i've kind of gleaned from the raptors community that, in general, people are worried right now. they may not be willing to say that they are but from the things being said/implied by seemingly everyone (not the least of whom are the players themselves- as well as the coaches, management, media and fans), we are at a very important stage here. wouldn't say critical- it's rarely critical- but this is as close as it gets for a .500 team imo.
what do we need to do? i wouldn't mind brainstorming a little bit. we can always look back on what we had to say about this later, and that could be fun (or embarrassing).
anyway, i'm not going to tell you how to answer the question. you can take any one of a number of different angles- answer it however you want to.
but here's me:
1) learn to go to the basket. as we've seen with our team, this is easier said than done, primarily because it's not in our (bargnani's and bosh's) makeup to do it. but that's an issue that should've been handled by now, imo. bargnani's absolutely uncomfortable taking a bigger man off the dribble, and always seems to me like he's doing it in fear, or in response to sam yelling at him from the bench. bosh, meanwhile, seems to do it only when he remembers to do it, or at worst when he feels like it. it's habit for neither one of them.
i would recommend a grade-school tactic from the coaches: tell these two that the only shots they are 'allowed' to take are from seven feet and in. effectively force them to go to the basket. if they have no choice, maybe that'll help to get the point across- and, in a perfect world, have it become habit for them to do it or at least consider doing it every single time they have the ball (that's the point). i personally think they're used to hoisting up jumpers (especially andrea) and that won't work with our team as long as they're our two biggest players on the floor. if we have to break those habits, we may very well have to resort to the most immature coaching techniques to do it.
of course there's the obvious argument: what if the defense is tempting them to take the jump shot? well, have you
ever seen that happen? defenses are playing up on these two even 20 feet from the basket (bosh is typically doubled when he's within 10). it's fairly obvious that they want to shoot jump shots. defenses have not been tempting them to shoot; defenses have been tempting them to drive. so drive-
every single time. and get used to it. if it requires losing a handful of games, so be it. with their talents, they're bound to learn to do it well and then we'll be better off. force them to learn it now, imo. throw them into the fire- because they can't seem to pick it up on their own.
2) don't leak out. to me, this is fairly straightforward. we continue to leak out on the break as if we're trying to pose a threat to the defense. unfortunately, we're not a threat anymore. teams have realized that we're weak inside, so they don't bother playing defense because they know they can... stay on offense! also, even when we do corral the ball off the glass, we have a lack of finishers on the break anyway! we run out there and pretend like we're going to do something before conceding that we can't do anything and decide to run our common offensive sets. i mean, how many fast break points does this team score? we don't. so let's stop playing this game of chicken with ourselves and instead send five bodies to the defensive glass every time. every single time. run your set every single time. you may not benefit from the one basket/game that you score on the break anymore, but we would benefit from the (at least) five to seven extra possessions we'd get off the glass, the confidence that that would instill in our players, and the roadblock that that would pose to our opponents looking to go off on a run of their own.
in other words, the "here we go again" complex is killing our team on the boards. i see no reason to game plan for a fast break (unless it's off a steal in the backcourt or jamario block in the paint) when we're totally ineffective in that part of the game- especially with tj out of the lineup, and even then...
3) get out of the corners- at least for awhile. this is a problem that i believe is generally related to our bigs' inability to attack, causing our high P&R ("15!") to be fairly impotent. teams don't respect us when we do it, and even when they do we can't capitalize. there are exceptions but that's why they are exceptions. until they become the rule we should try something else. i wouldn't mind moving our swingmen around (literally).
jamario sets the best screens of the four, imo, and i think he could free up delfino or, even better, kapono (who doesn't just shoot threes, believe it or not) by being asked to do it more often. jose (or juan) would wait for the result and move the ball swiftly. it may not get the big-on-small matchup we're looking for when we set the high screen between calderon and bosh/bargnani, but they (namely chris and andrea) can't take advantage of that anyway, so it's hardly a loss. and regardless of whether the defense switches or slides through, we would get them (our swingmen) moving. to me, that's priority number one right now. we can go back to stapling them to the corners
after we, 1) begin to capitalize on our opportunities, in so doing: 2) get some respect from the defense, in so doing: 3) open up the floor for all five players.
at all times, our five players- with the exception of hump and rasho (and perhaps bosh... for now)- can move with
and without the ball. we need to take advantage of these skills, i think. not every team has them, and we're currently playing as if we're one of those teams.
4) name a defensive captain. this is pretty ridiculous, i agree, but i think it could help. specifically, i'm looking in parker's direction (which is even more ridiculous, i know). as a unit, we have legit trouble communicating. we would have more trouble than most playing zone, imo, but if we man-up parker with the opposition's "weakest link" as opposed to their strongest, it could allow him to bark out commands to his teammates. most of the time he seems to have a pretty clear understanding of what's going on out there, imo and it could help if he communicated that with his teammates.
also, as we currently have it, sam mitchell is pretty much the defensive captain. but he gets too emotional at times and- i know i'll ruffle a few feathers when i say this- i think he's also pretty 'slow' in that department (contrary to common belief). what's more, the team's been hearing his voice from the sidelines for so long, i'm not sure he's getting through to them anyway. it's not fun for them anymore. since parker usually can't man up effectively with our opponent's best, and i think he gets tired by just trying (which affects the rest of his game), i think assigning him the role of
de facto 'coach' out there could work- if just temporarily... and it would shake things up a little bit...
and the team might even start listening to sam again when parker goes to the bench and sam becomes "defensive captain" for his 15 mins/game.
but i agree that defense is not the biggest concern right now. for one thing, i think it would improve if we could clear the defensive glass better. it's just an idea to keep in mind going forward- because it may become an issue again. in fact, i expect it to.
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i don't know, thought i'd throw those out there. what are yours?
peace
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