SB Nation - Hedo Turkoglu

Raptors Rapid Recap - Toronto 95 Milwaukee 117

RaptorsHQ - Howland — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:37:09 -0000

- The Raps were short both Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani on this evening but even without two starters it is hard to defend what went on against Milwaukee. The Raptors, outside of Bosh, played with little intensity and the team couldn't continue their recent winning ways.

- Old habits die hard. The Raps allowed the Bucks to get open looks by getting into the paint and the defensive rotations were late more often than not. The Raps did a solid job making the likes of Luke Ridnour and Roko Ukic look good.

- Give credit where credit is due however. The Bucks played a great game. Their ball movement was more than commendable, the played some hard-nosed defense and the hit shots down the stretch. They also got a terrific performance from Brandon Jennings who is the real deal.

- Should we send out a search party for Hedo Turkoglu? The Raps needed someone to step-up tonight and help Bosh and one would think that the guy getting paid mad loot would be up to the task. Not so. Hedo was all but invisible in this game yet was smiling and hugging it out with the Bucks after the game. Good one.

- Bad loss. These are the opponents the Raps have to beat. They will be fighting with the Bucks for the lower playoff positions when it is all said and done.

Briefing: How You Start is How You Finish

JakeTheSnake — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:14:07 -0000

More photos » by Alex Brandon - AP

7 days ago: Washington Wizards forward Caron Butler shoots over Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh in the first half of an NBA basketball game in Washington Friday, Dec. 4, 2009. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Browse more photos »

Game Hub | Boxscore | Game Flow

Arenas' magic fades away in overtime - Mike Jones, Washington Times

For 31 seconds, it appeared Gilbert Arenas would rescue his team in vintage fashion and redeem himself from two early overtime gaffes. Arenas -- who had a season-high 34 points -- booted the ball away early in overtime, and he later collided with teammate Earl Boykins, causing a turnover. But with Washington facing what appeared to be certain defeat, Arenas turned back the clock to his Hibachi days -- briefly. Catching a pass from Boykins on a fast break, Arenas rose up and made a 3-pointer to tie the score at 107-107 with 30.9 seconds left. With the Verizon Center fans on their feet, Arenas pounded his chest and skipped down the floor for a timeout.

Tip-In: Toronto Raptors Post-Game Report - Baby Steps - Franchise, Raptors HQ

Hedo Turkoglu, the much-maligned key free-agent acquisition this past off-season, had just hit a huge jumper to give Toronto a 2 point lead. All eyes were therefore on Arenas, who earlier in the evening had hit a 3-pointer to send the game to overtime. Arenas made his move and got past his defender, Jarrett Jack, and looked to have a clear path to the basket. Amir Johnson appeared underneath the rim, but was late on the rotation and it still appeared to be clear sailing for Agent Zero. However a funny thing happened. Amir sort of started to try and cut off Arenas, but then stopped, almost akin to the body version of a ball-fake. This fake-out appeared to be enough to throw Gilbert, and that was all she wrote.

Raptors 109, Wizards 107 - Michael Lee, Wizards Insider

Nick Young said he was hoping that Arenas would've gone for the win. "Agent Zero is going to be back. I'm waiting for the three, where he turned his back and walked to the locker room. But he missed the layup. I wanted him to [shoot the three]. I ain't never seen him do it live. He's been out for two years. He can get to the hole anytime. He was right there, he could've just laid it in." But he didn't. And the Wizards squandered another chance to dig a little further out of the hole they've built for themselves early in the season.

Raptors 109, Wizards 107: Step back time - Craig Stouffer, Washington Examiner

Flip Saunders knew the first question would be about the last shot in overtime, but he knew that the 109-107 loss came much, much earlier. How lacking was the energy? Saunders had to call on Earl Boykins at the 6:03 mark of the first quarter. How poor was the Wizards' shooting? At halftime, Brendan Haywood was 0 for 6, Antawn Jamison was 0 for 4, and Nick Young was 0 for 4.

Turkoglu's jumper ends Raptors' losing streak - Associated Press

"I’m more disappointed in this game than any game we’ve had," Washington coach Flip Saunders said. "We just buried ourselves in such a hole." The Wizards did build a six-point lead with 5 1/2 minutes to go in the fourth quarter and appeared to be on the verge of pulling away, but the Raptors fought back.

Wizards fall following poor start, finish - Mike Jones, Washington Times

Hedo Turkoglu, who has struggled since joining the Raptors, was the hero for Toronto. Coming out of the timeout, the Raptors put the ball in Turkoglu's hands, and he made a tough turnaround jumper over Caron Butler with 8.1 seconds left for a 109-107 lead. "Turkish Jordan," Butler said with a grin, referring to Turkoglu's nickname when he came into the league nine seasons ago. "It was a tough shot. I tried to make him take a difficult shot, and that's exactly what happened. ... That's all you can try to do, and have an opportunity down the stretch with your franchise guy driving to the basket and having a great look. That's how the ball rolls sometimes."

