Raptors come up short in Boston as their 'Stars' struggle | Post Game Live

Down. Heat. Hey, hey, hey.

Well, this is not what you wanted, but it's a lot worse than you could have expected. The Toronto Raptors walk into this game in a must-win situation. The Philadelphia 76ers are 0.5 games on their heels, and the Raptors desperately do not want to face the Charlotte Hornets in the play-in because they don't have a chance against the Charlotte Hornets in the play-in. And basically, what you're signing up for in that situation is you're signing up for an 8-1 matchup with the Detroit Pistons, who could have Cade Cunningham back. Either way, if you're a Toronto Raptor fan, this feels like a lost season already.

And what you were hoping for today was a sign of hope. What you were hoping for is that your team, a little bit banged up, a little bit undermanned, Scotty Barnes clearly limping around, Immanuel Quickley still out, could go up against the team that most experts have coming out of the Eastern Conference and show up. Okay.

And for one and a half quarters, it looked like the Raptors really had a plan. Their stars did not play well. Brandon Ingram struggled for the most part, aside from getting it going a little bit later. Uh, RJ Barrett struggled immensely. Scotty Barnes struggled tremendously in this game. Jakob Poeltl had a very hot shooting game, and that's certainly encouraging. Christian Koloko brought all sorts of impact. But I think if you want to break down the Toronto Raptors versus the Boston Celtics in one play, there is a play that we're going to break down that pretty much sums it all up.

The Raptors are a top-seven defense in the NBA. Most of us have been looking at that stat all year when they were top four, top five, top six, and been like, "How, how are you a top-six defense? How are you a top-five defense with so many issues?" And the answer is, you've had some players like Pascal Siakam, Scotty Barnes, Jakob Poeltl, O.G. Anunoby who have overtaxed themselves to cover up for things. This is a team that has gotten by on effort and hustle, and against a lot of really bad teams, that's going to pay off. You're going to outpace them. You're going to outpass them. You're going to out-execute them. Some nights, maybe Brandon has it going, and you're going to out-talent them. But against a team like Boston, against a team that is this well-coached, this well-oiled, this well-constructed, this well-optimized to play disciplined basketball in the modern era, this well-spaced out, this many good shooters, you're going to have to actually beat them through execution. And effort is not really easy to come by when you're on game 78 of a season in which you have already taxed yourself.

Here's what I'll say. If you own a car, there are certain cars that can do certain things. There are certain cars that can't do certain things. Scotty Barnes is not designed as a 6'9" human being to be chasing players all left, right, and center, and also playing point guard, and also running the offense, and also setting screens, and also getting offensive rebounds. This is a recipe for disaster, and tonight you saw it. Every jump shot short or in-and-out. Can't move his legs, can't move, can't plant, can't jump, can't get blocks. Scotty's shot-blocking has just gone zero over the last four games. This is now one, two, three, four games in a row now where Scotty has just looked like a shell of himself. I petitioned for the Toronto Raptors four games ago: "Shut this guy out for the rest of the season." And people said, "No, no, we can't shut him down before Sacramento. We'll lose. We'll end up in the play-in." Well, congratulations. You're going to end up in the play-in anyway. You're going to end up in the play-in anyway because you don't have enough around this guy. And this guy burning himself out 24/7, going out there being a top-10 guy in terms of minutes played. He does not miss games. He's played more minutes this year than SGA. He's played more minutes than Jokic. He's played more minutes than Jaylen Brown. He's played more minutes than all these guys. And the only guys who are really up there in terms of minutes are guys who don't have his burden on offense and defense.

