Toronto Raptors Blog – Page 63 – NBA Blog

Young, Holiday shine for 76ers

The AP reports:

Even the return of All-Star Chris Bosh couldn’t help the Toronto Raptors.

Thaddeus Young scored a career-high 32 points, Jrue Holiday had 21 and the Philadelphia 76ers beat the Raptors 114-101 on Sunday to snap a five-game losing streak.

“Today was just a great day,” Young said. “My teammates were looking for me and they put me in different positions.”

Bosh returned from a seven-game absence to finish with 12 points and 12 rebounds, but the Raptors still lost for the fifth time in six games…

The 76ers went 9 for 12 from 3-point range, including three by Young.

“Thad made his 3’s and I felt that jump-started us,” 76ers coach Eddie Jordan said.

Bob Cooney of the Philadelphia Daily News reports:

Young, whose inconsistency has caused him to be taken out of the starting lineup, was back among the first five yesterday because center Sam Dalembert was late for a morning meeting and did not start. Young responded, pouring in a career-high 32 points, missing just five of his 18 shots. He also grabbed five rebounds and came up with four steals.

Holiday, securely planted as the team’s starting point guard, had a solid all-around game with 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists. Though still only 19, Holiday has grown into a player who is being counted on by teammates to be a stabilizing force in the final meaningless games.

Chris Bosh misses game due to stomach cramps

Eric Koreen of the National Post reports:

Chris Bosh will not make his return to the floor Friday night. When the forward will be able to play is up in the air.

The Toronto Raptors star will miss his seventh straight game on Friday against the Knicks. He missed the first six because of a sprained left ankle, but is missing this game because of severe stomach cramps.

Reggie Evans not a suit guy

Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star writes:

Reggie Evans, the Raptors’ designated banger, is expected to make his regular season debut on Wednesday, and what kind of shape is he in?

If you’ve watched him in his only regular-season turn as a Raptor – as a sometimes-manic bench presence – it’s been difficult to say. Evans’ courtside wardrobe has mostly consisted of two blazers that run a couple of sizes baggier than Bryan Colangelo’s tailor might advise. They’re Polo brand, one blue, the other beige, both 100 per cent linen. And yes, he has heard the teasing from teammates and Twitterers alike. Linen in winter?

“Hey, I ain’t here to make a fashion statement. Those are my jackets, so I roll with ’em. They save me money. I don’t get fined (for violating the NBA’s jacket-required dress code),” Evans said. “I don’t like suits. … I don’t have one suit, period. I’m not a suit type of guy.”

A well-cut suit, mind you, might have made it a little easier to judge if Evans’s long-time inability to do weight-bearing exercise had a weight-gaining downside. Club employees, though, will happily tell you there are no new wrinkles beneath his baggy wrinkles. Evans was 265 pounds on the day he damaged the ligaments in his left foot in a pre-season game. And when he takes the floor on Wednesday, he’ll be 265 pounds. He’ll have even shaved a few percentage points off his body-fat content.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu signs in Russia

Euroleague.net reports: Already planning for the Euroleague’s next round, CSKA Moscow on Tuesday announced the siging of center Pops Mensah-Bonsu for the remainder of the season, pending the medical tests. Mensah-Bonsu (206, 26) will replace Courtney Sims, who had been on a tryout with CSKA during the last two weeks. Mensah-Bonsu arrives from Toronto of the NBA, where he averaged 3.3 points and 3.1 rebounds in 53 games.

Raptors release Pops Mensah-Bonsu

The Toronto Raptors announced Tuesday they have released forward Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Toronto claimed Mensah-Bonsu off waivers November 13 after he was released by the Houston Rockets. He averaged 2.1 points, 1.9 rebounds and 6.7 minutes in 16 games with Toronto.

Mensah-Bonsu appeared in four games with Houston this season averaging 1.3 points and 3.3 minutes.

He appeared in 19 games with the Raptors during the 2008-09 campaign after signing as a free agent on March 6, 2009. He averaged 5.1 points, 5.4 rebounds and 13.8 minutes during his first stint with the Raptors.

The four-year NBA veteran has averaged 3.3 points, 3.1 rebounds and 8.8 minutes in 54 games with four teams.

Trevor Ariza suspended

Trevor Ariza of the Houston Rockets has been suspended without pay for one game for swinging his elbow at the head of the Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan, it was announced today by Stu Jackson, NBA Executive Vice President, Basketball Operations.

The incident occurred with 3:47 remaining in the third period of the Raptors’ 101-88 victory over the Rockets at Air Canada Centre on Sunday, Dec. 13.