Raptors 109, Wizards 107 - Mike Jones, Outlet

There's no way a playoff team -- not a playoff berth winner, a playoff contender -- comes out raining down 3's when they're not a 3-point shooting team, and when they keep missing them, they keep on bombing away. There's no way a playoff threat goes on a 10-0 run at the end of the third quarter/early fourth quarter, and then lets off the gas and allows the visiting team to come back, take the lead and eventually win. There's no way a playoff team forgets that it has a third All-Star, and Caron Butler goes without a shot in the fourth quarter. meanwhile, Antawn Jamison was 0-for-3 (including 0-for-2 from the arc) and Gilbert had seven points.

That's better, boys - Mike Ganter, Toronto Sun

Head coach Jay Triano chose not to alter his starting five last night and was rewarded with a 20-5 lead eight minutes into the game. That lead lasted until the fourth quarter when the Wizards started to pull way. They got a lead as big as seven at one point but the Raptors wouldn't let them get too far ahead. "The entire game I thought we were all in tune," Jack said of a defensive effort that included a season-low 17 first-quarter points by an opponent. "Any time there was a breakdown or any situation where we needed help, I thought we were there to cover for each other. That's how you play basketball. Today we established what Toronto Raptors basketball is and should be. We need to take it from here and build on it (today) in Chicago."

Raptors Rapid Recap - Raptors HQ, Franchise

The team played its best defense in weeks holding Washington to 37% shooting while holding their own on the glass despite playing one of the best rebounding teams in the league. There were still some issues of course, especially with turnovers early, but considering the "team talk" and recent play, this psychologically is huge.

Raptors Roll Call – Dec 4 vs Wizards – AltRaps, Raptors Republic\

Bosh – rarely do you see someone live up to the billing of the term "a man possessed", but that was Bosh in the 4th. Hell, he started the game with 4 points, a block and 2 boards in the first 2 minutes, helping the Raps to a 10-0 outburst. In the 4th, he grabbed offensive boards like they were apples falling from a tree and he was using a dump truck to catch them. His final line? 31pts, 16 rebounds, 9 of which were offensive. He took heat for not talking during the meeting, but he did it on the court.

Best of Twitterville

Twitter / Mike Jones
Wizards have started announcing Caron Butler as a guard during pre-game introductions.

Twitter / Chase Hughes
Just saw a replay, Hedo Turkoglu did the Javale salute after hitting a 3 in first half.

Twitter / Truth_About_It
The Wizards attempted 29 threes, Flip called it undisciplined, hero basketball.

Twitter / Mike Prada
I did not just see Earl Boykins and Gilbert Arenas run into each other, did I? So much for that good Golden State chemistry.

Twitter / 106.7 The Fan
Flip Saunders after the game: "Looked like a game of two non-playoff teams."

Twitter / wizznutzz
mr @chrisbosh, UR tha velociRAPTOR & the PREDATOR & the JARJAR all wrapped up in a machosensual body of wire. WE SALUTE U!!!!!

Tip-In: Toronto Raptors Post-Game Report - Baby Steps

RaptorsHQ - Franchise — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:30:13 -0000

More photos » by Alex Brandon - AP

CB4 was the catalyst, but the rest of his teammates brought some serious energy as well last night in Washington.

Browse more photos »

The Toronto Raptors finally grabbed a win with a 109 to 107 overtime win over the Washington Wizards last night. It wasn't perfect, but as Franchise details, it was an important first step on the road back to respectability...

On the final play of last night's game, Washington Wizards' guard Gilbert Arenas missed an open lay-up that would in all likelyhood have sent the game to a second overtime period.

Post-game, asked why he had bungled the open look, Arenas explained that he had expected contact from a Raptors' defender and compensated on his drive, but when it didn't come, he was caught out of position, and the ball bounced around the rim and off the other side.

I vividly remember this play of course.

Hedo Turkoglu, the much-maligned key free-agent acquisition this past off-season, had just hit a huge jumper to give Toronto a 2 point lead. All eyes were therefore on Arenas, who earlier in the evening had hit a 3-pointer to send the game to overtime. Arenas made his move and got past his defender, Jarrett Jack, and looked to have a clear path to the basket. Amir Johnson appeared underneath the rim, but was late on the rotation and it still appeared to be clear sailing for Agent Zero.

However a funny thing happened. Amir sort of started to try and cut off Arenas, but then stopped, almost akin to the body version of a ball-fake. This fake-out appeared to be enough to throw Gilbert, and that was all she wrote.

So did Johnson mean to use this hesitation move?

I'm not sure any of the media asked him but Gilbert sure seemed to think so.

"I was just trying to outthink him, but he outthought me," Arenas said.

On my end, I'm not so convinced it simply wasn't indecisiveness on Amir's part but it was an interesting play that for me, captured a lot of what happened in last night's win; Toronto didn't always play the most intelligent basketball on the evening, but the effort was enough to carry through to a victory.

