Saturday, December 6, 2008

Raptors Pummelled Again - 114-87 Jazz

Unfortunately, Jay Triano's second career game as head coach (he filled in for one game last year) was a complete and utter disaster. The Raptors again defended like the French army and played with the urgency of a Pizza Pizza delivery man. Utah - a painfully slow-paced team that loves to utilize big men Carlos Boozer (who did not play) and all-around centre Mehmet Okur in the half-court, looked like the Showtime Lakers, piling up transition points with crisp passing and timely rebounds. The Jazz played the Raps' weaknesses perfectly, dominating the paint and glass and getting out and running in the open court.

NBA.com recap

Player of the Game:
Chris Bosh. One of the only bright spots. 18 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks. Played pretty well. Chris had one of his worse games this season and was still by far the best Raptor.

Notables:
Joey Graham - 13 points, 5 rebounds. Shot well (6-9 FG, 1-1 FT), but had four fouls and three turnovers. Good Joey (sort of) keeps showing up. Maybe give him a shot at starting, Jay?
Andrea Bargnani - 7 points, 6 rebounds, 4 blocks. Nice defensive game from Andrea. Needs to shoot better, he shot 3-12 from the floor, 1-1 from the line and missed all four threes. This team needs scorers. He's one of them.
Jose Calderon - 10 points, 8 assists. Yeah, played pretty well. But as much as we love Jose... we can't help but feel that he's just not the same since he's come back. For lack of a better word: it's as if he's missing his "onions".

Full box score

Stat(s) of the Game:
Where to start? We were minus-14 on the boards. Utah forced 23 turnovers, and put up 31 assists on 47 made field goals. And this must be mentioned: Kosta Koufos and Matt Harpring combined for 24 points and 10 rebounds in 17 minutes. Shudder.

Next game: Sunday, December 7th, 1:00PM vs. Portland Trail Blazers

1 comment:

Mintz... said...

that French Military link KILLED me.

good find.

then the kosta koufos remark killed me again. but this time... in the bad way.