Blogs Courtside

In a battle of two teams mixing NBAers with D-Leaguers, the Raptors looked great early and awful late.

The Raptors just have Cleveland’s number, with or without Kyrie Iriving, but, even if you make a team miss 65% of their shots, if you only make 30% of your own – as the Raptors did throughout the second half – you’re not going to win.

Some thoughts:

- DeMar DeRozan seems to have rounded out his game nicely. Not only is he getting to the line more than ever, but he’s also more active defensively – particularly in terms of looking to disrupt or block opponent shots. He told me earlier in the year that he has plenty of energy to score 20 points a night, plus play tough defence and now he’s starting to show it.

- Ed Davis is playing the best basketball of his career. With him, a lot of it is how much does he want it? How hard does he want to play? When he’s engaged and playing his hardest, Davis can be a force. His rebounding has been tremendous of late, he’s blocking shots and also looking a little more comfortable on the block. This is a good development for the Raptors as he either raises his trade value by playing this well, or shows that he might be able to replace Amir Johnson if he is the power forward traded in the off-season (it is extremely unlikely both Davis and Johnson return next year given the logjam at that position).

- I like what I’ve seen from Ben Uzoh a team can do worse than having him as a third point guard. He battles and does a lot of things solidly, including defending. Alan Anderson is showing that he can be a useful end of bench guy as well. Uzoh is fearless, he rebounds better than Andrea Bargnani despite being a foot shorter.

- Bargnani continues to sizzle offensively after slumping badly for a stretch. He’s found his shot and got off to a great start against Cleveland, but like the rest of the Raptors, struggled in the fourth quarter.

- I’ve liked Lester Hudson since he was in college and don’t see why he can’t be a scoring guard in the Earl Boykins role off of somebody’s bench. The guy can play.

- James Johnson didn’t play again. I’ve been in New Orleans, not with the team for the past week so I’m not sure what’s up other than it was an “internal issue.” The chatter has been it was back talk to Dwane Casey, but, again, I’ve been away so not as clued in as usual. Back on the beat on Sunday in Oklahoma City.

I’m running out of things to say about these Raptors. Just when you think they’ve shown us every possible way to lose a basketball game this season, a new wrinkle comes out.

They hung with the mighty (albeit Rose-less) Bulls again and did it for the whole game this time (unlike Wednesday’s contest) but somehow, someway, again snatched a defeat from the hands of victory. An Andrea Bargnani missed three at the buzzer and an extremely lucky Luol Deng tip-in at the buzzer in overtime after the Raptors played exceptional defence did them in. At some point you realize, this just isn’t Toronto’s season (or maybe it is … every one of these lost opportunities become enhanced opportunities come lottery day).

- We knew coming into the year that Chicago had the best backup frontcourt in the NBA, but nobody really paid much heed to C.J.  Watson. Watson has proved with Derrick Rose out that he is among the best backup point guards in the NBA as well. He was great and carried the Bulls in this one. Sure, he let Jose Calderon light him up at the other end, but Calderon also let Watson light him up.

- It was a good bounce back game from Calderon who played 45 minutes due to the continued absence of Jerryd Bayless.

- Bryan Colangelo is playing with fire not adding any more bodies to a roster that was two-men short before Rasual Butler was waived. The team is way under the cap, Calderon and Bayless and Bargnani have missed significant time this year, yet, Colangelo has declined to add reinforcements in recent weeks. I know Dwane Casey doesn’t want any because they won’t know his systems, but with the grind of this schedule, James Johnson, Calderon and others can’t continue to play this many minutes. They will add a body or two this week, but it should have been done earlier. In a season where wins and losses were paramount ie. starting next season, you can bet a player or two would have been here two weeks ago, or by Friday at the latest. Now with DeMar DeRozan hobbled as well Colangelo is askiing for trouble.

- Major credit to the Raptors for nearly beating the Bulls at the United Center with such a paper-thin lineup. Casey continues to do a masterful job with this group.

