Jose Calderon Is Mad

Jose Calderon is pissed off. He's pissed off that he hasn't started the season with a bang since he got banged last year, he's pissed off his shot hasn't been falling, and he's really pissed off that it's only increased the doubters to the point of suggesting that Jarrett Jack should replace him as starter. That changed in New Orleans, when he stood over Chris Paul and stared him down and said who knows what; whatever it was, it wasn't pretty unlike his razor-sharp sideburns.

Since then, while it would be too much to say he's been on a tear, he has regained his shot back, and has started to somewhat consistently attack the rim - with success. Let's not kid our selves, he's been getting rocked defending opposing point guards on the point of attack, but what made it really bad was that he wasn't putting up much on the offensive end either.

And there's no better player than to turn it around against than Chris Paul, pound for pound, the NBA's best point guard. While the Hornets are sucking hard, Chris Paul himself isn't. He was scoring pretty much at will, as he would against anybody because, well, he's Chris Paul, but Calderon ended with 16 points, 8 assists, 4 rebounds, and no turnovers, which is one of Calderon's strengths as he is low-risk, conservative guard. I noticed a little jolt in his step when he hit that deep three, and it became abundantly clear to me when he was jawing with Chris Paul after he caused the turnover...Jose Calderon is pissed. And its great to see.

He may be the nicest guy in the NBA off the floor, but on the court he's a competitor. I honestly think outside of Chris Bosh, he's the toughest player the Raptors have had in the past couple of seasons (until Reggie Evans arrived this year). Now, by tough I don't mean physically, that he doesn't get injured, or some kind of an iron-man type, but tough, as in, he stands up for himself when need be. Think about this for a second: the last two guys he confronted were Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul. That's the NBA's biggest dick/intimidator, and the NBA's best point guard right there.

With Kevin Garnett, Calderon came back with some getting-in-your-face of his own, even with a timeout being called when Chris Bosh, the franchise player and leader couldn't even stand up for his teammate. Bosh, as anytime he faces KG, plays like shit and lets KG's scare tactics get to him. So with Bosh not doing anything, the referees not calling any of the over-the-top antics KG was pulling like crawling on the ground like a dog barking at Jose, Jose stood up for himself, and with some anger too. Enough is enough.

With Chris Paul, while CP3 wasn't overtly taunting JC in any way, you could feel the tone of superiority he was painting all over Jose. Calderon going into that game knew full well what the critics were saying about his inability to perform as of late, and took it to Chris Paul in his own right, but to me, that little confrontation after both of them fell was the ultimate statement. Chris Paul looked at him and then to the referee like "this piece of shit can't get that call against me, you crazy ref?" and Calderon's reaction was something like "That's right, get your ass up and gimme the ball. You're not above me" Even though CP3 IS the best point guard, Calderon was demanding respect.

And looking at last night's game vs the Bulls, he was LOOKING for his shot in that fourth quarter and took those jumpers off the Bosh screen right above the key and nailed'em with confidence. That's the Jose I know, and it's great to see. But what I didn't realize until now is that no matter how much he may struggle in guarding the dribble penetration, he won't accept anything less than respect from opposing players, from KG to CP3.

Calderon is averaging 12.4 points and 6.4 assists going into L.A to face the Clippers tonight, and I expect his assists to go up as the season progresses.

Raptors pull away after some terri-bull defense

There was so much unnecessary tension this game it was remarkable. It wasn't until crunch time fourth quarter that we started pulling away behind some aggressive plays from Bosh and Calderon. The Bulls played their asses off, while we looked sluggish, but in the end the fatigue caught up to Chi-town.

• I think its really embarrassing that Jay Triano had to ask the Raptors at half time in the locker room which team played last night (Chicago), and why they're the ones full of energy and hustle.
  
• The Raptors defense is so bad its mind-numbing. I'm slowing coming to a point where I've just accepted that on defense, we're going to blow harder than the big bad wolf did to the Three Little Pigs' home.
  
• Chris Bosh continues to be a beast. He just wants it. His drive (no pun intended) and determination to get to the rim was relentless - and he didn't keep complaining on every play to the refs, just got up and came back harder the next trip.
  
