Published: December 30, 2009
While doing some research for Toronto’s game against Charlotte tonight two things stood out.
The first thing to grab my attention was the fact Charlotte currently has the second best defense in the NBA according to John Hollinger over at ESPN. Definitely something worth noting considering Toronto is one of the most effective offensives in the NBA. That alone makes for an interesting subplot to the game that’s about to play out tonight.
The other stat that grabbed my attention, however, was Charlotte second in the league with an atrocious 16.6 turnovers per game.
Put both of these facts together and the inner coach in me started to wonder if both of these stats would effect how Jay Triano would draw up his game plan for the game tonight.
In particular, it got me wondering if Toronto will throw out a couple different defensive looks – maybe utilizing Amir Johnson’s length and athleticism as part of a full court press or using the speed and athleticism of DeMar DeRozan or Sonny Weems in different half court sets to take away passing lanes – to get some easy buckets in transition while preventing Charlotte from setting up their stingy defense.
Turns our Raptors head coach Jay Triano isn’t thing along the same lines.
“Their defense is so effective because they are so quick,” Triano explained to me before the game. “They are (great) athletes and they do a lot of switching which causes teams to slow down. We want to be assertive with our stuff offensively. The one thing they do on the defensive end is they have three guys in the top 20 in steals. So we have to make sure we take care of the basketball as well by being assertive. ”
So, does this mean on the defensive end Toronto will try a couple different things tonight? Not a chance. Instead Triano hopes the team continues to stick with the schemes that have been working well over the past few games.
“We’ve changed some things since the last time we’ve played them and we’re going to continue to try to pressure the ball a little bit, but at the same time this is a team that is very effective at driving the ball to the basket. We need to make sure that we take away their points in the paint.”
It will be interesting to see what kind of success Toronto has tonight trying to to pull this off.
Personally, I’d switch things up a bit to focus on Charlotte’s weaknesses, but that’s probably one of the many reasons why I’m sitting in the media section and Triano will be roaming the sidelines.