Short and sweet today:

- Andrea Bargnani is taking a long time to get back into form after his long layoff. The Raptors publicly say they aren’t concerned, but Bargnani admits he is playing poorly. Expecting him to return to his career-best level from earlier this season is asking a lot, but once he gets his timing back he should at least be a lot better than he has shown.

- The Bulls are a heck of a team. That’s what depth can do for you. Taj Gibson is one of the best reserves in the league and Omer Asik bring great defence off of the bench. When John Lucas III and Kyle Korver go off like that, it helps make up for the absence of Derrick Rose. Once Rose is healthy, they will be very good. Perhaps even good enough to give Miami a scare.

- Amir Johnson was one of the better Raptors but didn’t see a ton of action. Guess Dwane Casey wanted to go with bigger players, but I thought he was very effective at both ends.

- The loss of Jerryd Bayless really hurt the Raptors. Jose Calderon had one of his worst games of the season on offence, and also looked poor at times defensively.

Not a good enough effort and a Jerryd Bayless injury (hip pointer) = a bad night for the Raptors.

- New York simply played harder, made more of an effort to corral rebounds and get to 50/50 balls. Raptors were crushed 46-30 on the boards.

- Going back to Jose Calderon as the starter was a gamble considering how well Jerryd Bayless was playing but they weren’t going to bench a player because he got injured. Predictably, Bayless wasn’t the same guy coming off of the bench.

- No word yet on the extent of his injury.

- 2-13 shooting from three isn’t going to cut it on most nights. Neither will 15 assists against 17 turnovers.

- New York is a high turnover team, yet committed only 12 against the Raptors, another sign that Toronto defence wasn’t up to snuff.

- No excuse for fading down the stretch in this one, not after a couple of days off.

- Chicago, one of the best teams in the league, will present another huge challenge on Wednesday, with or without Derrick Rose.

Well, we all saw that one coming.

Just too much nonsense to expect the Raptors to come up with a win. The Bobcats might be terrible, but they’re still an NBA team.

Let’s see, the Raptors had an insane game in Memphis that went to overtime. Had their plane stopped while it was rolling down the runway for takeoff. Ended up eventually getting off the plane and heading to a new hotel in Memphis.

Finally left the next day, arriving at the arena in Charlotte (not even bothering to check into a hotel) three hours before tipoff. Their uniforms barely had time to be washed and were still wet and oh ya, the fire alarm was going off and we were told it was the real deal and we should evacuate. Halfway through evacuating, we were told to go back into the arena.

So it makes sense they were a bit discombobulated. Yet, they came out “like a house on fire,” according to Dwane Casey and only faded in the third quarter.

- The fatigue showed on the number of offensive fouls they committed, on normal turnovers and on more transition play.

- Sad to see how few fans the Bobcats draw. Remember, Charlotte was a top 3 team in terms of attendance and was first many years when the Hornets were in town. But George Shinn garnered a ton of ill will, the team eventually moved and Bob Johnson irritated people too it seems.

It all adds up to a disappointing turn of events. I know talking to former Hornet Jamaal Magloire about the old days, that even ex-players are saddened by the turn of events. Hopefully when the team gets good again the fans will return.

- A note on Bismack Biyombo:

BIYOMBO MAKES IMPRESSION

The Raptors considered moving down in the draft to grab Bismack Biyombo if Jonas Valanciunas was off the board but never had to make that call.

Biyombo has been worked in slowly by the Bobcats since he is extremely raw, but is averaging 1.9 blocks per game in just 18.5 minutes. He had seven rejections in Charlotte’s earlier win over Toronto – nine points and nine boards on Saturday – and had a game-saving block of Trevor Ariza last week.

“I love his tenaciousness. You can see the growth in his game since we had him (at a workout) last summer. He was really raw coming into

the draft. They’ve done a good job with him here developing,” Casey said. “He has it, whatever you call it, natural feel of blocking shots. To compound that he has a great motor. To me that’s an NBA skill. We have a young kid coming next year (Valanciunas) that has a quick motor, that’s something that all young players should take note of and that’s what Biyombo has.”