So who were those guys playing defence in Raptor uniforms Wednesday night in the second half? As I said earlier, before you change anything about the defensive system or schemes within the system, you have to see if it works and the only way to measure this is to have an all out commitment from the players.
Following a first half where Toronto allowed Chicago to put up 60 points shooting 52% from the floor, they turned it around in the second half holding the Bulls to 29 points and limiting them to 25% from the field. Yes, Chicago is one of the poorest offensive teams in the league, still not scored 100 points this season and they were playing in a back to back situation, but the Raptors defence deserves some credit. It just shows what a team can accomplish with commitment and effort at the defensive end.
The other factor in addition to the second half defence was players staying within themselves on offense. There were fewer instances of quick shots after one pass and forced shots. Chris Bosh was a monster again posting another double-double as he continues to lead the NBA in average free throw attempts even though his average took a bit of a hit last night as he had "only" 10 trips to the line. Amir Johnson had six rebounds and did a good job of keeping the ball alive on the offensive glass for teammates. Antoine Wright did a good job defensively late in the game as he drew the assignment on the Chicago's quick point man Derrick Rose and rookie DeMar DeRozan had his best game as a professional sparking the team in the third quarter.
Toronto now heads west on a week long four game trip where they will see the Clippers, Suns, Nuggets and Jazz. A 4-4 record is not bad considering seven of the first eight opponents were in the post season last spring and in those games Toronto is 4-3. More importantly the Raptors are 3-1 at home and have to continue to protect home court. Toronto's record at the Air Canada Centre over the last three seasons has reflected the team's success and failure. Consider over the last three seasons they have won 17, 16 and 15 games respectively on the road. Not a big difference but at the same time the home wins have slipped from 30 to 25 to only 18 last season.
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OK so LeBron James has declared no more talk about 2010 free agency so here is my last word on it until I get other signals. After seeing the movie More Than A Game, James strikes me as a character person that values amongst other things, loyalty. It says here that right now LeBron stays in Cleveland, particularly with Shaquille O'Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas money, close to $31 million, being available to help retool the squad for next season and the future.
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Last night prior to the game the officials held their annual availability with members of the media. They covered some of the rule changes and the POE's, points of emphasis, for the upcoming season. The session was very informative, as it always is and with all due respect to adjudicators in other professional sports, basketball has to the toughest sport in the world to officiate because of all the variables involved. There is a video rule book with explanations available at nba.com if you want to become more familiar with some of the interpretations of the rules.
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Hmmm, wonder what some of the other general managers around the league are thinking as they watch the play of Brandon Jennings. The Milwaukee Bucks rookie is putting up some solid numbers and his team is winning with a 4-2 record, including a 3-0 record at home. Wednesday night the Bucks took down the Denver Nuggets.
It's nice to see Jennings is not getting carried away with his spending, having been a high draft pick. While most youngsters go out and "live large" and buy a car that makes a statement, Jennings did not go for an extravagant vehicle but rather settled for a Ford Edge that has an MSRP in the neighbourhood of $27,000 (U.S. dollars). It looks like the kid is actually thinking with perspective.