Yes effort.

It's been something we've all been harping on for a while and last night was the first in weeks where that effort really shone through.

Yes, the offence was sporatic at times, and the defense is still not (and will probably never be) at a Celtics' level, but through 48 minutes, Toronto took Washington's best punches and kept fighting. This was especially impressive considering not only their last game where they were lambasted by the Hawks, but also because the Dinos had jumped out to a big first quarter lead, only to allow Washington to gradually chip away until the Raps found themselves down by upwards of eight.

It was during this period when Chris Bosh took over.

Finishing with 31 points and 16 rebounds, CB4 was relentless and ensured that the Raps had a fighting chance when the game came down to the wire.

And while I've been awfully tough on both of them, Hedo Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani also found their offense late in the game, allowing Toronto to eventually tie things up late. Hedo in particular needs some acknowledgement as while he struggled early on O, and was the victim of Flip Saunders' offensive attacks at the other end, he made two huge shots in overtime which eventually gave the Raps their eighth win of the season.

The win was certainly a step in the right direction, albeit a baby step, but an important building block for this team's fragile psyche.

Now...the question of course is, can Toronto continue this effort and transfer it to tonight's game against the Bulls?

Chicago is coming off of a bad loss to the Cavs last night and like Toronto, have only won three of their last 10 games. They're struggling to score the ball, and just haven't found that extra gear that they had in last year's playoffs.

A perfect time for Toronto to take them on?

Let's hope so, and here are our 3 keys.

1) Get off to a good start.

Jay Triano mentioned pre-game that he might change up to 3 of the starting positions for the match. He didn't end up making any moves, and I thought this was actually the right decision. He had read the riot act in the hour long talk the team had before shoot-around, and therefore there were no more excuses. Colangelo was on board, and I'm confident that another loss would have brought about changes for tonight's game against the Bulls.

However overall, the players seemed to get the message, and were extremely aggressive at both ends right from the get-go. In fact, it was almost comical to watch Jose Calderon hurtling himself around screens in order to regain the man he was assigned to guard. DeMar DeRozan was particularly impressive in this regard and was a huge key to Toronto's early surge. Tonight, the Raps need to replicate that intensity early on against a Bulls team that has had a habit of folding early lately.

2) Keep the defensive intensity on track.

Toronto held Washington to 37 per cent shooting from the field last night. Besides being no small feat considering Washington's scoring ability, that percentage also reflected the intensity that went into guarding opponents. I've already mentioned Jose Calderon's efforts but various other players came up with big defensive plays at key moments; from Jarrett Jack's steal and time-out, to Hedo Turkoglu grabbing a rebound away from Earl Boykins. (Although we'll refrain for discussing how Boykins ever managed to corral this rebound in the first place.)

The point here is that considering the Bulls' offensive woes, they are the fourth least efficient offensive club in the league currently, tightening the screws early and often can only lead to good things.

3) Bench play.

Interestingly last night, it was the Raptors' starters that won this game. Earlier in the season when the team was having success, it was guys like Belinelli who were giving this club a big boost but recently, that hasn't been the case. While the Bulls are having issues scoring the ball as mentioned, they do still boast a some quality starters. Last time these clubs met, it was Toronto's bench that helped give the Dinos the push they needed in the second half to eventually secure the win.

I'll be looking for a lot more of that tonight. Amir Johnson continues to impress with his hustle and board-work but it would be nice to get something more from both Belinelli and Wright. And while Jack was decent in stretches, 4 turnovers for every 3 assists can't keep happening.

That being said, Triano did a nice job keeping guys on a short leash so I expect that if players 6 through 10 don't step up, they probably won't be on the court for long.

One of our readers remarked on Twitter that he hoped last night's win could be akin to the Raps' wins over the Blazers and Clippers around this time a few years ago when Chris Bosh was hurt. The wins minus Bosh served to bond the team together and prove that they could still be a very good club when they played together with passion.

Last night's game in my mind could well have been that sort of match, but it's up to Toronto to go out tonight and prove it.

Raptors Rapid Recap - Toronto 109 - Washington 107

RaptorsHQ - Franchise — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:23:13 -0000

-WHEW. That sound you heard was the collective sigh of relief from Toronto Raptors' fans. The Raps and Wiz battled into OT for this one but the Dinos emerged victorious with a 109 to 107 win.

-MVP for Toronto? Chris Bosh. Bouncing back from a 2 point performance, CB4 dropped 31 on the Wizards and was relentless on the glass grabbing 16 rebounds, NINE of the offensive variety.

-And tonight his sidekicks came along for the ride when it counted most. While they both struggled offensively early, Hedo Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani were big down the stretch with Hedo hitting a few gigantic shots to keep Washington at bay.