• The refs sucked tonight. So many bad calls, late calls, and missed calls, especially on CB4. When Leo Rautins has to point out about 5 times that Bosh should be given the respect by the referees and get those calls, you know it's BAD.
• Another night, another unknown has a great career game against the Raptors. Presenting Taj Gibson: 18 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks and zero turnovers. You wanna know how much of an unknown this guy is? Look at this picture from ESPN's recap:

- Even Matt Devlin said he looked like a veteran out there...and dude is a ROOKIE!

• I'm going to say Jose Calderon, apart from Bosh, was the game changer in that fourth. He set up some plays nicely, but the key was he looked for his shot, took'em, and hit'em. Some clutch 2-point bombs off the classic Calderon-Bosh PNR.
  
• Amir Johnson is coming along nicely. Relentless hustle, he had six rebounds, but was responsible for many more just by tapping and keeping the ball alive on several possessions.
  
• Reggie Evans is an unbelievable teammate. Who would've guess this would be the guy to jump up and down on every play, get up from his seat and encourage/talk to his teammates at every opportunity.
  
• That fast break drive Belinelli had was crazy - off balance, lean-in jumper with two guys on him, he should've gotten a foul call too. This guy is a body contortionist.
  
• Bargnani's shot wasn't falling, but he still ends up with a decent 16 points and a respectable 6 rebounds. He had some key defensive plays down the stretch where he altered or bothered his man .
• It's transparent Hedo Turkoglu is getting more and more comfortable with the Raptors. I loved him handling the ball in the fourth - he just makes great decisions (other than that turnover where he threw the ball from half court) and has slick passes.
• DeMar DeRozan had an awesome game, and deserved more time. 9 points, 9 rebounds - both a career high, along with 2 blocks and a steal. The three turnovers are understandable - rookie mistakes, and that fast break dunk was VICIOUS off the pass from Calderon!! I appreciated that he tried to dunk it again on his next trip down even though he got blocked pretty badly. He even showed a jumper, which is good to see.
  
• I laughed when Brad Miller got stuffed by Bargnani in the fourth - Miller fell down so slow.
  
• Antoine Wright continues to look for his offense a bit too much. He's a very capable offensive threat; he's got effective cross overs, can drive decently too, but still should ease up a bit on taking all those shots. That block falling down on the fast break was ridiculous though.
  
• Jarrett Jack continues to toss bricks, and his shots are looking more and more off. He does credit for continuing to be aggressive though and driving to the rim.
  
• Luol Deng needs to shave that mustache-goatee. Just looks ugly on him.
  

What DON'T They Get!!??

The ESPN NBA page headline for this game reads:

"Duncan, Parker injured | Spurs top Raptors"

What more did the Spurs need to do in order to give us an even better chance of taking this game? Ginobili catches Rabies? We knew Parker wasn't going to play, which was a blessing. Then Duncan was announced to be out as well - that's a Godsend. Seriously, its like the heavens went out of their way to give us a dream scenario - win in San Antonio and be 2-1 in this road trip, and the real plus is that team morale would be up after getting blown worse than a porn star in Dallas. But of course, the Raptors, in their classic style, had a meltdown in the fourth quarter.

I stayed behind in school instead of hopping on the long TTC ride home because I wanted to watch this game live - this road trip includes stops in two of my favourite players' (Ginobili, other being Nowitzki) town - so I plugged in my laptop and sat on a hard bench that made my ass sore, probably what the Raptors are feeling right now, at least they should be.

So, my two favourite players - Manu and Dirk, and this is how the Raptors handled them on this trip:

Dirk Nowitzki: 29 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 block.

+

Manu Ginobili: 36 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal, 4 blocks.

=

FAIL

Dirk got his points so easily it wasn't even funny, and lets not forget he sat out most of the fourth because the game was long done. So lets fast forward to tonight's game. Fourth quarter, close game, who should the Raptors guard!??? Well...Duncan is out, Tony Parker is out...so of course its Ginobili!! Now its much easier said than done I know, and Manu is one of the game's best closers, but you'd think they'd be able to at least bother him somewhat or not give him easy shots - the Spurs announcer, after Manu hit that last dagger three that pretty much wrapped it up, said "Manu Ginobili is torturing your team...and what do you? Leave him WIDE OPEN!!!??"

