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10 Questions With Raptors Assistant Coach Jay Triano

Good little read courtesy of Eric Smith at Raptors.com interviewing Jay. :reporter:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raptors.com

Smith: Can fans expect to see a different Raptors team this year - a different approach or philosophy on both ends of the floor - given the acquisition of Jermaine O'Neal?

Triano: Let's take nothing away from Rasho. Rasho was very sound defensively and was always in the right spot, but with Jermaine we will have more of a presence inside. Here’s a guy who can block shots and more importantly change shots. He can get out and defend on the screen-roll action, and the one thing that we did not do as well last year was finish off the defensive effort with the rebound. Jermaine can do that. I also think that Chris Bosh saw what defense can do while playing this summer. His attitude at the defensive end of the floor was outstanding. He was a leader amongst the best in the world. He can do that with us as well. Defense wins championships! If we want to be as good as everyone thinks we can be, it has to be at the defensive end of the floor.

Smith: With O'Neal in Toronto ... Elton Brand in Philly ... LeBron ... the Big 3 in Boston ... and so on ... is the East still the "weaker" Conference?

Triano: I don’t think so. The East is very tough now and I think we are starting to see a swing. I love it when all the good players sign with Western Conference teams because then we only have to find a way to stop them twice a year. The East is definitely better, but can you imagine being a point guard in the West and having four games in five nights and your match up is C. Paul, D. Williams, S. Nash and T. Parker? Good luck.

Source - Click here

This is making me even more eager for the start of the season

Quote:

Our strength in the series was our point guards and they were out-played

:reporter:

Absolutely true. Jameer was the difference. Outside of the 5 minutes that TJ killed Arroyo, we just didn't see much of an advantage from our strongest position.

You take away all the talk about the Orlando pgs being out-matched, which supposedly fired-up Nelson, and things might have turned out differently. But actually I think the main thing that helped him was all the close games that Orlando played through the season. They just had a confidence in crunch-time that was hard to shake. And that helps out any pg.

BS I think.

Howard killed us, and our roations, left the place wide open for the Orlando guards to destroy our guys.

Swiss Cheese this team was.

Howard went long long stretches where he didn't even make an impact. When he was making an impact I'd agree with you completely SJ. But it was during those Howard lulls that Nelson raised his level of play - particularly at key moments.

nelson didn't raise anything - just got hot for a few games from 3pt. The only thing he did different vs his averages was his 3pt shooting. The problem was that our pg, (TJ in particular) were not at their best, partly because of the ridiculous goal-tending from Howard. During the next series, Nelson was below average, and that playing for most of the series against a rookie pg, and not against Billups.

I had nelson in a fantasy league and it was one my most painful players to have ... For every good game he had at least one horrible one, which was very difficult for me to schedule. And that's nelson, flashes of genius followed by long stretches of sub-mediocrity.

and btw, the player that caused our point guards headaches (beyond howard) was dooling, not nelson.

You just said that Nelson only made huge shots that he doesn't usually make, BUT that he didn't make an impact by doing so, even though when he returned to form in the next series they lost. Hmmmm....