And so you have to understand progressive overload. You have to. And if you don't understand progressive overload, then you're an idiot. But if you are an idiot and you want to get educated, we're going to have you covered on Monday. We're going to talk to Jakob Poeltl's trainer. I messaged Eric at halftime and I said, "Dude, what is going on with Scotty right now? It is insanity. He can't get off the ground. Is there a thing that we could talk about on Monday about progressive overload and the general fatigue that happens?" I got a lot of information for y'all, and I think Eric is going to break this down way better than I can. But before we even get into this game, before all the Scotty victory laps on Scotty had 10 points and Scotty, you know, shot poorly from the field and stuff, I'm going to talk about toxins in the blood. So we call it metabolic byproducts. Okay? To the people out there who are willing to say, "Oh, Scotty Barnes, he's an overrated defender. Scotty Barnes is Draymond because he can't score against this team." I'll remind you a better version of this Celtics team faced the Toronto Raptors just two years ago, and Scotty Barnes put up seven three-pointers on them. I'll remind you that this Scotty Barnes as a rookie put up way better stats than this. I'll remind you that Scotty Barnes scored six of his 10 points in a one-minute span in which he got really aggressive, but spent most of this game kind of just jogging up and down, trying to not be too involved, trying to be a conduit because I think he knows what you may not know or what you may know, which is that he has no burst right now. He cannot beat his man off the dribble. He cannot finish in the paint. He cannot hit a jump shot to save his life. He can't hit a three. And honestly, right now, Scotty Barnes looks like a 38-year-old, but he's trying. He's going out there. You got to admire it. He's playing defense. He is trying. He guarded Jaylen Brown tonight. Not very successfully, but mind you, and that's an execution problem. Jakob Poeltl was totally useless tonight. We got to talk about that.