While Ginobili was being aggressive; driving, slashing, kicking it out to teammates, the Raptors go into the fetal position and start taking horrible jump shots. Belinelli was on fire, but everyone saw that bad jumper coming - he shouldn't have taken that shot at that instance in the game, unless he was wide open. The only guy I'll give credit to down the fourth is Bosh - he tried to be aggressive and drove hard - it worked once, he got the call, the other time he tried to draw the call but didn't get it and ended up shooting a bad off balance jumper. I mean, the guy had 32 and 10, you can't ask for more. Bargnani stats wise was good too - 17 points on 7 of 13 shooting, but the four boards is ugly. And he should've attacked more - nobody out there can guard him.

• Is it just me or did Hedo look...kinda old in that fourth quarter? A couple of plays it seemed like if the ball is two feet from him he can't get it without collapsing to the ground.
  

• Matt Bonner drove and dunked on us - how's that for a sum-up of the game?

• The Raptors scored 124 points...and gave up 131..131!!! We've finally completed our transformation into Phoenix North or Phoenix East, whatever you like.
  

• No seriously, we really Phoenix now - the Spurs announcer said during the game "the HIGH-FLYING Raptors!"

• As much as it pained me to watch the Raps suffer another excruciating loss, watching my man Ginobili explode on them was amazing (and painful). This guy doesn't get enough credit for how great he really is.

• Antoine Wright has been (in a Barkley voice) TURRI-BUL on offense. I get against Dallas he wanted to show his old team what they gave up (which he really didn't), but this cannot continue.
  

• Jarrett Jack needs to practice shooting..like now. Especially if he's still vying for the starter's job, when Calderon has found his stroke. Even though no matter what Calderon will always be the starter, and deserves to. Even if Calderon struggles now and then, Jack hasn't done enough to warrant it.
  

• Belinelli was doing his best Ginobili impersonation out there...until the fourth quarter of course, when we really needed, when Ginobili was being himself.
  

• Fuck this loss sucked.
  

Season Opens With Fire with Chef Bargnani

My season opener observations:

• First of all - how sizzling is that picture? Bargnani looks like he's just throwing down that dunk in DISGUST..disgust that anybody would try to even challenge that.

• For all the talk of the bad preseason, the Raps looked like an NBA ready team (conditioning and all that jazz).
  
• The crowd was bananas - no, apeshit - and it was great to see. I could just feel the buzz watching from my television set. I went to a preseason game and I was excited as hell, can't imagine what it must've felt like to be sitting at this game against such a big opponent.
• Andrea Bargnani..sigh..can't say enough about this guy. I've been his biggest supporter, and he couldn't have done anything better tonight - if the refs didn't call the most BS fouls he could've easily had 30-36. No one could guard him out there, and it was extra fun watching him scorch Shaq daddy. He looked like he actually FELT that he was unstoppable, you could just see it in his eyes. And really, that's how it should be. It's like he was offended that the Cavs put Big Z/Shaq/Varejao on him.
  
• It's great to see Turkoglu driving, it really revs you up. His drives almost look...unpleasant and awkward, but its always on point and effective.
  
• You know what? Jose Calderon played awesome period. He had what, 8 assists in the first half if I remember correctly? He wasn't off-the-charts or anything, but there's been a lot of worry about his play since last year, and I thought he was damn solid tonight.
  
• I LOVED Jarrett Jack's aggressiveness in the fourth. It just seemed like the Raptors would've never done that last year in the 4th quarter of an important game - take it to the whole and push the ball continuously.
  
• I'm not a big fan of Jose and JJ at the 1 and 2, but it wasn't bad in the fourth quarter.
  
• Even though Bosh didn't dominate by scoring, I still thought he had a monster game with the 16 boards to go along with his 21 points.
  
• I forgot about Anthony Parker..seriously. I didn't recognize him initially when he was on the floor in a Cavs uniform, definitely do not miss him, hope he does well though.
  
