Lillard sets a franchise record with 60 points in a loss to the Nets. McCollum is in his usual 10 game slump after one good game. The guy has become unreliable on the court. When a rookie (Simons) out-scores you in every game, your days are numbered. Good show by rookie Nasir Little in his first pro game. The guy has hustle and drive.
My guess is that Portland will be 3-8 by Thanksgiving.
Golden State is denying this. Apparently Dion Waiters overdosed on edibles in the Miami team plane.
Jesus fucking Cripes: three more are likely on the bench, two of them the remaining centers. They are actually having to call up someone from the G-League to play the position. :smack:
Celtics player Gordon Hayward suffered another injury.
538.com pegged the Raptors as going 48-34, just like RickJay. I think they’ll do better, and am calling for 56-26. They’re off to a pretty good start, though injuries might hurt.
I liked watching playing Golden State and hope they manage to rebuild with all the injuries. It’s sad and painful to see.
The Lakers heavy favourites over the Raptors, with Lowry out and Ibaka day to day. But the Raptors dominated the second half and pulled through. Depth of their roster continues to impress. I don’t think they’ll repeat, but I do think they’ll surprise folks.
Clippers-Raptors should be a good game tonight. Two good teams, one moving up and the other moving down (in the bigger picture), but both should do pretty well in the playoffs.
I’d never heard of Montrezl Harrell (Clippers 6’7”power forward) until yesterday. Apparently quite a player — any thoughts?
Harrell is pretty formidable. He chewed through the Blazer defense like they weren’t there.
Looking forward to the game. We’ll see if the Raptors third strings shine again when the pressure is on. The Clippers are a great team. They’re goin’ down!
Kyle Lowry is out for at least a month and that will cost them a few games, and Serge Ibaka is out for maybe several months and that won’t help matters. As great as they looked against the Lakers last night, giving Lowry’s minutes to Norm Powell is not going to be an upgrade, and Chris Boucher isn’t going to be that good every night.
I think 56-26 is really, really optimistic but this is a really good team with a great coach and a GM who knows how to find talent. Going deep in the playoffs remains in the cards. Coming out of the East is still entirely possible.
Presumably, Lowry has an avulsion fracture of a ligament in his thumb. This will heal well but will probably knock him out for 6-8 weeks.
Ibaka has an ankle sprain. These range from very mild to very severe injuries. Ibaka could be back this week or next month.
Yes, it’s optimistic. But less so then their starting numbers. And they really played well, it’s hard to shut down Lebron, as the Raptors know better than anyone. Some optimism is warranted, but of course what happens happens. Their bench will surprise a lot of people.
Okay, maybe the Raptors coming close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
But they were on the toughest back-to-back in B-ball, Lakers then Clippers. Anunoby was poked in the eye 1:47 into the first quarter. Without Anunoby, Serge and Kyle they outplayed LAC for three quarters. No fouls were called when Anunoby was blindsided and the imbalance in foul calls was surprising. Van Vleet must have been on the floor for close to the entire second half with Anunoby hurt — and the Clippers were still lucky to have won.
The Raptors have heart. They’re going to go further than you think.
These injuries are really hurting the game.
My Pacers improved to 7-4 with a 26-point drubbing of the Oklahoma City Thunder. We’re half a game behind the Bucks in the Central.
The Raptors are now REALLY banged up. It’s going to be very difficult for them to beat Portland and Dallas.
Nah. Portland is a sitting duck. Even Lillard, who is pretty upbeat, is looking disgusted with their play. They had 17 turnovers last night, leading to 18 points by SAC, and had a total meltdown (again) in the 3rd quarter. If they don’t start to gel as a team, I don’t see them breaking 50% this year.
An eye contusion typically causes 1-2 days of pain, but I doubt Anunoby will be out long.
The Lowry injury will hurt. Hopefully Serge is back soon too. Ankle sprains vary a lot.
In the third quarter, the Raptors and Portland are basically tied. We’ll see how it goes.
Great to see Raptors pull it off, going to 3 and 1 on the road and 8 and 3 overall. Siakam pots 36 points and youths Rondae Hollis-Jefferson impressive with 16 points and 11 rebounds (and great D) and Terence Davies with 15 - those two were especially impressive in the fourth. I was concerned the Blazers were gonna eventually surge ahead during impressive late 3rd-quarter/early 4th play from Christian Wood (who AIUI is happier now than in Utah), and then Lillard and McCollum making their presence felt n the 4th, but then the downward spiral was sealed when, (the way I see it), with five left in the fourth, Portland travelled two trips in a row (when down by eight - whoa).
Boucher will be interesting to watch this season.
Well, you called it. Lillard had nine points all night; Fred VanVleet choked him to death. Fred put on a defensive clinic.
Nick Nurse is the best coach in the NBA. He’s rolling guys out there who I think had bought tickets to the game and were called down from the stands and given souvenir jerseys. Particularly striking was that he started Malcolm Miller, who proceeded to play seven of the worst minutes you could possibly imagine; Miller would have been outclassed in a WNBA game. Most coaches would have rolled with Miller longer, figuring he’d do something a maybe snap out of it. Nurse promptly benched him and he didn’t see the floor again; “I need to pretend I didn’t make a mistake” is not a Nick Nurse thing to say. Instead he gave minutes to the wonderfully named Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, whose name starts at the bottom of his uniform number and wraps all the way around; Rondae was fantastic. He also got 30 sensational minutes out of Terence Davis, an undrafted rookie no one has heard of but who did everything on both ends of the floor.