Overreaction: Game 14/82 - Outworked, Out-hustled, Outclassed

I missed 1/3 of the game, so I'll have to change the format a bit. I see a lot of post-game coverage talking about good things, so since it's a loss, I'll take my spin on it --- the total opposite. I'm giving the readers 5 bad things instead.

1. Kyle Lowry's passive play: I know Jrue Holiday is a good defender, but he's not a shutdown defender that would make Lowry scoreless the entire game. Lowry took himself out offensively by being too passive, trying to be more of a playmaker especially if his downtown bombs weren't going in. However, games like this where there's a lack of consistent primary scoring (workload shared by Kawhi Leonard, Pascal Siakam, and Serge Ibaka), Lowry should try to go back to that pitbull Lowry that we're all accustomed to seeing whenever he need some buckets.

2. Ball Watching: We've seen this against the Cavs during the playoffs - The entire team were too preoccupied where the ball is, and they're getting killed by back cuts.

3. Run the Offense: I know Kawhi needs his shots - especially his ISO plays, but it's about time to get Kawhi acclimated to the offence. It's starting to get too predictable whenever Kawhi posts up. More often than not, he's going for his shot. It takes him forever to get set up, and if he gets defended well (by a help defender), the shot clock is fried and a bad shot ensue.

4. Lazy Rebounding Effort: The Raptors as a team tried to compete for rebounds, however, they forgot the first and most important part -- boxing out. There were a lot of situations where they don't even make an effort to box out and just concede the rebounds.

5. Poor Perimeter Defense: Jrue Holiday 29 points? I could somewhat understand. E-Twaun Moore dropping 30? That's inexcusable. The Pelicans are at their best when AD's got help. The formula against AD has always been letting him do all the heavy lifting and take out his teammates. They did neither tonight.

No Game 13/82 vs the Knicks as it was basically Raptors vs Westchester Knicks.