My observations from watching the game on the points Jem raised:
Missed open shots - A lot of them, but many from close in. Their jump shooting looked about average, until the last few minutes when they jacked up a bunch of wild threes that almost all missed. They also made themselves easy to defend with very poor floor spacing and did not force enough turnovers to crank their FG% up by running.
Poor 3 point defense - Too much abandonment of three point shooters to help out in the post. Lou Williams is especially guilty of this. Again, they looked unsure of where to be on D. The Raps also him some pretty tough threes once we gave them some confidence with open looks.
not enough assists (in my opinion) - Too many iso plays, too amny guys banging into one another. Iggy was his usual early season self trying too hard to make big time passes.
and poor ball handling - Some of it was trying too hard, but a lot of it was the spacing again. They did not create open passing lanes and allowed the Raptors to often defend two players with one defender. There was some definite sloppiness when they got behind.
and crappy 3 point shooting - It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible. They were 4 for 10 before they got way behind and started shooting ill-advised and rushed threes. Rush should have seen more floor time and Thad was limited with fould problems, both of them had nice looking strokes. Iggy has a nice arc on his shot, but it wasn't falling. Lou Williams was okay, but his shot is still a little flat.
The scariest thing is that Brand did not look good, no explosion off od his feet. He's not a leaper, but was a strong, quick jumper in the past. His mobility looked very good on offense and defense, not like a gimpy Webber, but he did not finish well in the paint. He looks like he is not 100% back yet, possibly more of a mental thing about jumping and pushing off with his previously injured achilles. The lack of floor spacing also meant he had a ton of defenders to deal with whenever he went into the paint.
As far as bad trends continuing, their offense looked like last years except with a skilled big man plopped down in the middle of it. If there is a real design to this offense it was not apparent yesterday. It did look like Iggy was looking to post up more, which would be a good thing for him to do against smaller SG's. Also, they need to rebuild the second unit with athleticism. Marshall and Ratliff looked like stone obelisks. I would prefer to see more of Rush, Ivey (when he is back) and Speights.
