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fonger
10-30-2009, 02:09 PM
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is: It was just one game.

Certainly, Andrea Bargnani was eager to remind everyone about that the day after his 28-point opening-night performance in the Toronto Raptors' 101-91 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

"We already have to think about Memphis," he said, referring to Toronto's opponent tonight in their first road game. "We have a very tough schedule. We have 81 games to go."

But certain aspects of Bargnani's game have particular relevance for the 81 games left, and for tonight again.

The Memphis Grizzlies, like most NBA teams, use a big, slow centre - Marc Gasol in their case - who is most comfortable remaining close to the paint on the defensive end.

Bargnani is a seven-footer most comfortable, until recently, facing the basket, the farther away from the paint the better.

Which is fine, as long as Bargnani is making jump shots. Opposing big men have to come out of their comfort zone; the lane opens up for Toronto forward Chris Bosh and Bargnani can draw fouls as he drives by his opponent.

But the scouting report on him through three NBA seasons has been to solve the riddle by guarding him with a smaller, quicker player - sometimes even a shooting guard - because even at seven feet, he wasn't confident enough with his back-to-the-basket in the post to make teams pay for the mismatch.

This is why two sequences in Wednesday's game against the Cavaliers stand out: With Bargnani off to a hot start running past the Cavaliers big men in transition or raining threes when they backed off him on the perimeter, Cleveland went to a smaller lineup and put LeBron James on Bargnani.

The first time Bargnani walked the 6-foot-8 James to the block and wheeled into the middle for the score; the second he turned to the baseline, up-faked and dropped a soft finger roll into the basket when James bit hard. On another occasion, he slashed through the paint to catch a pass for a dunk, and on one more drove baseline to beat his man for another.

The moves were decisive, polished and correct.

If Bargnani can prove a consistently dangerous interior scorer, scouting reports will have to be rewritten. Bargnani is most often compared to Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki; Bargnani himself has spent more time studying the expert post technique of San Antonio Spurs big man Tim Duncan.

"[Post play] was something I had to improve because it was something I wasn't able to do at all," he said, acknowledging what most Raptors fans noticed in his first two seasons. "[In Europe,] I always played in the two or three position when I was 13, 14, 15, so it was something I had to improve."

In his first two seasons 80 and 79 per cent of his shots were jumpers from outside the lane, according to 82games.com. Last season the ratio was 75-25.

Bosh, a good shooting big man himself, shot 36 per cent of his shots from inside the lane; doubtless the Raptors would be pleased if Bargnani could move toward a 70-30 split.

Bargnani's coaches say his growth as a post player has come, in part, because he's added strength as he's got older, making it easier to establish good position down low and defend other bigs without fouling.

Bargnani says another key has been a new-found patience that comes from experience.

"The first thing is to take your time, don't rush," he says of his mindset now. "Wait to see the situation, do everything slow. You learn that from experience. I still have to improve a lot, I'm not very good."

He doesn't need to be great down there, just good enough to allow the rest of his skills to flourish.

"His game has evolved," Raptors head coach Jay Triano said. "First year, teams would switch and he wouldn't go inside; then he'd go inside with a point guard on him. Now, he's not afraid to go inside with bigger guys on him. That's just a confidence factor and a strength factor. He's not only standing on the three-point."

It's also an example of the on-going skill development that happens in the NBA. Bargnani said part of his struggles in picking up the nuances of post play was that because of the wider lane and zone defence rules in Europe, NBA-style post play is almost non-existent. In the summers spent with the Italian national team, time is devoted to working on team concepts, not individual work.

Bargnani's growth has come from working with NBA-style workout gurus in Las Vegas and with Raptors' assistant coaches, including Marc Iavoroni, Alex English and Eric Hughes and former Raptors coach Gord Herbert last year.

"With the national team we don't do a lot of individual practice," he said. "In four days in the NBA I get more shots than in one month there."

TIP SHEET

Notes Toronto Raptors head coach Jay Triano didn't need to be reminded that last season, the Raptors started 3-0 on their way to a disappointing 33-win campaign. Well, actually he did. "I thought we were 2-0," he said yesterday. The point is: starting with a win at home is nice, but guarantees nothing. "I don't think anyone remembers the start of the season. ... We need to focus on one game at a time and the game against Memphis [today] is the only one in front of us." ... The Raptors picked up their option on shooting guard Marco Belinelli, meaning he'll be under contract until the end of the 2010-11 season. "He's an outside threat, he can stretch the defence for us, he can handle the ball and create for others. I like a lot of his game and I'm more than excited that we've picked up his option," Triano said.

Next Game Tonight, at Memphis Grizzlies, 8 p.m., ET

TV TSN2

Michael Grange

fonger
11-02-2009, 02:32 AM
November 1, 2009

TORONTO - This wasn't quite the reception Hedo Turkoglu had hoped the Toronto Raptors would give his old friends and former Orlando teammates.