-This was indeed the gritty, hard-fought win the team needed as Washington didn't go quietly into the night, despite scoring only 17 first quarter points. Gilbert Arenas had a game-high 34 points including the 3-pointer that sent this one to OT, and he got lots of help from his teammates; the Wiz had five players in double figures.

-We'll be breaking things down in full in the morning but this one has to feel good. The team played its best defense in weeks holding Washington to 37% shooting while holding their own on the glass despite playing one of the best rebounding teams in the league. There were still some issues of course, especially with turnovers early, but considering the "team talk" and recent play, this psychologically is huge. Toronto has a run of winnable games coming up so to get this one and to be able to build off of a solid effort is huge.

Orlando Magic News for December 2nd: Ryan Anderson Outplays Brandon Bass, but Bass Still Practices Hard

Ben Q Rock — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:00:38 -0000

A look at the Orlando Magic's best and worst 5-man units
Orlando Magic Daily looks at some key stats for specific Orlando Magic five-man units. Most interesting to me is that the best and worst lineup has four constants. The variable? In the best lineup, Ryan Anderson plays power forward; in the worst, it's Brandon Bass. The stats are pretty staggering, if not a bit limited by sample size.
Magic to use same lineup tonight against the Knicks; Stan Van Gundy says Brandon Bass shows improvement and energy
Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel reports that Magic coach Stan Van Gundy is fairly pleased with Bass, though, despite the fact that Bass has fallen out of the rotation:

Van Gundy said PF Brandon Bass has shown a lot of improvement with his team defense over the last week and continues to practice with great energy despite his recent lack of playing time.
BDL's Award Tour: MVP, Most Improved, Coach, ROY
It's early, but Van Gundy ranks atop Kelly Dwyer's leaderboard in Coach of the Year Rankings.

In an award that could, deservedly, go to a dozen coaches at this point, Van Gundy gets our call. The Magic coach has been working with a rotation that looks nothing like what got him to the Finals last season, myriad injuries and suspensions, and a series of rotating starting lineups. No matter. Fifth in defense, tied for first in the East. On pace for 64 wins. And that's after the "rough" month.
Toronto Raptors will honor Hedo Turkoglu with a Husky bobblehead
Stan has guided the Magic to a 14-4 record without Hedo Turkoglu, who played well for them over the last 2 seasons. His new team, the Toronto Raptors, will honor him with a bobblehead night, reports Matt Humphrey of the Orlando Sentinel. But there's a twist, which always seems to be the case with Hedo:

However, this Turkoglu doll won't sport the duds of his new team. It will feature a Toronto Huskies jersey when it's distributed prior to the Raptors-T-Wolves game Dec. 8 at Air Canada Centre.
Iverson Is Back (Depressed Fan)
Allen Iverson has signed with the Philadelphia 76ers for a non-guaranteed, minimum contract. Some Magic fans called for Orlando GM Otis Smith to sign Iverson once Jameer Nelson suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee, but Smith stood the course and trusted the veterans Jason Williams and Anthony Johnson.
Magic Convinced Iverson's Still a Starter
Tim Povtak of AOL FanHouse discussed Iverson with some Magic players and coaches at practice yesterday and filed this report:

Take it from one team that still must face the Philadelphia 76ers three more times this season: Allen Iverson will make them better and considerably tougher to play.

[....]

"Nobody at his age (34) is the same as they were at 26-27, but he still has a lot left in the tank,'' said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy. "And he can still score a lot of points. He'll bring incredible energy and intensity every night. He'll bring toughness.''

Early Statistical Ratings for Orlando Magic Players

jonnichols — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:13 -0000

Ed. note: This post has been updated, as of 4:22 p.m. EST.

(Note: These stats are updated through November 27. Games from this past weekend aren’t included. )

For those who are unaware, every year I calculate a statistic called Composite Score (numbers are here and here) for each player. Composite Score is a rating system that combines six different advanced statistics, with three measuring offense and three measuring defense. The offensive statistics are Offensive Rating, Offensive Plus-Minus, and PER. The defensive statistics are Defensive Rating, Defensive Plus-Minus, and Counterpart PER (the estimated PER allowed on defense by a player). These numbers can be obtained from Basketball-Reference.com and 82games.com.

Although I can’t compute Composite Score for Magic players just yet (because of the way its calculated, I need the stats for every player in the league before I can calculate Composite Score), I can still present how every Magic player has fared in the individual components. I will break things down into offense and defense. Below is a table presenting every Magic player’s offensive performance so far, as measured by the three offensive statistics I mentioned earlier:

Dwight Howard has been excellent as usual. Jason Williams has been a pleasant surprise and has been particularly efficient, posting an Offensive Rating of 123. His Offensive Rating is second on the team to J.J. Redick. Believe it or not, the best newcomer offensively this year for the Magic has been Ryan Anderson. Of course, don’t go crazy about his offensive plus-minus just yet. That number can be flammable, and it is particularly unreliable this early in the year. I included it for the sake of completeness, but I rarely use it for reference this early in the season.

