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It's simple, really. This Raptors squad simply can't hang with young, athletic teams. We saw it in the two humilating losses to the Atlanta Hawks (average score: 129-102) and we saw it again in last night's 119-99 evisceration at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder. The final score is actually generous to the Raptors, since the Thunder were up 107-81 halfway through the fourth quarter before they benched Kevin Durant, Jeff Green and Russell Westbrook for the rest of the game.
The two stats that stand out from this game are the differences in fast break points (21-10 for OKC) and in points off of turnovers (29-17 for OKC). It's difficult to pick one area that sucks the most about the Raptors' defence, but their transition D is truly atrocious and compeltely helpless against athletic opponents. While I don't think Chris Bosh's presence would have significantly altered the end result, a front line of Rasho Nesterovic and Andrea Bargnani can't do much to stop a team like the Thunder from running a track meet.
I'd like to see Jay Triano experiment with putting Amir Johnson in the starting lineup and shifting Bargnani back to center tonight against Houston, but I don't actually expect that to happen. I know... "It's not who starts the game, it's who finishes it." Well, I might argue that point if you fall behind 22-13 before you make your first substitution.
We all know what Rasho can do and I'm thankful he's here to be the Raptors' backup center, but don't you think Amir has earned the right to fill in for Bosh in the starting lineup until he returns? I'd just like to see his special brand of hustle and hops earlier in the game — maybe he could get a nasty block or two early on that would send a message to the opposition.
There's a lot of debate about whether or not the Raptors are doing a good enough job to get Bargnani touches while Bosh is out. I paid particular attention to Bargnani without the ball last night and to be honest, I really don't think he works as hard as he could to get good position.
With Bosh, you know he's never going to take a possession off — he's always battling and making his opponent work to deny him position. With Bargnani, I saw him battle for position some plays, and just stand around on others. I know his game is different than Bosh's and I'm sure some people think Bargnani would give more effort if he was convinced he would get the ball if he did. But I'm still not seeing the mentality of a first offensive option in Andrea.
The lone bright spot from this game was DeMar DeRozan's return to relevance. He was much more aggressive last night than he had been his previous three games — all four of his field goals came from in close and he also got to the line six times. Keep it up, young fella. 
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