Oh look!! Another young hustling team over achieving with their determination!

sigh

I was watching the Magic Vs. Suns last night and JVG was calling the game, the topic came up of the impressive numbers being put up by Bosh & then SVG said that the thing with the Raptors is that they have all the offensive firepower to win in the NBA but that they DON'T EVEN TRY on defence... OUCH!

I'd hardly say the Rockets are under-acheiving. All the analysts that said this would be the season they would be in the lottery clearly didn't pay attention to the fact that Houston doesn't need T-Mac or Yao Ming to be successful. Chuck Hayes bringing it every game doesn't hurt either. I don't see the Raps winning this one.

The Carl Landry/Chuck Hayes/Luis Scola types (undersized power forwards who don't shy away from contact) are a nightmare match-up for the pansy towers but I like the Raptors to win this game, this Houston team is a huge aberration and the early games for Western Conference teams are always tough.

I like the Raptors here too - lets face it, its a must win. I just hope that if the Rockets hit two three pointers in a row sometime in the 2nd quarter, the Raps don't decide they've lost and stop trying.

I'm with Coffee, I think the Raps play hard in this one. Its one of those games where they only have to try to match the opposing teams energy and shoot the ball well. Houston has no star player who will completely take the wind out of a team lacking defensive confidence, so i think this is a game in which the Raps will be able to regroup from some of there mental lapses.

I've never seen a team so bad at closing out quarters. This could be a 20 point game if they played with focus these last few minutes

Yeah the end of the second was riddled with Raptors turnovers... and no timeout called :S. Here's hoping Houston doesn't make a run to start the 3rd and we maintain the 10 point cushion.

if sonny weems ever develops a reliable jumpshot, he could be a great player for us.

i also like what jack is doing, for the most part.

He needs to do more than that. It always seems that weems jumps a step too early to throw it down with authority. What gives? I thought this guy was a high flyer but he always jump early and goes for the layup.

Definitely... Weems is as advertised. And he plays smarter than Pops. It was sad to see Pops make that huge block and then cause a turnover and offensive foul on the next two possessions.

I like the gameplan so far - clean up those turnovers and make sure Bosh stays involved and hopefully we can push the cushion a bit further in the third quarter

Has a raptor ever stood up for anything before?

At least Jack has some nuts it seems, good to see it. I like this

So far I'm convinced Jack and Wright are the only ones with balls on this team. What a dirty swing by Ariza, thank god he didn't connect.

Again - we're not closing out the quarter. This is down from a 21 point lead to 12...

A few interesting stats - Rockets are 3-20 from 3 point land, and Jack is our leading rebounder with 7

Nice win against a playoff contender. The rockets don't really have anyone to turn to when their shots aren't falling, and make no mistake we got the help of the refs this game (there were a lot of non-calls that I could see).

I hope that next game Triano doesn't go with Banks and instead opts for Wright+Belinelli: Let Belinelli be the PG offensively, and let Wright defend the opposing PG.

Didn't see the game, but nice to see a really solid stat line from Turk.

The best part about the game?

Matt Devlin acting like the Raptors had turned a corner simply because Jack and Bosh confronted Ariza after he tried to knock off DeRozan's head. I guess it is a bit of a shock considering how spineless this team usually is but come the f*** on, he tried to punch a guy on your team, level his ass.

Good idea thats relaliate and lose CB and JJ. Then we lose the game at least we would have stuck up for our guy. IF ariza actually connected with that elbow im sure something would have happened. Ariza should get suspended for that play very dirty(dirty in the bad way)

Mr Coffee: nice to see you being negative after another win. I dont know if you actually pay attention when you are watching games. Basketball is a game of runs. Teams are gonna make there runs throught a game. Do we say Milwakee sucked the other night when we brought it to 9 points after the 3rd quarter. NO. Try and be consistent with your comments. IT goes both ways.

Mr. Coffee wasn't being negative after the win. Those comments were made during the game. Please refrain from making personal attacks against other members. While I agree with your opinions on Basketball (it is a game of runs), I do not believe in singling out other people because their opinions clash with yours.