By his standards, Vince Carter has struggled offensively. His PER is still relatively good, but his Offensive Rating is below the league average. Before his injury, Jameer Nelson was also failing to meet expectations, but again, he wasn’t bad either. With the exception of Brandon Bass, many of the reserves have struggled somewhat on the offensive end, posting PER’s and Offensive Ratings below league average. Following his return from suspension, Rashard Lewis has struggled perhaps as much as anyone else on the team. His efficiency has been well below his usual rates.

Next, let’s take a look at defense:

Again, I wouldn’t draw too many conclusions from the plus-minus numbers. As you can see from the table, if we were to take them at full value, we’d think the Magic is a team that is half defensive superstars and half defensive liabilities.

To start, Dwight Howard has been just as good on the defensive end as he’s been offensively. A Counterpart PER of 13.2 for a center is particularly impressive. Perhaps riding the coattails of players like Howard, Williams has posted good defensive numbers as well. He’s never had the reputation of being a lockdown defender, but his effort has been solid.

Looking down the list of defensive stats, we see nothing out of the ordinary except for a few things. Nelson’s CPER is very high, especially for a point guard. Carter’s, on the other hand, is very low (more on this later). Anthony Johnson’s plus-minus is comically bad, although that’s almost certainly the result of a small sample size. Finally, Matt Barnes looks great defensively according to Defensive Rating, but below average according to CPER. We’ll see how those numbers progress as the season goes on.

Back to Vince Carter’s defense. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article comparing his defense to Hedo Turkoglu’s. In the article, I said:

Here, Turkoglu strikes back. Carter looks below average in just about every category, and this supports his reputation. Turk, on the other hand, recorded numbers well above average in every category. The trickiest part about these comparisons is team context. It is something I’ve mentioned constantly when talking about my Composite Score numbers. Because of the way stats are tracked (at least publicly), it’s very difficult to separate a player’s individual contribution to his defense. How much of this is Hedo’s own doing, and how much of it is due to the fact that Orlando featured a very strong all-around defense? It’s hard to say, but I do think Turkoglu was probably a better defender than Carter.

Looking at Carter’s numbers in the early going, we can see that the team you’re on sure has a huge impact on your defensive numbers. He is better in every defensive category. How does he compare to Turkoglu now?

Turkoglu’s Defensive Rating has skyrocketed to 116, but his other defensive stats are still very impressive. This year, it’s hard to tell which player is better on defense. Carter has a low Defensive Rating and his plus-minus is very, very negative, but we don’t know how much that means yet. I think the lesson to take from this is that defensive statistics are pretty unreliable, especially this early in the season.

We’ll have to return to these numbers in about a month or so. The longer we wait, the clearer the picture becomes.

UPDATE (from Eddy): Ryan J. Parker of Basketball Geek has posted Statistical Scouting Reports for the 2009-2010 NBA season on his site. In case you'd like to know what is entailed in the SSR's, click here.

The reason why I bring this up is because the Offensive Ratings in his data sets differ from what Jon Nichols gathered at Basketball-Reference. Here's why, according to Parker:

The main difference is that I calculate them from the play-by-play, where as B-R uses the box score.

With Jameer, for example, I know exactly which shots he assisted on and can derive a fair estimate on the expected effective FG% of those shots. This is probably why point guards that give out a lot of quality assists are undervalued by the box score ratings. A similar story holds true for Vince. It could come from assists, or perhaps his offensive rebounds that are leading to made shots.

If you take a look, Carter's and Nelson's numbers look much better because of an adjustment for those factors.

Suns-Raps Rewind: In Defense of Amare's Defense

Mike Lisboa — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:26:21 -0000

More photos » by Chris Young - AP

We know he can dunk, but can he defend? (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Chris Young)

Browse more photos »

If you go back and read the game thread, Sun Tzu takes a whole lot of abuse for being checked out of the game in terms of rebounding and defensive activity. So, when I re-watched the game, it was with the idea of watching him on the defensive end and on the boards to see where he was and what he was or wasn't doing. What I saw was pretty eye-opening.

1st Quarter:

Throughout most of the first quarter, Stoudemire was covering Chris Bosh 1 on 1 (Frye had him for a couple possessions too) and doing a pretty good job. Aside from 1 pick and roll that gave Bosh a wide open dunk, Amare did a good job of denying Bosh the ball both offensively and defensively.
Bosh took 4 shots in the 1st quarter: the aforementioned dunk, a wide-open lay-up (that he missed) in which he blew past Channing Frye, an open jumper in transition and a face-up jumper contested by Amare. Bosh also made it to the line once on a shooting foul on another play where he beat Frye to the hole.
Bosh finished the quarter with 3 points and 0 rebounds. Amare finished with 8 points and 2 rebounds.

