I stand by my prediction: i.e. the Raps flameout and miss the playoffs, Triano and Bosh gone.
But I’m that teensy bit less sure of myself than I was after they lost to Miami.
Lost amidst the drama is that the Raptors have played hard since their debacle against Utah. They should have beaten Denver at home and then Miami on the road.
They did beat Charlotte, who can ugly up a basketball game with the best of them, and did it on the second night of a back-to-back no less, a Raptors graveyard most of this season.
If you were one of those counterintuitive value investors you could probably make the case that this was the time to jump on the Raptors train. After all, how different would the stories be if they had won three straight fairly “must” wins?
In a way, their recent effort stands as an indictment of what’s gone on before. That was my reaction to their loss to Denver prior to the Turkogflu story wafting out, and it still stands.
Why has it taken until the final 10 or 12 games of the schedule to see a five-man starting unit that includes Weems and Wright and unit gives the Raptors the bounce and defensive edge missing so often this year?
Even though I was joking when I asked Turkoglu about being Sixth man of the year (his answer, in classic Turkspeak: "It's too late for that, huh? Not enough games for that.") the reality is playing him off the bench makes a lot of sense.
Playing minutes without Bosh gives Turkoglu more of a green light to look for his own offence first - either looking to make plays for others off the dribble or looking for his own shot more - as he did in the second quarter last night when he was 3-of-4 for eight points.
And then there’s Andrea Bargnani’s Reggie Evans impersonation of late, as he embraces the banger within while averaging 15.6 points and 9.9 rebounds over the last three games.
On one hand it’s interesting to see him realize that he does have that gear, I mean, he’s got seven offensive rebounds in the last three games! He had a stretch in the previous month where he grabbed six offensive rebounds over three weeks.
But on the other it’s an indictment of an organizational culture that has afforded playing time, shots and a big contract for a guy who can do some of the most essential work required to win basketball games, but too often doesn’t.
If there’s a silver lining to what’s gone down in the past week it’s that Jay Triano seems a bit more emboldened. Sitting Turkoglu and then bringing him off the bench perhaps proved to himself that he could make some hard choices affecting franchise assets and live to tell about it; similarly, bringing DeRozan off the bench hasn’t caused the rookie to wilt without the shine of the spotlight in the pre-game introductions.
After Chris Bosh threw Triano under the Bentley (my new go-to NBA cliché, btw) the other night, criticizing the team’s spacing and defensive coverages, Triano volleyed back yesterday, saying that on the tape the spacing was “pretty darn good.”
Who knows? If these trends continue – an edgier, more athletic starting unit, Turkoglu carrying his weight off the bench, Bargnani rebounding and Triano standing taller – the Raptors just might survive to be to play four more games after the regular season ends.
