Puffers Posts - Raps at Lottomatica Roma

An intersting game to watch from a couple of perspectives. First, Hubie Brown was one of the commentators, and I love Hubie Brown. Next, it was interesting to see the Raps playing against a well prepared unit that has already been in training camp for 2 1/2 months and played several exhbition games together. Third, Roko and several of the Roma players were obviously trying to showcase their talents with a larger (make that North American) audience, and they showed well for themselves. The ESPN commentators mentioned several as looking NBA ready.

The Raps played with a shorter rotation, only using 11 players. Interesting to see Dixon get 16 minutes, Humphries 13 and Joey only with 7. Of course, Rasho didn't play at all, and I think the Raps could have used him, so you can't read too much into the playing time thing.

Bosh and Kapono got the most minutes at around 30 each. I'm not surprised by this since I would expect Mitchell to want to see how these two perform together.

The first half was entertaining, it kind of fell apart in the thrid but the Raps tightened it up part way through the fourth to make it a respectable win.

Aside from showing the Raps a lot of love and respect, Hubie pointed out that Kapono would be a very good fit with the Raps because they have scorers who can also drive. Their starting 5 have excellent FT %'s and with Kapono stretching the defense even more than last year, guys like Parker and Bargnani are going to to benefit, since they can put the ball on the floor and either score or draw the fouls.

Also interesting were some stats that the commentators threw out. They mentioned that in the last 61 games of the season, the Raps won 40, which was better than all but 4 other teams in the league, all in the west. They had the best record in the east for that stretch, edging out Detroit. As well, that 61 game stretch represented a turn around defensively from a -4 points per game differential to a +3 points per game differential, a 7 point jump. The implication is that for the last 3/4 of the season, Totonto played much better defensively.

Watching Kapono and Delphino and seeing some improvement in Bargnani, and hoping that Garbs can play the full year, I would have to believe that losing Morris Peterson isn't going to hurt the Raps. I think they will be a defensively improved team this season.

It's early, but I'm pumped. Let's start the season NOW.