Jameer Nelson scored 30 points, while J.J. Redick added a career-high 27 to lead the Magic to a 125-116 win Sunday over Toronto, Turkoglu's first game against his former team since the July trade that landed him in a Raptors jersey.

``It was good to see them but I wanted a different way to send them home,'' said Turkoglu, who helped the Magic to the NBA finals last season.

Chris Bosh had 35 points and 16 rebounds to top Toronto (1-2), while Andrea Bargnani finished with 26 points. Turkoglu, the key piece of a four-team, eight player trade in the off-season, added 19 points, and Jose Calderon finished with 10.

Dwight Howard had 24 points and 11 rebounds for the Magic (3-0), who were playing without former Raptors star Vince Carter. Ryan Anderson finished with 20 points, while Matt Barnes had 12 points, nine boards and six steals.

The Magic had the hot hand from long-range all afternoon, draining seven three-pointers in a first-quarter barrage en route to 17 in the game.

``If they're makings threes, we can switch up the gameplan, but they had a lot of wide-open threes and that's what killed us,'' Bosh said. ``I think it's just doing things with more energy and more aggression. We came out flat, we let them hit us first, and they hit a couple of threes. Next thing I know they're feeding it into Dwight, and then they get layups.''

http://www.nba.com/raptors/photos/ORL_trukoglu_layin300_110109.jpg

Last year's Eastern Conference champs led from early in the first quarter and were ahead by as much as 22 points midway through the second and barely looked back.

``It's a good lesson for us to learn,'' Turkoglu said. ``We should have jumped on them early, we didn't want to be chasing at home in front of our fans. We have to learn from these games, especially being a young team.''

Orlando took an 81-68 lead into the fourth quarter in front of 18,147 fans at the Air Canada Centre when the Raptors finally showed some signs of life. A driving layup by Turkoglu, followed by a dunk by Bosh cut the deficit to four points with 5:27 to go. Bargnani, who had just four points in the first half, had a strong finish, his back-to-back baskets pulling the Raptors to within 115-111 with 4:05 to play.


But Anderson responded with a dunk followed by a Howard layup and Orlando was back up by eight with 2:26 to go, pulling away over the final two minutes.

``What we said before that game was the tendency tends to be when you are missing people, people try to do too much and we said you have to play your own game,'' said Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy. ``You can't play Vince's game or anything else but you have to play your game at a very high level and those guys did.''

There were some heated moments late in the fourth between Bosh and Howard, good friends off the court and teammates on the U.S. Olympic team. Bosh grabbed the hulking Orlando centre around the neck in a battle under the hoop, and Howard was clearly not pleased as the two hollered at each other.

``I love it, good basketball,'' Bosh said after. ``It's just a hard foul, there's no hard feelings or anything, I didn't want him to have a chance to make the basket so I wrapped him up. I'm trying to win basketball games, and if it takes a hard foul to do it, then so be it.''

Howard shrugged off the scuffle after the game.

``I am accustomed to getting fouled,'' he said. ``Does it hurt sometimes, yes. I just try to not retaliate but sometimes it does get frustrating. It is not who it is. I just try my best to not allow it to affect my game.''

Carter, meanwhile, sat out the game with an ankle injury, avoiding the boos that greet him every time he plays in Toronto. Carter, who was acquired by Orlando in the off-season in the move that allowed Toronto to sign Turkoglu, sprained his left ankle in the second quarter of the Magic's 95-85 win at New Jersey on Friday.

``He tried to go, he can go straight ahead,'' Van Gundy said before the game. ``He said if he didn't have to play any defence, he would be fine. I've had some guys before who didn't play any defence. It's generally not something we encourage.''

The Magic was also without swingman Mickael Pietrus who missed the game with an illness and flew home before tipoff.

Turns out the Magic didn't need Carter. The Raptors defence, clearly still a work in progress, looked out of sync all afternoon, and was ineffective against Orlando's long-range shooting. Their answer for Howard was to send the hulking centre to the free-throw line _ but that backfired as he only missed two shots.

``If you take away the shooters as we tried later, then Dwight Howard goes crazy inside or we foul him like we did and play the odds the right way,'' Raptors coach Jay Triano said. ``He is a 50 per cent free throw shooter and he had a great night, he went 14-for-16.''

Shorthanded Magic Outlast Raptors At ACC

The Raptors' loss came despite 54 per cent shooting from the floor, compared to 44 per cent for Orlando. Toronto also outrebounded the Magic 38-37.

The Magic couldn't miss from three-point range from the opening tip-off, with Anderson accounting for three of Orlando's first-quarter threes. Nelson's first of a pair of threes in the quarter put the Magic up 29-18 with just under two minutes to go, and Orlando led 36-28 heading into the second.

Redick's three five minutes into the second quarter gave Orlando a 54-22 lead before the Raptors finally showed some life, cutting the difference to nine points with a 16-3 run. Orlando took a 64-53 advantage into the dressing room at halftime.

Nelson had 13 points in the third as the Magic stretched their lead to 16 points, but Toronto battled back one again with a 15-5 run to come within six. Orlando took a 99-89 lead into the fourth.