• I was on the ESPN Cavs-Raps message board, and a lot of Cavs fan seem to think if they had Delonte West it would've made a huge difference. Oh, and also, all the talk was about whether Shaq or LeBron, or the Cavs in general and whether them getting Shaq was a good idea or not. Not one word about the Raps' great game, rather how shitty Cleveland sucks. Understandable, we haven't done anything yet, especially after a dismal season last year.
• Shaq looks TERRIBLE. Like, REALLY BAD. And hell, he looks kinda fat, is it just me? He should've retired in Miami and gone out while still on top, but he keeps sagging on and has left his previous four teams on bad terms. Honestly, I love Shaq, I think he's funny as hell and would be an awesome guy to hang out with, but wtf is up with him acting like he's still a centerpiece of a team?
• How is Mike Brown still the head coach? How? I know they couldn't fire him after they went to the finals and all before, but wasn't last season's playoff exit a great excuse to let him go? They have NO offensive sets..like NONE.
  
• Do you think the Suns are roaring in laughter that Cleveland actually took Shaq aka the Big Geritol (from Basketbawful) off their hands?
• Marco Belinelli continues to wow with this...athleticism. And he looks like a total bum with that facial hair, but it kinda adds to his crazy "you have no idea what I'm going to do" game. His facial hair is basically the equivalent to Ginobili when he had his long hair.
  
• How long till LeBron gets sick of Shaq and there's bad vibes and rumours floating around about how they don't like each other? I say January. Because Shaq never adjusts to the teams he plays for, rather everyone has to adjusts for Shaq's team.
  
• If Kobe wins at least one more ring - which could very well happen this year - I wonder how much that's gonna eat at Shaq as Kobe will surpass him.
• Bryan Colangelo looked so worried during the fourth quarter it was hilarious..the man was sweating bullets. When he walked into the tunnel after the game was over, he had the biggest expression of relief of on his face, forget a tissue he needed a towel to wipe off the sweat.
  
• The twenty point lead was great - Cavs coming back all the way to TIE it was SCARY - but not surprising - but the way we responded to it was. It was a pleasant surprise, a huge horse to get off our backs with this first and oh-so-important game.
  
• Watching Big Z and Shaq go up the court is like watching a turtle and a snail.
  
• Jamario Moon! Remember him? What a bozo. I forgot about Parker, and even more so about Moon.
  

Mirror Image: Jose Calderon and 'Charlie' from 'Lost'

This is just freaky, who knew Jose Calderon doubled as 'Charlie Pace' on the epic tv show Lost'!!?? Okay, so Charlie is really played by actor Dominic Monaghan - but you take Jose, grow his hair and facial hair out longer, and colour it dirty blonde, and you have Charlie "NOT PENNY's BOAT" Pace.

Observations from Attending Raps vs 76ers

I was at the game with Rachel (thanks Malin), and we were pumped to see the Raptors again, regardless of it being pre-season. Some observations:

• DeMar DeRozan looks like a baby, as Rachel pointed out. Being there in person, you can easily tell he's the 'new kid', the 'young guy', etc. And he's wiry as hell - I thought his body was bigger, but that must've been pictures from he just finished working out. His athleticism is awe-inspiring. He had a sick, wicked, and nasty dunk on the breakaway, and every time he drives to the rim in general, it catches your breath.

• Sonny Weems is quickly winning me over. I've only seen him in a couple of games, but he's hustling to death and is running the lanes at every opportunity. Of course a lot of that has to do with him trying to get minutes, but he's done no wrong so far. He's a legit 6'6", and has a big, wide body on top of that. Guy just looks huge. I keep saying he looks like Joey Graham, Rachel said he looks like a mix of Joey Graham and Antonio Daniels.

• Bargnani played well in his limited minutes, and he looked like he wasn't even trying that hard. That baseline drive-and-dunk was the highlight of the game for me - it beats DeRozan's dunk because DD's was on a fast break and we expect that from him, while Bargnani drove from the corner all the way for the dunk. As soon as he started driving my heart skipped a beat in anticipation, and he delivered.
  

