The undermanned Toronto Raptors (10-8) will be in tough Wednesday night when the Pacific Division leading Phoenix Suns (13-4) visit the ACC. The Raptors were impressive on Monday night defeating the Charlotte Bobcats with Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani and TJ Ford all out of the line up. Kris Humphries and Carlos Delfino both came off the bench to scored 17 points each.
The Suns are coming off a 121-117 win over the Indianapolis Pacers Tuesday night. Amare Stoudamire scored a game high 42 points and added 13 rebounds. Canadian Steve Nash scored 18 points and dished out a ridiculous 17 assists.
Starting 5:
Steve Nash/Jose Calderon
Raja Bell/Anthony Parker
Grant Hill/Joey Graham
Shawn Marion/Jamario Moon
Amare Stoudamire/Rasho Nesterovic
Key Match ups:
The Suns average 108.4 ppg and have six players averaging double digits in scoring. There isn’t a weak point in their offence, but preventing Steve Nash from dishing out 10+ assist is a good way to slow it down. Obviously shutting down the NBA leader in assists is a lot easier said than done, but having Jose Calderon match up against the two time MVP is a good start. Calderon has the defensive ability to make Nash’s job difficult, but stopping the Canadian all together is nearly impossible.
Amare Stoudamire is a double-double machine. He shoots 54.4% from the field because most of his field goals are dunks. Rasho Nesterovic will get the call to try and slow down the man child. Rasho will need to stay in front of Stoudamire and prevent him from beating the Raptors on the offensive glass.
Predictions:
Combined these teams score 207.1 ppg, which means there should be an offensive explosion tonight at the ACC. The Raptors and Suns can score, but it will come down to someone stepping up and playing defense. Even with Bosh, Ford and Bargnani in the line up defeating the Suns would be a tall order, but with all three of them questionable for tonight’s game it will take a small miracle for the Raptors to pull out a victory.
Xmen:
Suns: Raja Bell. Bell is a defensive and 3-point specialist. Night in and night out Bell guards the best shooting guards in the league, but when he is left unattended he can light it up from downtown.
Raptors: Carlos Delfino. Delfino has averaged 18.7 ppg over his last three games and is shooting 47% from the field. He has stepped up for the Raptors with the injuries to Bosh, Bargnani and Ford and is showing why Bryan Colangelo gave up two draft picks to get him.
Game Notes:
Suns guard Steve Nash enjoys playing against the Raptors, averaging 15.5 ppg and 8.7 apg in 17 career games; Forward Shawn Marion averages 16.5 ppg and 10.6 rpg in his career against the Raptors; forward Grant Hill averages 19.8 ppg 7.8 rpg in his career against the Raptors.
Raptors forward Joey Graham had 13 points in his first start of the season, including 2 pretty massive dunks that rattled the foundation of the ACC; point guard Jose Calderon failed to record his fifth double-double of the season in Mondays win over the Bobcats, but still has 67 assists and only 8 turnovers in his last 5 games; The Combination of Bosh, Bargnani and Ford combine for 44% of the Raptors total offence; Jamario Moon has recorded at least one block in 10 straight games.
Technorati Tags: Toronto Raptors, Jose Calderon, Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon, Joey Graham, Rasho Nesterovic, Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, TJ Ford, Kris Humphries, Carlos Delfino, Phoenix Suns, Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion, Raja Bell, Grant Hill
December 5th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I really hope the Raptors can get at least one of the three injured into the lineup tonight; but as you said, even with a healthy lineup, beating the Suns is a tall order. However, the Raps have been playing better defense of late, and if they can step up their defensive intensity tonight, and continue to get big contributions from Delfino, Graham, Humphries and Kapono, then they will compete with the Suns.
December 5th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
well, you’re not going to outscore the suns, so you are right, to compete, we need to step up defense, and hope to get the same level of contribution from those cats you listed.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Sam Mitchell calls a timeout after Nash dribbles around uncontested and finds Hill for a wide open three. I love it!!
December 5th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
It seems that the raptors did try and outscore the Suns in the first half, and as we stated earlier this is not the recipe for a win against Phoenix. The raptors are leaving their defensive assignments to help and nobody is rotating to cover the wide open man who has been drilling shot after shot.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
man would marion look good in a raptor uniform! i want him…trade one of the point guards and a couple other dudes…
December 5th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I just came from the game. The Suns’ offence is a thing of beauty. They play together for 3 years and have the best offence initiator in NBA.
I believe Raps stick to the game plan defensively: made them beat us by shooting J’s which Suns obliged. I don’t even think Bosh and/or Bargs would have made any difference defensively: they beat us from 20 feet and over. We did protect the paint relatively well and the transition defence was good. Garbo is a different story and in games like this I really miss his defensive smarts.
It was painful to watch Graham, Hump, Kapono and Moon getting lost in Suns’ schemes. Where we missed Bosh especialy was on the offensive side of the floor. He would have open up more space for our shooters and in a shoot-out contest I believe we do have a chance against the Suns.
Bottom line, games like this make us better in the long run. We are still a young team in the second season together and things will look only better from here.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Wow. I am trying to envision a what-if Sam didn’t win COY and we got Iavaroni as coach.
We do look like we have the tools to be a deeper Phoenix East team, or even a Spurs East with the right kind of schemes.
I am excited to think what kind of team we can be in the next two years.
December 6th, 2007 at 5:21 am
Defeat is hard to accept but let me tell you this, with a full team altogether the Suns will be no match.
DELFINO was not bad tonight, care to leave some comments here
http://mundoalbiceleste.blogspot.com
December 6th, 2007 at 9:26 am
to smitch’s credit, he has been actually coaching for the last few games. I apologize for not putting up a review, but I missed a big part of the game, again. this job is killing me.
what i did see was what i expexted though. i was a little dissapointed that the raptors didn’t use a zone defense to try and stop some of the scoring from the perimeter. but at the end of the day, these are the suns, and they got us playing their game. no chance.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Stop writing previews and instead do game reports!
I’m a little confused, was our defensive plan to slow down Nash and the perimeter guys or Amare? Because we did neither. It’s hard to guard the Suns but you can’t let them get their season high on your home floor. Bad, bad perimeter defense.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:54 am
sorry man, i promise from the next game i will post reports. just so you show mercy, i had a ticket for the game, but was too damn busy to reach.
i think the defensive plan was way more high level…aka…slow down the suns! lol
only san antonio can do that, and since we aren’t even close to them, we got a train run on our ass.
December 6th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
we looked foolish last night; out of place, like Oprah at a conference promoting humility and self deprecation.
December 6th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
“Stop writing previews and instead do game reports!” ??? what’s the difference? Are you saying that he shouldn’t preview games and instead just do post games? I like the game preview personally. the guy gives a pretty good account of what the raptors need to do and what happens if they don’t. Don’t listen to Arsenlist Masterjuddi, keep up the previews
December 6th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
ha! i think he was talking to me. i havent done my post game, and just putting up a little tid bit.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:12 am
Agree… Its hard to do game reports.. =)