Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

The Raptors have been playing well, but the Cavs will present a different kind of test.

The second half of the season starts for Toronto tonight and they will get another test against another top team in the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Eastern Conference’s best.

The Cavs will be a handful tonight. Yep, there is the matter of LeBron James, and even though he is in the twilight of his career, if you think you can ignore Shaquille O’Neal, you have another thing coming.

If you choose to double team O’Neal, he suddenly creates open looks for the shooters that are surrounding him.

Think about how much money Shaq has made guys like Damon Jones and Jason Kapono and just look at the Cavs this season, they just happen to lead the NBA in three-point shooting percentage.

The Cavs attack was on the mind of Raptors coach Triano this morning at practice when he talked about how he would try and defend Cleveland. The strategy sounds similar to that which was employed against Orlando a couple of weeks ago that produced a win.

"I still think the odds are that is the best way to play them," said Triano. "Make them beat you with mid-range shots and make them beat you in one-on-one situations because when they spread the floor with Williams and Parker they can really make outside threes."

Triano also discussed what they would do when Shaq is in the game and he is trying to defend one of the Raptors’ front court players.

"Our goal is to make him work at the other end and make him vacate the low block area and make him come out to guard one of our bigs," commented Triano.

As for the fact that Toronto beat Cleveland early in the season, the circumstances are totally different and you can throw that game out the window. On opening night, Cleveland was coming in off a back-to-back, Toronto was emotionally energized playing its home opener but the teams have evolved and are playing differently right now.

An example of the team’s progression is Toronto’s rotation. Currently, it has as many as seven players that can play on the perimeter and Triano says that he basically goes into the game with a plan and then looks at matchups, performance and situations as to who gets the call in the second half.

On the other side, Cavs head coach Mike Brown has said that he is taking the less is more approach having culled the playbook significantly. Cleveland is operating with the fewest number of sets it has ever had. Then again, if you had LeBron James, wouldn’t you let him handle the ball and make decisions?

I had a chance to sit and chat with one of Toronto’s decision-makers on the floor, Hedo Turkoglu, and he says he is seeing improvement in the team going forward. Over and over in our conversation the phrase "I got to be more aggressive" came up, and that is something that fans and opponents need to be more aware of regarding Turkoglu in the second half of the season.

Turkoglu talked about getting more comfortable with the system as he reflected back on his time on Orlando and how well he played in that environment. The main difference according to Turkoglu is in his three years with the Magic he had time to adjust and grow into his role.

He may have had his best game of the year defensively on Sunday against Dallas and even though his offense was still sub-par, he has vowed to offer more a concerted and consistent effort going forward.

"Everybody is expecting more things of me, I am too," said Turkoglu. "From now on I can guarantee that when I step on the court, I will play as hard as I can. Sometimes things don’t work out your way but I can still keep my head up and try to find a way to help my team."

"Some nights if will be scoring, others it will be assists and rebounding and others it will be defending."

If he brings all of those things, with an attitude to play hard every night, the Raptors become a much better team.

The second half of the season starts tonight and we’ll see if Turkoglu can indeed pick it up.