Spurs 111 - Raptors 106 - Double-Overtime Omnishambles

Yet another late-game meltdown, ending with a double-overtime loss to the Spurs, 111-106. This one so bad it inspired me to start the Omnishambles blog. Against all the odds, the Raptors played tight with the winningest team in the NBA, the Spurs, forcing them into double-overtime. Much more in keeping with the odds, the Raptors lost, thanks to some ugly, incompetent playing.

Omnishamble keys to the game:

2-19. Two-for-frickin'-nineteen. Seriously. That's 0.105 shooting. 0-7 on 3-pointers. Just 12 times in NBA history has a player cranked up 19 or more shots and sunk just two of them. Just one other time did a player chuck 19 or more times, sunk only two, and not sink any freethrows (Thurl Baily in 1987).

Calderon, in-bounding king. Unlike Bargnani, Calderon is a warrior who always gives his all. Sadly, his all is not really NBA-caliber. Usually his problems mostly revolve around his slow footspeed. But last night we encountered a fun new wrinkle: inbounding. How does an elite, veteran ballhandler have such problems throwing an in-bounds pass? And how does a player having that kind of problem stay on the floor? Only Raptor coach Casey knows for sure.

DeRozan's 11-28. Better than Bargnani's uber-turd, but not by a lot. He seems to think he has a Dwyane Wade-esque game, deserving of all those bail-out calls. But he's not -- much slower, much less of a jumper, mediocre defender at best. It's popular opinion that DD has stepped up his game this season ... but has he really? His TRB% is lower than it was his rookie year, his TS% is 0.506 (barely up from last year, his worst), and his eFG% is 0.449 (ditto). There is not a single area of his game that has improved steadily from his rookie year. Usage went up 2nd year, but has since plateaued. 3pt shooting was the same 1st, 3rd and this year (just a horrid 2nd year).  Points, assists, rebounds, steals, FTAs, all basically the same. 

LoCal: Credit to Raptors board Pseudonym for that monicker, referring to the horrid combination of Lowry and Calderon. Now Calderon is pretty darn good for a 15-20 minute per game PG backup. However he is NOT a shooting guard. Whenever he plays at the same time as Lowry, bad things happen. And yet Casey insists on trotting out this abomination for 10+ minutes each game.

Flowers for Bargeron: The Bargnani-Calderon combination is like Algernon, only slower. Whenever Bargnani and Calderon share the floor, the other team goes into a two-man game and rips apart Toronto's defense. We can kind of handle one of them on the floor at a time, but both? Might as well replace our basket with a soccer net.

In non-shambles notes:

ED! It's basketball malpractice the way Casey has overlooked Ed Davis this year. The guy is sporting a PER of 20.5 and is rebounding 21.7% of all available rebounds when he is on the floor (that's 6th in the NBA for players topping 10 minutes a game), and yet he is playing just 13.6 minutes per game, by far the fewest in his three seasons. Last night was a typically terrible case in point -- 15 points and 14 rebounds in 22 minutes, and yet he's kept off the floor down the stretch in the fourth quarter and for both overtimes. Seriously?!

Jonas! 22 points on 13 shots. 3 blocks. Yes, he got pushed around a lot and abused by Tim Duncan ... but Duncan does that to a lot of players. Jonas pulled his weight and showed off his typical tirelessness.

Lowry. Maybe not a brilliant game, but still, 20 points, 4 assists, 8 rebounds is not bad at all.