Game Wrap Up 3/24/2010 vs. Utah Jazz

Pretty much everything that could go wrong in this game did go wrong. So why dwell on it? If everything was terrible, there is no reason to worry. Tomorrow is a new day. It's also the beginning of the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. I know Bryan Colangelo doesn't really believe in drafting players. Instead packaging our 1'st round draft picks to obtain, and then to trade away 30 year old bad knee Centers. So, perhaps we won't be watching future Raptors, but we'll be watching future NBA stars.

Tomorrow Kentucky plays Cornell. John Wall gets to go against a predominantly white team of future lawyers, physicians, and paper salesmen. Don't get me wrong, Cornell has been fantastic, but Johnnie Wall is on a whole new level when it comes to athleticism. In this upcoming draft, Wall's athleticism is going to break poor Jay Bilas down into tears as he tries to describe it and runs out of adjectives.

The Wall/Turner debate (for lack of a better word) will probably rage up until the draft, though I think Wall is the clear #1 with Turner the clear #2. A lot of the time GM's watch the NCAA tournament and put either far too much, or far too little stock into it. While it may not reveal all the skills or weaknesses a player has, it definitely will give you a window into their competitiveness. Players like Carmelo Anthony have shown that they want to win, and are going to impose their will on teams when the time arrives. That is what John Wall has to demonstrate in the upcoming rounds. The ability to put a team on his back and crush the competition under his feet like so many unfortunate snails.

Game Wrap Up 3/22/2010 @ Minnesota Timberwolves

A typical raptor road win. For a team aspiring to be a strong playoff team, winning on the road against a rebuilding disaster like the Wolves is mandatory. Thankfully, the Raptors pulled it off. This is not to say that the fourth quarter wasn't nerve wracking. Every time Toronto had a chance to put the Wolves away, a defensive breakdown or two would let them back into the game. The biggest surprise of course was that the man who put the Wolves away was Mr. Hedo Turkoglu.

Finally one of the few flashes of the Hedo fans thought Bryan Colangelo was signing. I'm not going to go into the struggles Hedo has faced right now. However he made two gutsy shots. His three from the corner wasn't created by him, but his left handed layup cutting through the lane was vintage Turkoglu. The last three minutes of the game was purely pick and roll with Turkoglu/Bosh, and it's time for the Raptors to do that more often. Bosh's mobility should allow for more pick and roll play. Bosh (and Bargnani) has a tendency to show on screens, and roll before they make contact with the frontside defender. While this can work sometimes as a surprise, it makes it far easier to defend. This game, Bosh was setting strong screens, and Gomes, Brewer, or Flynn were really struggling to get over the top of them.

While it would have been nice for the Raptors to step on the Wolves' throats when they had the chance like a championship team does, holding off the Wolves' pushes were a good start. Next up: Utah at Home.