Raptors at Spurs: Starring Tony Parker’s tailor

If NBA basketball was analogous to playing Street Fighter, the Raptors would be the dude who knows every combo, every chain, every special move in the entire game. Glaring achilles heel? Toronto is unaware there is such thing as “blocking”. Like, I’m not even talking about knowing when to block. The Raptors don’t know blocking exists. This becomes noticeable after taking 15 dragon punches to the face.

With this offensive (literally and figuratively) mentality,  The Raptors posted 124 points in regulation, shooting .592 per cent from the field and nailing 11 of 17 attempts from long distance against the Spurs on Monday. Toronto lost the game.

If you didn’t watch the game, or even if you did, read that last paragraph and try to just make sense of it with a rational basketball mind. That San Antonio — sans Tim Duncan and Tony Parker — managed to put up 131 points in regulation to walk away with a win is simply an unbelievable, untenable fact. I saw most of this crime against basketball (when I was not burying my head in my hands) and yet, my mind remains blown by what I witnessed.

Sadly, this is not an original screenplay. The Raptors again were felled by poor rebounding, poor late game execution and a porous, inexcusably awful defensive effort.

Post-game, reporters repeatedly asked Toronto Coach Jay Triano whether there was something wrong with his defensive system. How do these guys have jobs? Anybody watching could easily assess that the problem is not coaching, or  the “system” or any abstract type of “philosophy.” The Raptors, almost to a man, are poor defenders. Period.

Toronto’s NBA squad cannot close out on shooters, cannot prevent dribble penetration, cannot intimidate in the paint or meet the ball defensively at the rim. The Raptors are slow to rotate from the weak side, show far too softly on pick and roll situations and send some of the most lazy, counterproductive double-team’s and traps this side of a Teenwolf montage.

I don’t know what Triano said to his troops after this loss — but I know if Wayne Brady was coaching Toronto he’d be having to choke an awwwwful lot of bitches tonight.

No need to get into stats. No point observing how Toronto’s defence was shredded not by Manu Ginobili, but by “manu ginobili” — the Agentine’s non-explosive, non-athletic, non-foul-inducing below-the-rim doppelganger. Nor is there much purpose in noting that despite another gaudy statistical effort, Chris Bosh, Hedo Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani were beasted by rookie DeJuan Blair and the cryogenically frozen body of Antonio McDyess in the decisive stretch of the fourth quarter.

No no no, all you need to do is imagine somebody playing Street Fighter who doesn’t know what blocking means. That was the Raptors tonight.

Button mashing might win you a few matches — but without knowing how to block, parry and counter, the Raptors won’t be pulling out any victories like the one below any time soon.