Ariza will serve his suspension tomorrow when the Rockets host the Detroit Pistons at the Toyota Center in Houston.

For more info on what actually happened, see here.

Trevor Ariza ejected after swinging at DeMar DeRozan

Early Sunday afternoon in Toronto as the Raptors were winning big over the Houston Rockets, a frustrated visiting player lost his cool.

Late in the third quarter on the left side of the court, Rockets small forward Trevor Ariza had the ball but was stripped of it by DeMar DeRozan.

As DeRozan start dribbling up the floor, a frustrated Ariza took what appeared to be a full swing at him. The swipe missed but was spotted by referees, and play was stopped.

Raptors guard Jarrett Jack rushed over to confront Ariza, but the situation did not escalate.

At the time of the incident the Raptors were leading 68-49 with 3:47 left in the third quarter. Ariza, who is generally having a terrific season, was having a nightmare of a game with one point (0-of-9 shooting), two rebounds, one assist and four turnovers.

InsideHoops.com predicts Ariza may be suspended by the NBA, perhaps for one game.

Read fan reaction and discuss your own opinion in this forum topic.

Knicks sign Jon Bender

New York Knickerbockers President of Basketball Operations Donnie Walsh announced today that free agent forward Jonathan Bender has been signed to a contract. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

InsideHoops.com assumes that the deal is a nonguaranteed contract for one season.

“Jonathan has worked extremely hard in preparing himself for a return to the NBA,” said Walsh. “I know him to be a young man of the highest character from my relationship with him that dates back 10 years to his rookie year and I think he will be a fine addition to our team both on and off the court.”

Bender, 7-0, 230-pounds, has career averages of 5.6 points, 2.2 rebounds and 15.0 minutes in 237 games (27 starts) over seven NBA seasons, all with Indiana. The Picayune, MS-native was selected out of high school by the Toronto Raptors with the fifth overall selection in the 1999 NBA Draft and was acquired by the Pacers on Aug. 1, 1999 in exchange for Antonio Davis.

Bender enjoyed his most productive NBA season in 2001-02 when he averaged career-highs of 7.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 21.1 minutes in a career-high 78 games. Injuries forced Bender to miss 172 games over the next three seasons before he was forced to stop playing due to chronic knee pain on Feb. 4, 2006, after playing in just two games in 2005-06.

Bender founded The Jonathan Bender Foundation in New Orleans that has adopted elementary schools, taken on real estate ventures, offered free finance classes for some of New Orleans’ poorest residents and run free basketball clinics for teens in the New Orleans region. He also founded a construction company called Kingdom Homes that buys and restores flood-damaged properties in New Orleans’ most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Read fan reaction and share your own opinion in this forum topic.

Raptors defense is terrible

The 7-13 Toronto Raptors are struggling to play defense in a very big way. Ryan Wolstat of the Toronto Sun reports:

Just how terrible has the defence been? Well, for starters, the club is on pace to be the worst defensive team since 1977-78.

A little-known but telling statistic called defensive rating has been kept since that season. The rating measures how many points-per-100 possessions a team gives up and the lowest in history, shared by three teams, is 114.7.

The Raptors, losers of five in a row and 11 of 15 following Wednesday night’s 146-115 slaughter at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks, have a defensive rating of 118.3.

Granted, the team has brought that mark of shame down from the 120-plus it sat at early last month and it likely will fall further into the simply horrific column, rather than historically horrific, but something fundamentally is wrong with this team.

The Raptors are scoring 105.3 points per game, but giving up 111.0. And opponents are shooting 48.5% against them.

If this keeps up, we could see a roster shakeup in the not-so-distant future.

Raptors defensive struggles

The Toronto Raptors entered the season with lofty expectations but with a 7-11 record they aren’t off to the start they hoped for.

Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun reports:

Raptors head coach Jay Triano has found himself increasingly on the defensive about his team’s lack of defence.

The 7-11 Raptors, losers of their past three games, have given up the second most points in the NBA (109.27) and Triano’s assertions that the club’s defence eventually will improve is starting to fall, if just a notch, on deaf ears.

But Triano remained steadfast yesterday in the belief that, eventually, his club will come together on defence, adding that he sees positive signs, such as when they switched on defence and went to a zone coverage in a 113-94 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Sunday. Triano said, for instance, that the high-flying Suns, who lead the NBA in scoring (averaging 112 points), were 13-for-31 on possessions when the Raptors switched.

It’s too early to worry, but keep an eye on the field goal percentage and point totals of Raptors opponents over the next 4-6 games.