Great energy/effort off the bench, Turk being aggressive on offense, solid game by Jack… All things working in this game for the Raps. It also didn’t hurt that Houston couldn’t hit any open shots & that Ariza went all “Thug Life” with the flying elbow. Funny how he even missed on that shot!!

Weems, Amir, Pops getting time makes the Raps more athletic & able to keep pressure on the defence. Yes it wasn’t always pretty but what Weems, Amir & Pops bring is ENERGY & if they are playing hard some of those mistakes/turnovers can be over looked. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marco & A.Wright don’t seem much action over the next little bit (Wright didn’t see the floor in this one)… And with Jose out for at least the next few games, put the ball in Turk's hands when Jack needs a break. I'd rather see Turk run the offense then Banks...

i like energy and hustle. when you're actually playing hoop, you always hate playing against guys like that because they make it harder to play. instead of being a bunch of soft wimps who couldn't care less about a loose ball, i'd rather see us at least mix things up a bit. that dennis rodman "born to be wild" mix on youtube should be shown before every game

CV31 - if you're going to insist in continuing your holier than thou attitude and personal attacks against me, I'd suggest the following:

- try posting the same comments and insults here after the Raptors stink up games rather than only showing up here after wins and doing your "I told you so" and "you're not allowed to criticize" attitude. I noticed you had nothing to say at all after the Atlanta and Milwaukee games.

- As you say - be consistent. Instead of criticizing me all the time, why don't you call out Scott for his incessant negative tone about this team, and how he always seems to cherry pick statistics and arguments that make them look like a bad team rather than all the positive things you see? Actually, he probably deserves more of your wisdom than me, because he actually makes fun of the players on a daily basis.

- And for credibility sake, it usually helps to spell properly and use proper grammar when attacking someone else.

This is the third season and counting that these boards are full of the same attitude that any criticism of this team is unfair and makes the poster an absolute idiot. All this while this team continues to stagnate and accomplish absolutely nothing on a consistent basis.

It goes back to what Leo was saying during the game. Its not the fact we lost against Milwaukee and Atlanta that's the problem - its the way we did it. It was great to see a guy like Weems play a solid game and get the crunch time minutes simply because he was hustling. And Amir did a great job for three quarters keeping the Rockets off the glass. If we had two or three more guys like them, we might have a couple of extra wins right now.

wow Carl Landry is a scoring machine!! and most of his shots were very well defended, he was just on fire..
he would be amazing of Raps' bench behind CB and AB..

anyhow nice win, we actually played some D, but Sonny and DD should be fined for every jumper they take
and anyway you look at it, Rockets need TMac back, they need a goto scorer in the starting 5...

they don't need a 30 year old suck who can't win a playoff series. if they actually thought they needed him, they would have him playing for them right now. he's always been a mediocre three point shooter aside from a few memorable outbursts, and his ball domination would disrupt their offensive flow. they probably have a better option in trevor ariza taking a bunch of shots a game.

Ariza suspended one game by Stu Jackson, without pay:

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/12/14/ariza.s...ls=iref:nbahpt2

What's without pay? Is it simply 5.5 million / 82 games = 67 grand?

no calderon = more balanced starting lineup, translates into an early lead, translates into a win. gooooooooooooo hip injury! i know we've got no one else but seriously, i think jack/no-one might be better than calderon/jack.

I disagree. I think we need Calderon, but inserting him the second unit means his defensive liabilities won't be so evident and game-changing. Calderon's best games were with the second unit in the Forderon times, and he was capable of making the second unit more fluid offensively. Seeing as how the first unit is all-offense and the second unit is all-defense, it makes sense to switch Jack with Calderon. They'll end up playing the same minutes anyway since Triano is insistent on using the Calderjack lineup to close out the 4th, but the change would allow us to start games with a different tone. It also means Bargs won't have to help so much on defense. Just look at all the benefits!

so that means triano will definitely put calderon back in the starting lineup as soon as he's remotely healthy. yes!