis we are taking care of the teams we are supposed to.

 

Lol at Jose's post game interview he is so excited, surprised he didn't start speaking in Spanish.

[Built Ford Tough]

- Chris Bosh showed tonight just why it is very realistic to consider him as the best power forward in the NBA as of RIGHT NOW. I may sound like a homer but if you have watched him all season long like I have you would think the same thing. He got off to a slow start in the first half shooting just 4/11 (finished the game 9/21 and 10/10 from the stripe) but unlike in years past that did not take away from the rest of his game. He was all over the glass tonight. His 11 rebounds tonight did not do him justice. He was battling all night on the offensive glass, especially in the 2nd half. Almost all of his rebounds were great traffic boards as well. He was the difference tonight in the 4th quarter.

 

- DeMar DeRozan had his best game in his young NBA career tonight. He was active on offense and defense and especially on the glass. He finished the game with a career high 10 rebounds and kept the ball alive probably another 4 or 5 times as well. He was just all over the court tonight and doing exactly what the Raptors want from him. The turning point of the game was his fast break dunk midway through the 3rd quarter. Up until that point the team was completely flat but after that dunk they seemed to be rejuvinated. He finished the game with 9 points, 10 boards and 2 blocks in 18 minutes. Loved his game tonight.

 

- Jose Calderon had his best game of the season tonight. It was very refreshing to see him be aggressive on offense and not settling for jumpers all game. He did a great job of turning the corner and getting right to the rim where he is actually a pretty good finisher. His defense wasn't terrible tonight either, which is about the best compliment I have given him all season long. Finished the game with 18/6 on 8/10 shooting.

 

- Jack and Wright were both awful tonight. Jarrett Jack has been just awful this entire season. He has been doing nothing on offense and defensively he hasn't been making any sort of difference either. He needs to lay off of the jumpers and focus more on getting into the lane and finding teammates. Wright really needs to stop with the thinking that he is going to contribute anything offensively. He can't dribble, yet you always see him try and make these crossover or behind the back moves in traffic which almost always lead to a turnover. The only thing that he can do offensively is occasionaly knock down shots. His defense is solid, but if he continues to play like this I don't want to see him on the floor because his defense does not make up for the boneheaded decisions on offense.

 

- One reserve that I really liked tonight was Amir Johnson. Unlike normal he played very under control on offense and defense. He did a good job in the 4th quarter just being physical down low. I liked Triano's decision to keep him in the game down the stretch as his defense and rebounding helped a lot. Good game from Johnson, the best of the season from him thus far.

 

- Defensively the Raptors did a very good job on Derrick Rose tonight. Even though he finished with better numbers than his season averages, I like what they did on him defensively. They were really sagging off of him and forcing him to shoot jumpers while limiting his penetration as much as possible. Derrick Rose isn't nearly the same player when he is forced to shoot jumpers. When you lack defensive talent like the Raptors do you have to make up for it by playing smart defense. Tonight was the first time all year that I can say that they played smart defense (at least in the 2nd half).

 

- I really liked the way that Joakim Noah played tonight for Chicago. He played very good defense on Bosh using his length to really bother him and challenge him. He played physically down low and did a good job on the glass as well. Him and Hinrich are two players that I would absolutely love on Toronto. Noah's tougness, defense and rebounding would be the perfect compliment to Chris Bosh and Hinrich's defense and basketball smarts would be great at the point guard spot as well.

 

- The Raptors need to continue to play with this type of effort during this upcoming west coast trip. They have a very tough schedule coming up with games against the Clippers, Suns, Jazz and Nuggets so they can't afford to let these teams get off to the type of start that Chicago did tonight, especially on the road.

 

Solid win for the Raptors. The Bulls just didn't have enough in the tank and slowed down considerably in the 2nd half. The Raptors, specifically Chris Bosh and DeMar DeRozan, really stepped it up in the 3rd quarter and that was the difference in the game.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Built Ford Tough

[wired]

Amir Johnson is a TANK. I absolutely loved the way he played tonight. He didn't try anything outside of his role .. cough*wright. He did a great job keeping balls alive and not letting Chicago get easy boards.

[Doc]

Me and Jammin were at this game today. It was pretty good. I didn't like how the Raptors again forgot to give the ball to the hot hand in the beginning of the 2nd half.I felt like there was alot ofmissed calls. I really liked how Jay put Wright on Rose in the last 2 mins, Demar had a great game! His jam on Deng was so sexy, but then Gibson made him sit on his [expletive] when Demar thought he had a open dunk. Hedo really faded off in the 2nd half,really didn't domuch. Bargs is started to force again then letting the ball come to him. Also, JOSE YOU BEAST!

[Built Ford Tough]

Me and Jammin were at this game today. It was pretty good. I didn't like how the Raptors again forgot to give the ball to the hot hand in the beginning of the 2nd half.I felt like there was alot ofmissed calls. I really liked how Jay put Wright on Rose in the last 2 mins, Demar had a great game! His jam on Deng was so sexy, but then Gibson made him sit on his [expletive] when Demar thought he had a open dunk. Hedo really faded off in the 2nd half,really didn't domuch. Bargs is started to force again then letting the ball come to him. Also, JOSE YOU BEAST!

 

I just finished watching Rapators Post Up on Raptors TV and Triano mentioned something about Turkoglu possibly injuring himself at some point. He was very vauge about it but he just said that he noticed that Turkoglu seemed to be struggling out there and what not.

 

I didn't notice anything while watching the game so I can't really comment or speculate about it.

 

I agree with you about putting Wright on Rose, particularly because the Bulls ran a lot of screen and rolls during this game (or at least I noticed them running a lot) and in the 2nd half the Raptors started to switch a lot of them. Having Wright on Rose made it so that when the Raps did switch the screens they still had a player with some decent size on one of the Bulls big men rather than somebody like Jose Calderon or Jarrett Jack. Wright's length allowed him to sag off of Rose and still be able to contest his shots as well, which was a good move too.

[Doc]

Thepick and roll was hurting the raps so much until the change. The mix of the Bulls being tired and Raps actually play a college level of defense was a big factor.

 

Yeah, I was reading last night that he hurt his Hip.