Raptors vs Detroit Preview

Posted on November 4, 2009 | No Comments

I already previewed this game a bit, but with both Richard Hamilton AND Tayshaun Prince out of the lineup, I thought I would do a new quick preview.

Obviously a team missing 36 ppg SHOULD be at a disadvantage. That wasn’t exactly the case against Orlando, who they beat last night, but with Dwight Howard fouling out after just 17 minutes, suddenly their task became much easier. Howard is the most important player for the Magic, both on offense and defense. He closes the inside to slashers and post players, and he draws defenders on offense to allow for his teammates to shoot uncontested threes (as you may have noticed in against the Raptors).

Basically, Orlando couldn’t score enough to win, as they were held to a season low 80 points.

Detroit’s other win was against Memphis (no, the irony isn’t lost on me), who are also a decent offensive team. Not against Detroit, though, who held them to season low of 74 points. All their other games they scored over 100 points.

Noticing the pattern, here? Detroit is still one of the better defensive teams in the league, so far, but what they can’t do is score. They’re 29th in scoring at only 87.3.

Now, the Raptors, on the other hand, don’t have trouble scoring. They’ve finished above 100 points in all three games. In fact, in the games against Orlando and Cleveland, Toronto ended up scoring more points than any of their other opponents so far this year (not much of a sample, but there you have it). The reason they lost both games was because of defense, or lack there of.

So, how the Raptors are going to beat Detroit is by outscoring them, not stopping them from scoring (although that will help). Detroit hasn’t scored 100 points yet and the Raptors haven’t scored under 100 points yet. The question is, is the Raptors offense better than Detroit’s defense?

Bosh is probably going to get his points. He’s averaging 31 ppg and is leading the league with 15 free throw attempts a game. It will be hard to stop him from scoring if he continues to get to the line, and there’s not really anyone who has been playing for Detroit that can stop him from getting there. Villanueva is a bad defender, Ben Wallace is too old and slow to keep up with him and Kwame is not quick enough. Chris Wilcox will probably end up playing big minutes tonight guarding Bosh. If he doesn’t foul out.

As I said in my earlier post, Bargnani should, in theory, be able to score against Detroit’s front line, that’s designed to stop penetration and post scoring. My guess is that Villanueva will spend most of his time guarding Bargnani, since neither Wallace nor Kwame are going to want to guard him at the three point line. I’d expect to see a lot of minutes from Jason Maxiell tonight, since he’s probably the best Detroit player to matchup with Bargnani (and Bosh, for that matter). He’s quicker than Wallace and Kwame, but a much better defender than Villanueva. He’s only playing 16 mpg so far this season, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get over 25 tonight.

Without Prince, Detroit has absolutely no one that can guard Turkoglu. Last night they started Jonas Jerebko at small forward. No, I’d never heard of him, either. They also have Austin Daye, a rail thin rookie who a veteran like Turkoglu would probably give nightmares to trying to defend. This might be a big night for Turkoglu.

With Bosh, Bargnani and Turkoglu all likely to have big scoring nights, I think that the Raptors will safely win this one.

SIDE NOTE:

I find Detroit a puzzling team. They got a new coach best known for his offensive philosophies, signed two guys who are known for their offense, and known for not playing defense and lost two of the best defenders in Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess, yet what they have trouble doing is scoring, but their defense, statistically speaking, is looking better than it was last season.

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Category: NBA, Pistons, Raptors

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