• Moderators, please send me a PM if you are unable to access mod permissions. Thanks, Habsy.

OT: The Official Toronto Raptors Thread

That was unbelievable. I was at a wedding during the second half, had to duck out and watch it at the bar.

I swear, Kawhi is the greatest warrior ever. He’s the perfect general for these troops. He always steps up, he’s always clutch, he never loses his cool or does anything stupid. He’s just amazing. I don’t even know how to express how remarkable this guy and his talent and disposition are.

What a thrill to advance. What a ****ing thrill.

And on a separate note, I see a ton of similarities between Kawhi and Matthews. Same type of player, same type of leader. And hopefully Matty can get us this far at least in the coming season.
 
That was unreal. I get goosebumps thinking about. All those years I endured watching Bosh, Bargnani, and other shit. This season is a success. Masai deserves a statue.

I was at the game and have personal videos of kawhi walking through the crowd postgame. What a monster. I'll post if I figure out when not drunk.

The guy is a straight up g.
 
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26823333/how-make-history-run-punched-toronto-first-finals-ticket

W2hYOv1.jpg
 
So, the last time Kawhi went to the NBA finals, a lame-ass super team that was on the verge of breaking up and going their separate ways was going for their third straight championship.

Sounds familiar? Last time, Kawhi ended up with the ‘chip and the MVP.


Yeah, I've got affection for TFC and all, but MLS would be a 3rd tier league in Europe (maybe, maybe 2nd). This is the best basketball league in the world...this is legit.
Best basketball league in the world, and it looks very much like we’ve got the best basketball player in the world on our team right now. This is pretty unprecedented stuff.

As much as I want every Toronto team to win, the FC’s, Argos or Toronto Rocks of the world just aren’t on the same level.
 
Question ....
How can the raps beat the warriors?

I want to bet some money on the raps with the odds now available.

What are the perceptions/prognotications by those with a much more detailed understanding of the game?

Can the raps win or are curry and company to much?

Zeke?
 
I even said it after the first two games... The sixers scared me way more than the bucks. Way more versatile, way more athletic, way more talented. Getting through that series was the real accomplishment. Bucks are great too, make no mistake, but against a super elite team you can see that they're flawed and somewhat gimmicky.

This has been so ****ing fun. Shortening the summer for all of us. Playoff action in ****ing June. I like it this way.
 
Question ....
How can the raps beat the warriors?

I want to bet some money on the raps with the odds now available.

What are the perceptions/prognotications by those with a much more detailed understanding of the game?

Can the raps win or are curry and company to much?

Zeke?

It will be close. It’s going 6 minimum IMO.
 
Question ....
How can the raps beat the warriors?

The same way they beat Philly and the Bucks. They largely locked down the 1st (Bucks) and 5th (Sixers) offenses in basketball. The Warriors were the 2nd best offence in basketball and are mediocre defensively.

They haven't had your typical road to the finals either. The Clippers were one of the worst defensive teams in the league (and the worst to make the playoffs), Houston was thoroughly mediocre this season (10th offensively and 11th defensively) with growing cracks in their cohesiveness (see CP3 complaining about Harden's effort level), and then Portland, who was a nice story and a good offence but mediocre defensively.

We just haven't seen this Warriors team tested and the analytics has suggested all year that they were finally vulnerable. Moreso now that KD is looking to miss at least the first few games of the series.

Man to man the matchups are interesting as well and favour the Raptors more than the media is about to tell us.

Bogut-Gasol

This might be one legged Boogie according to some of the stories that came out last night but dude tore his quad a couple of weeks ago. I'd be shocked if he was pain free and effective this soon after a quad tear.

Bogut is basically their version of Marc. Great defensively, chips in offensively (but doesn't act as a distributor like Marc does), but doesn't/can't play heavy minutes. They'll start Bogut but likely go small a whole bunch with Looney or evern Dray at the 5. Marc might be good enough defensively to hang even if the Warriors go small.

Draymond-Siakam

The media is going to tell us that this matchup is a wash out for the Warriors, but for the first time in these playoffs, there isn't going to be a strong defensive front court full of size and shot blocking collapsing down on Pascal.

Iggy-Kawhi

Who defends Kawhi is going to be an interesting decision. Klay and Iggy are used to have a size and strength advantage over the guards they usually check. This won't be the case for either on Kawhi. Whoever checks him is going to lose the matchup, it's a matter of how much and what parts of the game

Klay-Danny

So here's the thing. Dray and Klay (assuming Iggy is primary on Kawhi) are going to be the main help defenders. Danny is going to get open looks. We need him to wake the **** up. Danny remains an outstanding perimeter defender though and his veteran defensive ****ery will be needed to keep Klay from going off. Can't give him open looks.

Steph-Lowry

Steph is incredible...but he's a black hole defensively. Lowry will get to where he wants on the court and do what he wants. But he needs to get Steph in front of him. Let Steph try to win the series by hitting moving 25 footers. Where Steph really kills you is when the threat of the 3's opens up his ability to break you down off of the dribble and get layups for himself and open perimeter shots for his team. He's the only non Durant entity on this team that can create consistently in the half court.

Bench

Looney-Livingston-McKinnie vs FVV-Serge-Norm

A week ago, I would have lamented about how much of a shit kicking this was going to be (mostly on the strength of Looney). But not so much now. Our bench should be better, and noticeably. Livingston and McKinnie are pretty much unplayable if this series tightens up.


