|
Believe it or not, I wasn't really upset or concerned when the New Jersey Nets took a 42-30 lead over the Raptors midway through the second quarter last night. I knew the Nets would go cold and start missing their shots eventually and that's exactly what happened — to the extreme. You could just see the Nets' effort start to sag as their lead dwindled away, and the Raptors closed out the half with a one-point lead and then held the Nets to just 43 second-half points. Toronto took a five-point lead into the fourth quarter and gradually built on that lead until a meaningless Nets three-pointer in the final minute made it a more respectable single-digit loss.
Playing without Hedo Turkoglu, DeMar DeRozan and Jose Calderon in this one, the Raptors needed Antoine Wright and Sonny Weems to step up their production as they were inserted into the starting lineup. They delivered on that expectation by combining for 32 points on 13-for-21 shooting and 18 rebounds. Weems' electrifying dunks got more attention (his second-quarter slam off of Jarrett Jack's inbounds pass was mind blowin') but Wright followed up a season-best performance (15 points, six rebounds) two games ago with an even better one (18 points, seven rebounds) last night. Most significantly, Wright has shot 10-for-20 from three-point range in his last five games and he went three-for-four last night on those corner treys I've been harping on him to master. Now let's see DeRozan add that shot to his arsenal.
The thing I enjoyed the most about last night's game was the continued blossoming of Kris Humphries, a guy I've always appreciated (way more than most Raptors fans) and rooted for. He was easily the Nets' best player last night while contributing 15 points and 11 rebounds in just 26 minutes. What surprised and impressed me the most about Hump was that four of his five field goals came from 15 feet and beyond. I don't remember him being able to make those shots in Toronto, so it looks like he's diversified his game since the Raptors traded him.
You could see the writing was on the wall for Hump when Colangelo acquired Reggie Evans last June. I thought at the time that Humphries was better than Evans (and told him so in a chance meeting at Pearson Airport) but I certainly wasn't surprised when he was part of the blockbuster trade that brought in Turkoglu and Wright. He wasn't given much of a chance to shine on a deep Mavericks team and he must have found that hard to swallow since he's in a contract year. He was traded to the Nets in January and it's proven to be a perfect situation for him — an opportunity to shoot with impunity on the most offensively-starved team in the league. He's been cool as ice in dirty Jersey, averaging 11.8 points and 7.2 rebounds in just 24 minutes per game and probably earning himself a nice raise in his next contract.
It's been hard for some people to understand how a team with young, talented players like Brook Lopez and Devin Harris can be this putrid. But when you look at their roster and see that, before Humphries arrived, they were the only two players with Player Efficiency Ratings (PER) over 13 (an average PER is 15), you realize that there are a number of crappy players getting significant playing time on that team. Eight different players with PERs under 10 have played a combined 3,809 minutes — that's 33 percent of the team's total. Jarvis Hayes has a PER of 6.3 and he was in their starting lineup last night. Antoine Wright is the only Raptor with a PER under 10 (he's at 7.5 currently) and it wouldn't shock me if he got close to that figure by the end of the season.
The Raptors have definitely showed some bi-polar tendencies in the past week, but hopefully they'll build on their strong second half to come out strong at home against the Kings on Sunday. And keep in mind that they play the Nets again in two weeks. 
|
