Thoughts on the Raptors after 1 preseason game:
Hard to read, as Phoenix played last night and were obviously tired; Raptors aren't going to beat anyone by 51 points in the regular season, still lots of positives.
Evans - surprise starter, I had heard that he had a good camp, but wow, he looks about 30 pounds lighter and way more athletic. This is the guy I thought we were getting last year. Bricked most of his freethrows, but great energy, and really frustrated Lopez.
Johnson - Dude, we need you to eliminate the fouls. But good energy at both ends, very good job of getting after offensive boards, but didn't finish them well.
Anderson - Haven't seen much of this guy before, but a decent jumper and good defensive effort.
Jack - great tempo, but was lofting a lot of passes in to guys that were getting picked off.
Calderon - improved defensive intensity, but still getting lost on switches. Still, not bad. Definitely a lot slower and more deliberate than Jack, but his shooting looked pretty sharp, and he had a gorgeous alley-oop to DeRozan.
Kleiza - awesome finish around the hoop, nice threes. Couldn't have had a better debut, really.
Bargnani - decent defense, decent offensive boards, but not clicking offensively. Settled for too many jumpers. Definitely the disappointment on the team, although he was going good things away from the ball.
DeRozan - Not really noticeable in the first half, but did a great job in the third quarter; his range looks a lot better.
Weems - solid, had decent hands and shooting, jumper looked really good.
Barbosa - good defense, great speed in the open, but had some bad turnovers.
Dorsey - did really well in athe fourth quarter (a double double in about sixteen minutes of playing time) but that was mostly with Lopez out of the game. Still need to see what he can do against legitimate NBA 7-footers.
Rest of the team - Dupree, Banks, Wright, and Alibi all got garbage time. This third unit was pretty crappy, overall. Alibi looks like he's trying to use his reach to out-rebound guys, he needs to learn that position is the most important thing in the NBA. Wouldn't mind seeing him assigned to the D-league, although he could also probably learn a lot from battling guys like Dorsey and Evans in practice every night.
Coaching - the attention to defense and to offensive boards were both very noticeable. Transition defense was awful in the first Q, but got better as the game went along, possibly simply because of fewer turnovers.
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