What are the perceptions/prognotications by those with a much more detailed understanding of the game?

The analytics models have the Raptors as favourites (without Durant in the lineup). That is not the narrative you will hear all week though. The narrative you'll hear is about the championship warriors and how much better they are, and home court will be explained away as the Warriors not taking regular season ball seriously, etc. The smarter ones amongst them will mention load management though (the Raps could have been a 63+ win team with 82 games of flat out Kawhi) and that the Raptors also put an emphasis on being ready for the playoffs, and not going balls out to beat Charlotte in February.

Can the raps win or are curry and company to much?

Raptors can absolutely win this series. There's some keys to it though

- How much can we keep Gasol on the court? Kerr will want to go small every time there's any struggles. Looney is 6'9 220 but athletic. Can Gasol's veteran savy keep him on the court against a small Warriors lineup? Gasol's playmaking can be huge against a team that will give up as much space around the paint as the Warriors. 6'9 Looney, and 6'8 Draymond is likely to be all the size they have under the rim.

- Raptors shooting. It's been up and down the entire playoffs. Danny Green specifically needs to hit some shots. He's going to get open just on the stucture of the help they're going to use against Kawhi. I don't see us winning too many games against the Warriors with 38-40% shooting. The Bucks weren't a great half court team offensively. The Warriors are. They're going to give up open shots though, we have to make them.
 
Just read this. Friendly reminder the Toronto Raptors have made it to the NBA Finals before this guy

https://youtu.be/8AVh0hScyQQ


Fack Vince. Kyle's jersey will now inevitably be retired. Hopefully putting to bed the insane talks of crowning the quitter.

No reason to hate Vince. Team might not even be here if we didn't have him. Vince's legacy for Toronto and Canadian basketball is huge.

We were a shit organization run by losers back then. Was he a bit of a soft, flawed superstar? Absolutley. Too nice. But the organization would have given him no feeling that there was the possibility of building a winner here.
 
Let’s not dwell on the past right now, but I will say I can never respect that guy. A guy who admits he gave up on his team and then pussied his way out of the organization in such a way that we couldn’t even trade our best player for any value.

Tainted forever.
 
Let’s not dwell on the past right now, but I will say I can never respect that guy. A guy who admits he gave up on his team and then pussied his way out of the organization in such a way that we couldn’t even trade our best player for any value.

Tainted forever.

Meh.

Created a buzz in the city that lasted generations. Inspired an entire generation of Canadian kids to become elite ball players, and was largely the reason that the basketball infrastructure (coaching, camps, etc) shot up that was able to mold the kids into the talent we see entering the league now. It used to be rare that 1 canadian kid got drafted at all. Now it seems like we're turning out a top 10 NBA draft pick a year, as well as a few randoms later in the draft.

Vince is a big reason for that.
 
Apparently it was the Raps who decided to trade Vince and not Vince who asked for a trade, btw.

I prefer to remember the good he did for the city/country. Have been hoping we’d bring him back before he retires.
 
REGS: 53.9 2p%, 36.6 3p%, 57.9ts%
RND1: 54.8 2p%, 36.8 3p%, 58.2ts%
RND2: 52.4 2p%, 29.8 3p%, 54.2ts%
RND3: 44.9 2p%, 37.4 3p%, 54.5ts%

PHI and especially MIL had elite interior rim protection, which absolutely smothered our 2pt shooting.

What made it worse against philly is that we compounded it by going ice cold from 3 (though some of that was probably due to their super long guards smothering Kyle and fred).

Against the Bucks, the 3pt shooting got back on track making for an easier series, even if their interior D was killing us.

The warriors, on the other hand, have nothing close to the rim protection that our last two opponent's had. This should be a huge bonus for our scoring inside, especially like Mindz said for Siakam, who finally gets a series where he doesn't have to deal with a physical freak like Giannis or Embiid shutting him down. On top of that, the warriors guards don t have near the length that we've been up against the last two rounds, which should ensure that our 3pt shooting doesn't go into another slump again. On the other hand, Dray/Iggy is about as good a combo as there is to slow down Kawhi. It'll be super important that Siakam exploits their lack of size to keep the heat off Kawhi.

On the flipside, with Kyle green fred Kawhi Siakam we have a team perfectly built to chase and switch off against the splash bros. The fact that they don't have even one other reliable shooter or offensive mismatch for us to worry about should make it extra tough on them to get the looks they're used to.

The biggest thing though might be their proven awesomeness - this is not a team we can count on getting rattled, scared, making mistakes, or getting outhustled. We're gonna have to earn every bit if it.

Thing is, I have so much faith in the mental makeup of our team now that I don't think that edge is nearly as big an issue as you'll hear the talking heads say it is this week.
 
Last edited:
Let’s not dwell on the past right now, but I will say I can never respect that guy. A guy who admits he gave up on his team and then pussied his way out of the organization in such a way that we couldn’t even trade our best player for any value.

Tainted forever.

Spurs fans feel the same about Kawhi.
 
There are plenty of reasons not to like Vince. And for those reasons he'll never be loved like Kyle and Kawhi will be, and never maximized his potential. But that doesn't outweigh the positive he did for this organization and basketball in Canada.

These ****ers did it. Can't believe a Toronto team is actually in the finals.
 
I hope Danny is getting whatever treatment he needs and uses these days off to pump crowd noise into the gym and he puts in the work after each practice getting his shot back....he can't pull that shit off this time...he needs to get out of that funk.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Back
Top