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.

So who are the real Raptors?

Five games in, we know at least this much about the Toronto Raptors this season:

• They are going to take a lot of threes
• They are going to give up a lot of threes
• If they make more than the other team does, they’re probably going to win
• If they make less than the other team, they’re probably screwed

Basically, the Raptors are the Orlando Magic-lite; and frankly that’s not a bad place to be. The only difference really between the two teams is Orlando has far superior rebounding, which allows for many more chances to launch threes on second and third chance possessions.

With that said, the Raptors walked into New Orleans tonight and won a road game slightly more than the Hornets lost a home game. Just slightly.

Jose Calderon played by far his best game of the year by simply being more aggressive. Instead of turning the corner and depending on his currently-wonky jumper, Calderon looked to push the ball in transition and drive to the net more often. Although this didn’t always result in layups and even ended up with some blocked shots and bad passes, it’s essential for a point guard to put dribble penetration in the mind of his defender. Simply getting into the painted area creates opportunities and cutting lanes for teammates and if Calderon continues to look to get into the lane, he will have plenty of opportunities to shoot himself out of his slump. He’s not all there yet, but there were glimpses of the floor general Toronto fans have been expecting for over a year.