2nd Quarter:

After 10 1st quarter minutes, Amare sat on the bench until the 5:51 mark of the 2nd. At this point, he was still guarding Bosh.
On the Raps first possession after Amare checked in, Bosh missed an open jumper from 17 feet or so when Amare got screened out of the play. On the following possession, Turkoglu and Bosh worked the 2-man game. Amare switched out on Turkoglu and did a good job of denying him the lane forcing a jumper. Bosh scored by, um, "overpowering" Jason Richardson on the putback.
At the 4:18 mark, Bosh beats Stoudemire on a drive to the hoop and Amare hits Bosh with a flagrant foul. At first, I thought Amare did it out of frustration at Bosh, but as we have seen, when Amare's been on the floor, Bosh hasn't been much of a factor. In retrospect, while it seemed like excessive force, I think Amare was just trying to prevent an easy bucket and got Bosh harder than he meant to/needed to. With only 1 foul against him and only 4 minutes left to go in the half, it wasn't a terrible play.
After the ensuing inbounds from the flagrant, Calderon and Bosh ran a screen and roll at the elbow. Amare came out and showed on Calderon. Calderon attempted an entry pass to an open Bosh, but a combination of a recovering Stoudemire's waving arms and a helping Jason Richardson denying Bosh position resulted in a Raptor turnover.
After 3 possessions in which Stoudemire and Bosh aren't really a factor, disaster strikes in the form of Amare's 3rd foul.
As opposed to the Bosh flagrant when Amare was making up for a lapse in D, this was a solid defensive play. Amare was covering Bosh in the low right post with some help from Jason Richardson (who had let his man leak out to the 3 point line... more on this below this will be a separate post). Bargnani had the ball at the left elbow with Frye on him. Bargs pump-fakes, Frye bites, and Bargnani drives past Frye. Amare slides over to take the charge and help a beaten Frye.
Whether Stoudemire was a hair too late or his heels were on the circle (or both), it's tough to tell on the replay, but the result was a blocking call for foul number 3 and a trip to the bench for the remainder of the half after only 3 minutes of court time.
Amare's line for the 2nd quarter: 0 points, 0 FG, 0 rebounds, 2 personal fouls. Bosh's 2nd Quarter when Amare was on the floor: 5 pts (1-2 FG, 3-3 FT), 3 rebounds (2 def., 1 off.). Notable is that the made FG and offensive board came on a switch that left Amare on the perimeter with Turkoglu.

3rd Quarter:

Stoudemire played almost the entire 3rd quarter. This is where he took the bulk of his punishment in the comments (which started at the same time as his flagrant on Bosh).
1st Toronto possession: Bosh gets the ball 13 feet or so away and goes baseline on Amare for a relatively easy lay-up. Amare seemed to give Bosh a wide berth so as not to pick up his 4th foul.
On the Raps 2nd possession, Amare gets active fronting Bosh, denying him an entry pass.
On the 3rd Raptors possession... the Suns adjust defensively, putting Amare out on Bargnani and Frye on Bosh. Bargnani promptly scores over Grant Hill on a Stoudemire switch.
The 4th Raps possession of the 3rd quarter is probably Stoudmire's most "damning" play of the game, because of what everyone saw at the end of it: an uncontested Calderon floater "over" Amare and no attempt by Amare to go for the board. Here's how the entire sequence plays out:

Calderon brings the ball up to the left side of the arc.
Bargnani and Bosh set a double screen. Nash goes under the screens, Frye stays home on Bosh and Amare shows on Calderon sending him about 5 feet above the arc.
Amare and Nash successfully switch back to their men with Stoudemire effectively cutting off a pass from Calderon and Frye locking up Bosh at the elbow. Calderon opts to drive right on Nash who effectively stays in front of him, denying the lane.
Calderon dishes to DeMar DeRozan (covered by Jason Richardson) in the right corner.
DeRozan brings the ball back toward the elbow, where Grant Hill has sagged off of Turkoglu to meet him. DeRozan leaves his feet to pass back out to Turkoglu who is a good 4 feet behind the top of the 3 point circle.
Bargnani sets a pick on Grant Hill, forcing Stoudemire to switch out on to Turkoglu who drives left. Turkoglu gets around Amare, but Richardson is in perfect position with the help D to deny penetration from the baseline side.
Turkoglu leaves his feet, making an awkward pass to Calderon near the weakside corner with Nash covering him.
Nash plays up on Calderon denying him the jumper. Calderon makes it around Nash heading for a wide open lane.
Amare, in the protected area under the rim, crouches as if he's going to make an attempt at a block, but apparently thinks better of it (we're just over 2 minutes into the 3rd quarter) as Calderon sees him and, in anticipation of the block, releases the ball early.
Calderon bricks the floater. Amare is alone in front of the basket with his hands just below his shoulders as the ball rolls off the rim away from him to Jason Richardson who's going at it hard with Turkoglu and manages to corral the ball and get it to Amare as he's falling out of bounds.

