Well, that was no fun

I was watching the Raptors game tonight, and yes, that was a royal whupping. But I'm wondering: how did New Jersey lose so many games this year?

During the regular season, the Raptors employed a simple approach to success:

• Give the ball to Chris Bosh.
• Wait for the opponents to double-team him. (If they don't double-team him, he drives to the basket and scores.)
• Kick the ball out to the perimeter.
• Move it around to the open man, who then scores.

New Jersey seem to have found a way to defend this. They use their point guard to serve as the second defender on Bosh, and keep everybody else guarded. Bosh then has no alternative but to pass the ball back to Ford or Calderon. Because Bargnani is still getting up to speed - and is still learning the game - the Raptors have nobody else who can beat a defender one-on-one. So they have no scoring options available except to settle for long jumpers from their point guard.

On offense, Vince Carter has suddenly started trying his hardest. When he is on his game, he is impossible to stop one-on-one. Carter has been very effective from behind the 3-point line; if the defender moves out to prevent this, Carter then blows past him and scores. And if the Raptors double-team Carter, the Nets have been good at finding the open man. And if the Raptors rotate their defense well enough to cover everybody, they usually leave Kidd with enough room to sink 3-pointers. How can you defend all of that?


On a totally unrelated subject: the other day, I saw a woman wearing a T-shirt with the following message: I gained 20 pounds in 3 months. Ask me how.