After losing three of four, the Raps rebound with back-to-back road wins against the hot Clippers and Golden State. The latter game had Curry go 2 for 8 and Thompson 0 for 5, which was on obvious help, but winning by 20 - convincing enough. It must be nice for Draymond to have apparent immunity from calls - including absolutely flagrantly as fuck fouling Wright, and then two minutes later sending Vallincuinas out of the game for whacking his thumb, again without a call, among other let-offs.:mad:
Coach Nurse, after the game, immediately went to Iowa for his mom’s funeral - kinda heavy, near the end of the game, seeing him on the bench, looking down, wiping his eyes.
Toronto is 7-1 without Leonard in the line-up, which I hope bodes well for the play-offs. (He rested against GS last night) (And, to be fair to Oakland, Iguodala didn’t play)
Actually - those were just 3-point stats, in my previous post: Curry went 3 for 12 and Thompson - don’t know. Lowry picked up his 100th double-double and didn’t suck. Too bad they’re meeting only twice this season - doesn’t sound as good when saying they did a series sweep. Heh - first time TO won there since 2004, and went 4-0 in California this season for the first time in franchise history.
The Blazers meet Toronto tomorrow, so the Raptors can rest the entire team and just send in one or two players. After a brilliant start against Houston, the Blazers just fell asleep in the second half and let the Rockets walk away from them. I think they’re now 9th place in the west, with their bench going from excellent to utter shite in the last half dozen games.
I don’t think I’d ascribe much significance to the Leonard-free record; it’s a small data set. The victory in Oakland was impressive as hell, but it’s one game.
The Raptors absolutely can win the championship. I am not saying they will, and if offered an even money bet on a Raptors-Warriors finals I will put my money on the Warriors, but this is, honestly, the first Raptors team in franchise history that has a measurable chance of winning it all.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on its significance, then: if that record was reversed, I feel that would be also significant, but negatively so. Eight games obviously isn’t a season, yeah I get that, however it’s certainly substantial enough to give a pretty convincing (and reassuring!) indication of how the Raps are managing without him, so far. I think it’s crucial to start to get an idea if the Raps can win without him, to show how much depth they have. I would not downplay that in the least.
I don’t think there’s any doubt Toronto is the deepest team in the league. I’m merely saying I would not go as far as some have in saying they’re a BETTER team without Leonard.
A case can be made that Boston has as much depth. They have 6 players scoring in double figures to the Raptors 5 (Denny Green just missing the cut at 9.6 per, w FVV close behind at 9.3), and they have 8 players averaging 20 minutes a game to Toronto’s 7 (Valenciunas at 18.8). That said, this Raptor team is playing the best basketball in the league right now, and they are very fun to watch. I look forward to rooting for them in June against the Dubs.
Good close Raptors/Blazers game the other night, and kudos to the latter for edging out a hot team that just came off wins over the Clips and GS.
TO’s looking at another tough one on the road against the Nuggets today.
I really thought they were going to blow it in the last three minutes, after leading for the entire game. The Blazers’ bench showed the energy and drive that they showed early in the season, scoring 50 points. Even Littlecurry hit some nice long bombs.
My Pacers have won their last seven games in a row, including wins over the Bucks and 76ers. The rest of the month looks like cupcakes for the most part-- home games against Cleveland, Washington, and Atlanta, and road games against Brooklyn and Atlanta. We also have a road game vs. Toronto and a home game against Detroit, but really, if we beat the teams we should be beating, we could have sole possession of first place in the Central Division by the end of the year, and maybe even the #1 rank in the Eastern Conference. (Not that I’m saying we’re actually better than Toronto, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia.)
I heard some folks making lofty predictions about the Pacers before the season. I didn’t think much of them, but they’ve got a pretty solid collection of guards. If Myles Turner can figure out how to be a basketball player, they can be a force with him and Sabonis down low.
The Nuggets beat Toronto without Kyle Lowry. Lowry apparently has a bruised thigh, right after he seemed to have corrected a stretch of just abysmal shooting.
Hell, even the Blazers beat Toronto without Lowry. More recently, their bench took out the Clippers and the Grizz fairly handily. Memphis pretty much stymied Lillard and McCollum, but didn’t seem to have an answer for the Blazers bench’s ball movement.
After a couple of dismal performances against the Jazz, Portland took on the Warriors last night. It was a great game, with outstanding play on both sides, other than the Warriors poor performance at the free-throw line. The one-point overtime Blazer win was right down to the wire, with KD clanging one off the rim with five seconds left and the resulting ball scramble going in Portland’s favor. But the best part of the game was, with .2 seconds left in regular time, when Curry tried to inbound an alley-oop for the win. The ball arced high towards the basket. . .and swished. Had to be a first, and both teams laughed about it. The guy can’t seem to miss from 3-point land, even when it’s not intentional.
With no end in sight with Kyle Lowry’s absence, (and following one of their most depressing losses this season, in San Antonio), a not-in-top-form Toronto go into league-leading Milwaukee tonight and finish off with a 123-115 win with a career-high 30-point game from Pascal Siakam, 25 points from Serge Ibaka and 21 points from Fred VanVleet, the latter going 5 of 8 from 3, and was particularly strong in the forth. Antentokuonmpo of course ends up with the usual ho hum 43 points and 18 rebounds.
With four 20+ point Raptors tonight - would be nice to maintain that balance, especially in the spring.
Great turnaround Ibaka has made from last season. Tonight third quarter he did a definitive block on the always-fluky number 34 guy and then came downcourt to swish a downtown’er. I told SI to sleep with one eye open, but Antemtokuonmpo never rejected him back.
Portland has rebounded into 4th place in the west. How they are able to beat the Rockets fairly handily, but barely squeak by the Knicks is a mystery to me. So far, this is the best season first half for them since the 14-15 season. They’re moving the ball much better, playing less hero-ball, and defending really well. Nurkic is killing it, with double-doubles being his norm, rather than the exception, and was even high scorer a couple of times. WTF? And Seth Curry has gone from being a lame duck to being double-teamed every time he’s on the court.
I don’t think they’ll make it past the first round, but stranger things have happened. Charlotte tonight, then Denver (shudder).
Pacers are third in the Eastern Conference, behind only Toronto and Milwaukee, and ahead of both Boston and Philadelphia. We completed a 3-2 road trip with an ESPN prime-time win against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
We’re beating the teams we should beat, but having a bit of a hard time against the elite teams in the NBA.
Portland swatted the Hornets, leading by as many as 35 at one point. They had 16 blocked shots in the game, which was one short of the franchise record, and Nurkic came close to his first triple double. He’ll have his hands full with his old teammate Jokic in tonight’s game, however.