To be fair, in real time when you get to the end of this play it totally looks like Stoudemire has just mailed in an effort at the rim. I re-watched this sequence in slow motion for about 20 minutes to pick up on all this. Upon further review, it looks like he did everything right on this play with perhaps the exception of stepping out on the Calderon floater. It's really 3 plays later that Amare has his one true moment of inattentiveness.
The next Raptors possession would end almost immediately as Amare recorded a steal on a Calderon entry pass to Bargnani.
The next time down the court, the Raptors went at Frye via Bosh. Bosh misses a jump hook over Frye. Stoudemire is underneath boxing out Bargnani when a leaping DeMar DeRozan apparently comes out of nowhere (seriously, given the camera angle it's impossible to tell where he comes from) for a putback in front of Amare.
And now, Amare's one truly lazy defensive play: After sagging in the paint to help on Bosh, Amare waits too long to step out on Bargnani (the Raps trailer on the possession) who gets the ball with all kinds of space at the top of the arc. Amare runs out and Bargnani dribbles around Amare and pulls up for a wide open jumper, uncontested and Amare, having given up on defending the play lazily meanders toward the rim as the ball bounces off toward a waiting Grant Hill.
At this point in the 3rd, Amare doesn't see much action on the defensive end. He appears tentative on a couple weak side help plays. It's seems pretty apparent that the early foul trouble paralyzed him in that respect.
Also, the Suns went to a zone around this time in which a lot of the plays went away from Stoudmire's side of the court.
It may have been coincidence, but on the Raps first possession after Amare checked out of the 3rd quarter, Bargnani swooped to the hoop for an easy dunk.
Bargnani's line in the 3rd versus Stoudemire? 1-3 FG, 2 points, 1 rebound and 2 assists.

4th Quarter:

By and large, the Raptors offense early in the 4th quarter focused on going through Bosh versus Frye and Turkoglu versus Dudley. This left Amare Stoudemire lingering on the perimeter with Andrea Bargnani.
However, having survived the 3rd quarter with out picking up a 4th foul, it was as if a switch flipped when it came to be Amare's overall level of aggression (See below in rebounding).
When the Raps did go to Bargnani, he was completely ineffective missing 4 of his 5 shots in the 4th quarter while being defended by Stoudemire.

Rebounding:

Amare and the glass has been a source of frustration for Suns fans all season. Here's what I saw in this game. When Stoudemire has a body nearby, he's at his best. Perhaps sensing the urgency of a competitor, he's pretty good at getting a body on the nearest opposing player and looking for the ball. What he lacks in these circumstances is a professional rebounder's nose for the ball.
Often times he'll be boxing out only to see the ball go away from him OR he'll be so focused on keeping his man away from the ball that he doesn't attack the rim. Richardson and Hill end up with many of those boards.
His apparent weaknesses on the glass are when he's out of position or there's no one around. If Stoudemire does not have position or is away from the hoop he probably will not fight for position.
While in the Raps game, he probably didn't want to pick up another foul crashing the boards from outside, I'm curious to watch him in other games to see how he does.
The other rebounding shortcoming I noticed was his lack of activity when alone near the rim. On a couple of plays, with no one around, Amare just watched the ball roll off the hoop to someone else. It seemed that lacking any proximity to a member of the opposing team, he saw no reason to be aggressive on the defensive glass.
Offensively, if he's under or near the rim, he shows a lot of effort (Amare likes him a putback), but again, if he didn't have position already, he wasn't fighting for it.
It's also important to note that in the 2nd half, Amare covered Bargnani almost exclusively which kept him out on the perimeter. Many times when the Raps fired and missed, he simply wasn't in a good position to crash the boards.
Ironically, this is when he collected his 5 of his 7 rebounds. Not surprisingly, 4 of them were on the offensive end.

Conclusion:

No one is going to accuse Sun Tzu of being a world class defender or rebounder. However, after watching the game footage, Amare was definitely more active on the defensive end than I was giving him credit for. Yes, he had a couple of lapses, but he more than held his own on his defensive assignments. Bosh and Bargnani shot 4-11 from the field when covered by Stoudemire and only pulled down 5 rebounds. Combine his defensive activity with his absolutely silly offensive efficiency (18 points on 8-10 shooting) and his +20 for the game makes a lot of sense.

Raptors Rapid Recap - Boston 116 - Toronto 103

RaptorsHQ - Franchise — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:20:04 -0000

-Not only was the D absent in this one, but so was the P; P as in Pride.

-Toronto allowed Boston to run all over them (litteraly as Paul Pierce dunked on and through Chris Bosh) en route to a 116 to 103 win.

-The Raptors' hot shooting kept them in this one early, in fact they lead by a point at halftime. However the third quarter was the team's undoing again and Boston cruised to the W the rest of the way.

-The Celtics had 6 players in double figures with Ray Allen leading the C's, dropping in 20. All 5 starters hit double digits on O however and Rajon Rondo was especially lethal dishing out 11 assists.

