-Did you know that Jermaine O'Neal is a Sun now? I sure didn't. I thought he was finished in Boston. Good news for the Raptors, though, as he throws the ball to Ross for no apparent reason. He still sucks as much as we remember him sucking in Toronto. He's been bad for so long that it has become difficult to think back past all of the crapiness and recall a time when he was an effective player. He was an All-Star for 6 years (2002-2007) but he's been replacement level since. If you graphed the quality of his play over time his NBA career would not describe a smooth curving locus like most NBA players. Instead it would look like a bar graph with three flat-topped heights: the first one quite low for when he was an unknown playing on the Blazers, one high bar for when he was elite with the Pacers, then six years near the bottom of the chart for the rest.
-As a ponderously slow big, I think I should model my game after Luis Scola. He seems more effective than he should be considering his level of, you know, "athleticism." As Devlin says about him, “So crafty.” I never get described as crafty, not even when I hid all those Easter eggs in the crawlspace that one year and no one could find them.
-Jack Armstrong on Ed Davis's dunk: "Bring that hammer, young man!" Jack Armstrong is awesome but somethings he sounds like a construction foreman.
-Nice finish by Amir on the oop from Calderon. It made him feel so good about himself that he launched a totally uncalled-for long 2 on the next possession. It bricked. The team should fine Amir every team he shoots from outside the paint. But then he comes back later to finish on the roll and draw the foul. (Scola was slow on the rotation to the surprise of no one.) Amir was set up on the play by yet another nice pass from Calderon, who finished the game with a team-high 9 assists, five more than his closest teammate. Amir and Calderon may have the best PnR chemistry of anyone in the league; their two-man game often becomes the team's offensive staple when they are out there together and for good reason. It's worked for a long time now. They should play all their minutes simultaneously.
-Oh, look, Jack Armstrong has a Movember mustache. I bet the producers asked him to grow it so he and Matt Devlin would have something to gab about on camera coming out of a timeout before laughing too long and too loud. We're having fun!
-Casey going with a deep 10-man rotation. He had five bench players playing in a close game in the fourth quarter from the 11:37 mark until Bargnani and DeRozan came back in with the team up by 3 and 6 minutes left. Unconventional but effective. Bargnani only has two points and a board up this point but Casey is throwing him back out there.
-Welcome to the Pietrus era ladies and gentlemen! It was a long time coming but the man is finally here! He nails a 3 to push the Raps back up 6 with under 6 minutes to play.
-It always seems like a massive defensive breakdown whenever Calderon gets to the bucket for a layup. Jack explains it thusly: “Jermaine O’Neal can’t cover.” Jack was speaking about Calderon's layup specifically but that statement is also true more generally.
-Thank God the Raptors got Lowry because now that he's here Calderon is once again playing like our best player. As long as there is someone in Toronto taking away his starting point guard role Calderon will always show up strong for us.
-I know I just heralded the beginning of the Pietrus era but I don't know about this salvo he's launching from the corner. I don't like him faking the shot to dribble just inside the three point line and jack one up because he is not as balanced when he takes it and long 2s are the bane of offensive efficiency as a general principle. I think the Suns are happy to have the ball end up in Pietrus's hands in the corner right now but that may be just because they know he is integrating into a new offense and won't know what to do with the ball once he gets it and they are hoping he is out of NBA-basketball-shape from being out of the league until recently.
-DeRozan just got bottled up by a single man and then makes it worse by giving up his dribble while he is isolated so there is no one to pass to. Has to burn a timeout; we’ll see if that comes back to bite them. (It doesn't! Yay!)
-Lowry comes back into the game with only three minutes left. He's only played 20:45 at this point despite scoring 14 points on 8 shots while Pietrus has already accrued almost 30 minutes of playing time. Is Lowry injured or something? I don't get it. He is our best player. I think one of Toronto's major limitations right now is that our second best player might be Calderon. That's a problem in itself but it's made worse by the fact that Casey doesn't feel good about having them both out on the floor at the same time. They're effectively limiting each others' minutes.
-Out of the timeout, DeRozan gets blocked at the rim. Story of his career. I bet "Blocked at the Rim" will be the title of his autobiography.
-I really like Gortat. Every team should have a player like Gortat.
-Bargnani with nice feet against the Phoenix PG on a switch. When the PG pump-faked he stayed on the ground to avoid getting charged with the bailout foul. It was pretty close to be honest; I bet if the player he was guarding was (for example) Dwayne Wade and the same play happened, we would have heard a whistle. It also helped that it was the end of the game and the refs don't want to be the deciding factor.
-I like it on fastbreaks when the ballhandler dribbles heads very close towards the defender(s) then lets his momentum carry him and his defender(s) out of bounds after dropping a pass to the trailer. Lowry just did it nicely and it allowed Amir to dunk without being under threat. You have to be careful though to give a bump that is light enough and get rid of the ball early enough that you don't get hit with an offensive foul.
-Jack Armtrong sounds a bit tipsy when he starts singing YMCA during timeouts and picking out single words from promos Devlin is reading to shout out like he's Devlin's hype man. P.S. Why is YMCA being played at this late stage of a close game? It should be more of a “Get on your feet”/”Stay Loud” type thing, shouldn't it?
-Quick shot by DeRozan with 1:15 remaining despite having a lead. Especially egregious because it leads to fastbreak points the other way. Then a turnover by Lowry! Are we really blowing this again!?!
-Answer: No, because Phoenix is equally inept in late-game pressure situations. What the hell was that second last play they tried to run? It never looked like it was close to a scoring opportunity. There were all sorts of passes and handoffs around the perimeter. Then Scola gets it on the block, refuses to pass to his teammate sealing for the layup underneath and takes his time backing Bargani down before missing a harried scoop shot by a wide margin.
-Being able to switch Bargnani onto the ballhandler was a real nice option for Casey to have available when defending the PnR late in this game. (Did Casey put him back out there not for offence but for defence? How weird would that be?) Bargnani forced a big turnover and then a bad shot when guarding the Sun's PG after switches. But the Suns still seem to think they should be going after him because on their next possession they have Scola backing him down in the post. Then they try the same thing again out of a timeout when they desperately need a bucket! Bargnani doesn't allow Scola to score both times and with no help from his teammates!
-The Suns are forced to foul Lowry. He misses his second free throw. That's not "clutch" by him. On the other hand, that buzzer-beating three he hit at the end of the 1st half looks really big right now. It's 99-97 right now with 14.8 left to play.
-After another slow-developing, poorly executed play by the Suns. With the shot clock turned off, Bargnani grabs the defensive rebound (his second total rebound despite playing 27 minutes) and heads to the free throw line. Unlike Lowry, Bargnani hits both shots from the foul line, icing the game. With those two points Bargnani doubles his total to a putrid 4. Bargnani must have been saving his energy.
-Devlin (without feeling): "Raptors win. Raptors win.” Jack: "Say it again, Matt!" Devlin: "A great showing by the Raptors." -> I miss Chuck Swirsky.
-None of the Raptors look happy about having won. Maybe the need a victory song to play in the locker room?
-In summation, the Raptors played the Suns even in the fourth quarter to hang onto their 4 point lead and win the game by that same margin. It was as balanced as the score suggests. Both teams looked unlikely to make the playoffs.
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