It was an intriguing way to begin last night's game against the Grizzlies. And for the first half, Toronto held tight. But during halftime, the Grizzlies apparently woke up, and in the 3rd quarter, the beatdown was thorough and unrelenting.
But it was glorious to see what Toronto might be like in a Bargnani-less world. After the Grizzlies went on an early 8-0 run, the Raptors responded with a 9-0 run of their own, and for the whole first half it was a pretty close game. Sure, Ross missed a bunch of bad 3-pointers, but each time he missed, he responded with some great defense going the other way and got a block or a steal.
In the middle of the 2nd quarter, there was some Kleiza-Gray two-man-team stuff going on. Let's hope we never see that again. But overall, Kleiza pulled his weight. And, of course, Amir Johnson fouled his man 21-feet away from the basket for no discernible reason™. We were even blessed with almost no LoCal, save for the last 22 seconds of the 2nd quarter.
In the 3rd quarter, though, the Grizzlies woke up, and their big men decided to run a camp on how to pound the paint, and the omnishambles began. Memphis' bigs were just too big and too good, and Toronto had no answers. The Grizz were in the bonus less than three minutes into the quarter. Amir went down with a sprained ankle. And, even worse than LoCal, we were exposed to several minutes of LuCal (John Lucas and Calderon on the court together ... yikes!).
In the end, Toronto lost badly -- but it was not one of those humiliating, infuriating losses. There were a few signs of hope, especially what a Bargnani-less team might look like. Clearly, our frontcourt is still a couple of years and a couple of stone away from resembling Gasol-Randolph (understatement), but they did okay in the first half. Even when Ross cannot shoot, he looks good on the court and can play defense. Not a lot of angst on this one -- just an old-fashioned beatdown by a great team.
Of course, if it is true that Kyle Lowry's ankle is still bad and he should not be playing, then expect a lot more omnishambles:
@wolstatsun Ross had two nice dunks and forced some bad shots in the third. D was very rookie. Lowry is hurt, shouldn't be playing.
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) November 28, 2012
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