-For Toronto, Hedo Turkoglu and Chris Bosh did their best, both dropping in 20. But they got little help offensively from anyone but Jarrett Jack and Rasho Nesterovic.

-If you missed this one, you'll probably see the highlight (or lowlight) of Bosh getting viciously crammed on by Pierce and that really was the second-half in a nutshell. When Boston turned up the aggressiveness Toronto folded faster than a poker player holding a 7 and 3 off-suit and that was all she wrote. We'll nevertheless recap this sordid affair in the morning...

Bobcats Rock the Raptors 116-81

David Arnott — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:43:34 -0000

More photos » by Chuck Burton - AP

Browse more photos »

Gerald Wallace submitted a signature performance tonight, leading the Bobcats to a 116-81 win. Crash scored 31 points and grabbed 13 rebounds, and his counterpart on the Raptors, Hedo Turkoglu, only scored 5 points, had 2 assists, and 0 rebounds in more than 22 minutes.

Ultimately, the Cats didn't really have an answer for Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani, but they slowed them down enough that when they also totally shut down the Raps' backcourt, Toronto had no chance. It's a hell of an accomplishment to dominate the top-scoring team in the league, even if they are on the back of a back to back. So much went right for the Bobcats that it had to have rekindled the dying embers of hope in even the coldest of Charlotte fans.

Highlights and lowlights after the jump:

BAD

-- Flip, my man. Stop being streaky. 0-4 shooting, 2 assists, 0 rebounds,and 0 free throw attempts in 17 minutes is pretty bad, especially for the guy who's supposed to be instant offense off the bench.

-- Guys, you're still taking too many threes. 5-18 is unacceptable. At this point, you should only be taking threes to remind the opponents that you might do it at any time.

GOOD

-- The notion of Gerald Wallace as an All Star reserve is still a long shot, but it's no longer a ludicrous proposition. Tonight, he rebounded like he has all year, but this time around, he put the ball in the basket like the occasionally electric offensive player we've dreamed he'd always be.

-- Tyson Chandler played the kind of game that justifies his fans' faith in him. 9 rebounds and 6 blocks in 22 and 1/2 minutes.

-- I'm still not sold on Nazr as a starting-caliber center (and probably can't be sold on it this year), but dude's been beyond solid off the bench and continued in this game, with 11 points and 9 boards in only 18 minutes.

-- Derrick Brown! Gerald Henderson!!! Both played more than 20 minutes, and easily held their own. Henderson, specifically, put up 15 points on 9 shots, and grabbed 4 rebounds. Here's to continuing this trend of playing the young guys.

Gameday Preview vs Toronto Raptors

David Arnott — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:42:42 -0000

Pump Up Music: Superdrag -- "Sucked Out"

The Big Picture: The Bobcats and Raptors are bizarro versions of each other. The Raps are first in offensive efficiency and last in defensive efficiency, while the Cats are second in defense and third-worst on offense. In other words, we're going to see a contrast in styles, if ever there was one.

Jose Calderon, Andrea Bargnani, and Hedo Turkoglu are all devilishly difficult to guard, but none of them have ever been considered defensive stalwarts, and Chris Bosh... well, Bosh has played the first 15 games of the season about as well as he's ever played over a long stretch. Even if his defense isn't the greatest in the world (I don't think he's as long as KG), it's certainly decent, and he's no walk in the park for anyone, let alone a tag team pair featuring a 32-year old who never played great defense to begin with and a defensive specialist coming off a back injury.

Key to Victory: I don't think there's a solution for the Raptors' front court. Bargnani is shooting threes at better than 40% this season, and Bosh is first or second among East centers right now with Big Bad Dwight, so it's kind of a pick your poison situation. I think we'll end up seeing Boris Diaw on Bargnani and Chandler/Mohammed on Bosh, and we can just hope Bosh doesn't draw them out to 18 feet then either shoot or put the ball on the floor, because they'll get eaten alive if the Raptors can consistently force that choice.

There are two things the Cats can do, though. First, they can make a concerted effort to dominate the glass on both ends of the floor. Gerald Wallace is our primary weapon here, since he'll be charged with guarding Turkoglu when both first units are on the floor. Hedo hasn't been anything special as a rebounder, but Wallace has been a monster on the glass. The Cats can't afford to give the Raptors any "extra" possessions.

The second thing they can do is give Diaw more minutes at center and hope he can give Bosh problems. That would put either Stephen Jackson or Wallace on Bargnani, and allow Ronald Murray and (dare I dream) Gerald Henderson to take on DeMar DeRozan or Jarrett Jack when they go small in the backcourt. It's less than ideal for rebounding purposes, but might make sense if it contains Bargs.

Detail That Might Interest .08% of You: The Raptors have only 9 players who came out of the NCAA Div I-A. They could play a lineup entirely of foreigners (Calderon, Belinelli, Turkoglu, Bargnani, Nesterovic), and then Amir Johnson came out of high school.