• Marco Belinelli is awesome. He's all over the floor, has better handles than you'd expect, but what surprised me the most about him is his hang-time (seriously). It's not like Jordan by any means, but he had at least two drives I remember where he switched hands 2-3 times in the air and they weren't easy finishes either. Ginobili is one of my favourite players in the NBA, and Rachel admitted Belinelli's "got a little Manu in him". Also, his height always catches me off guard. He's taller than I think - I always picture him as 6'3"- 6'4", but he's definitely 6'5" almost close to being 6'6".
  

• Reggie Evans forced a lot of shots. I don't know if its because he honestly thought they could go in, or because he was feeding off the crowd cheering for him and he just wanted to deliver the goods. The frustrating aspect of his game is when he dribbled down the floor on the fast break - and of course- it resulted in a turnover as he got called for a charge. Now, it wasn't one of those situations where he's way ahead of anyone else, which would excuse him for handling the ball - nope - there were plenty of Raptors right around him. Reggie Evans shouldn't ever take more than one dribble down the floor. Other than that, he was doing what he brought over to do - throwing bones and getting rebounds. Actually, its quite uncanny how he grabs offensive rebounds - you just don't expect him to - he's undersized and what not but in the first quarter alone it was like the ball was just pulling towards him like gravity or something. Oh, and he got a technical foul. Like Malin texted me, "you gotta love a guy who gets a tech at a pre-season game".

• Calderon looked much better than last night's stinker. He even looked to be aggressive and get the ball down to the other side of the court as soon as possible. There was one play I remember, an alley-oop to Amir Johnson on a broken play/fast break where Calderon sensed Johnson's position to be, and just tossed it from around mid court towards him, and Johnson didn't even realize it till it was half way towards him - and to his credit, quickly jumped and completed the play. It was quite beautiful actually.
  

• Amir Johnson gets me excited all over again for that Jerome Moiso, Jerome Williams, Keon Clark type. Long, athletic as hell, and even when he doesn't block shots, he definitely alternates them. And he follows the ball like its the Lord of The Rings; never gives up on the play and will get numerous tips and second chance points.
  

• I was appalled that Rachel thinks Marcus Banks is good looking (can you believe it!!??) we were arguing over it, and it got to the point where I ended up saying Reggie Evans is probably better looking than Banks!

• Your main man Primoz Brezec was in the game - and he tired to go at his boy Rasho Nesterovic as soon as he got on the court - to epic failure of course. Primoz was trying so hard to post up Rasho and do all these moves in order to score on him to no success, while on the other end Rasho just put up that soft jumper of his so non-chalantly and scored over Primoz, it was hilarious.
  

• Marc Iavaroni is an intense dude. I caught glimpses of him several times on the bench yelling out defensive instructions - he just looked pissed, like, all the time. It was wicked.
  

Raptor Thoughts

Alright so very briefly, here are some first thoughts on each potentially important player from the first preseason game.

1) The first basket was in the "house" as an and-1 layup on jose. deja vu for sure.

2) Reggie gets a board. Sweet.

3) The first offensive set went to a reggie post up. Disaster?

4) Definitely not, got to reward hustle. Reggie gets a steal and an and-1

5) I love reggie

6) Is deRoazen in this game? No show on defense, can't use spacing and picks. Above average court vision though.

7) Jose definitely looks like he needs some real game time experience

8) Weems is putting in the effort and may appear as our sf backup. Potentialy.

9) Belinelli only scores in 3's lol. Very quick shoot. Looks great on the catch and shoot, fast break, but creating his own doesn't appear to be his forte. Good passer as well.

10) Bargnani is showing the most complete offense of all of the players on the floor right now

11) Jack may end up finishing the season as a starter. Great vision, great passing, and his jumper is falling. Whether he is better than jose, who knows. but in my opinion, he adds something more unique to the starting lineup than jose. Toughness and strong defense. Jose may just fit more with the bench unit.

12) Rasho is still Rasho

13) Amir will warm the bench more than advertised. Can't see him taking Rasho as the backup centre, at least not in the first half of the season. Hopefully he shows some progress. Can't really take much from improved play down the stretch, it was scrubs versus scrubs. If he can't exploit that, there is no hope for him to crack the rotation.


P.s. Does anyone know what happened to Wright? Is it a precuation or is he just sick or something.

Peace!