But to the people who don't understand progressive overload, let me break it down for you. Lactate, lactic acid, hydrogen ions, inorganic phosphate, reactive oxygen species, ROS. These are what people loosely call toxins in the blood. When you have been exhausted, this could happen for a multitude of reasons. Walking in the desert, you're exhausted. Your brain stops working, your muscles fatigue. Okay, the key one here is lactate, right? It's tied to anaerobic metabolism. It builds up during repeated sprints, drives, uh, defensive slides, etc. It contributes to the burning sensation and short-term fatigue. But it's not actually harmful. Harmful. It's reusable fluid. Fluid. What happens in the blood? So during heavy minutes, blood carries lactate, so CO2, and waste products away from the muscles. The body buffers acidity to maintain pH balance. The heart rate and circulation stay elevated even after the game. And over time, game after game, players can experience incomplete recovery between efforts, slightly elevated baseline fatigue markers, and accumulated systemic stress. Not literal toxic toxin buildup. So like when people say toxins in the blood, that's not really toxins in the blood, but it's just a buildup of bad things happening. So the real problem is cumulative fatigue, which is what I think Scotty is experiencing right now. Not to mention the numerous injuries that he's had. The bigger issues for NBA players isn't one game. It's lack, it's stacking stress over months and months of especially when you talk about high-motor players. So we have muscular microtrauma. So constant, constant eccentric loads, landing, decelerating. If you watch Scotty Barnes, you're an idiot. It's okay. It's okay to be an idiot, but like, if you're going to stack the entire season up and you're going to say Scotty Barnes is not a top-20 player, you're insane. Okay? So leads tiny muscle damage, soreness, reduced explosiveness, nervous damage. So we're talking central fatigue, brain, spinal cord. If you have noticed, Scotty has had a lot of really stupid turnovers over the last three games. We're having that pass to Sandro Mamukelashvili is a pass that he makes 10 times out of 10 in his sleep, but it's just a little bit off. He's throwing a simple pass, no contest, and he just throws it 3 feet outside of where Sandro is. We've had a lot of these. There was the full-court pass to RJ Barrett or Brandon Ingram where it's just, it was to RJ Barrett. It's like 3 feet off. Scotty is absolutely an incredible player, but you cannot ask a player to do this much to carry your defense. And I think this is on Darko. I think this is 100% on Darko. You know, years and years of, you know, coaching youth teams and being a development guy playing in the G-League, you don't understand how to pace an NBA season. And Darko's got to learn. Okay. He's got to learn from Yeah, you can say he's not focused, right? Scientific cope is a new level of cope for Penn. You're an idiot, too. Honestly, I'm gonna say this right now. Matt Rap Beats, you're an idiot, too. I You know what? Here's here's the thing. Matt Rap Beats. Here's what I want you to do. Here's what I really [ __ ] hope that you do. I pray to God that you do this. I want you to go to the [ __ ] playground right now, you dumbass [ __ ]. I want you to go to the playground. I want you to play one minute of basketball. One minute of basketball. And please note that you will be playing against teenagers and children and possibly college burnouts. Play one minute of basketball as hard as this guy and tell me you don't [ __ ] throw up. The way that people talk about athletes is so stupid to me. It's it's honestly insane. It's honestly insane. Y'all don't know how hard it is to do this [ __ ]. And there's no way that a 6'9" player should be chasing guys 35 feet away from the basket and then also recovering to the basket. Y'all can y'all can be like, "Oh, he's the second-best defender in the league." Did y'all walk into this NBA season saying he's the second-best defender in the league? Do you realize how much [ __ ] he's papering over right now? You don't want to give any credit for that. All you want to do is complain about the crash out. You want to complain about the burnout [ __ ]. Man, nervous system fatigue, as I mentioned, glycogen depletion, it leads to dead legs. That feeling late in games or in seasons, it happens, okay? It happens. It's happened to LeBron, even, right? Then you get oxidative stress. This is the closest thing to toxic, okay? Um, these can damage cells if not balanced. Normally controlled by antioxidants, so nutrition, recovery. Over an NBA season, repeated games, elevated oxidative stress can contribute to fatigue, inflammation, slow recovery. Why the two-way players get hit the hardest is they guard the best player, they create offense, they play 35 minutes a night, and are constantly toggling between explosive anaerobic bursts and sustained anaerobic, uh, aerobic effort. This combination is brutal psychologically, okay? And it's also, it's also brutal physiologically. So, think of someone like Jimmy Butler, Scotty Barnes, guys like this. High defensive load, lateral movement, physicality, explosive at the rim, offensive creation, drives, contact, decision-making. You will often see Jimmy Butler go through hell, uh, late in seasons, and then he'll turn it up in the playoffs and be like, "Playoff Jimmy." But it doesn't always happen. They accumulate fatigue faster than spot-up shooters, low-usage role players, one-way players, etc. So, how NBA players manage it. Modern teams attack this from many angles. They talk about load management. They talk about recovery methods like cryotherapy, ice baths, massage and compression, sleep optimization, nutrition, high-carb replenishment, um, antioxidant-rich foods, load management, as I mentioned, load management, minutes restrictions, um, gaps in the season where, you know, a player gets injured and they go out for five games. If you want any evidence of this, look at how, how good Christian Koloko has looked over the last little bit. Why? Because he had like 10 games off. That's why he looks so good. You had some time to recover. You get the juice back in your legs. People who assume these athletes are machines are idiots. Matt Rap Beats is an idiot. If you want to listen to Matt Rap Beats, you can do so. But you understand that you are listening to somebody who does not like, does not understand like what they're talking about. Okay.

So, here's the bottom line. You're talking about muscle damage, you're talking about nervous system fatigue, you're talking about chronic overload, and you're also talking about the psychological frustration that an athlete experiences when something they've done hundreds and hundreds of times in the offseason and earlier in the season just isn't working. Scotty is taking jump shots that he worked on all offseason, and they're not falling. He has been falling off a cliff physically for about 50 games now. One by one by one by one. We're seeing first the three-point shooting went, then the defense went, then the two-point shooting went, then he found a little bit of explosiveness on defense, but the offense never came back. Then we had a five-game stretch when point Scotty came about where he seemed rejuvenated and replenished a little bit because he, by the way, coming into that, uh, into coming into that situation, I mentioned he wasn't really playing defense for like two or three games. The Raptors need to protect Scotty Barnes from himself. He obviously does not have the, you know, he doesn't have the right people in his ear saying, "Hey, you got to sit out." He doesn't have the coaches or the trainers who are willing to tell him, "Hey, this right here, you need to recover from this. We need two games off." He's not willing to do it right now. The Raptors are marred in this like deep playoff race. And I got to tell you, if the Raptors end up in the play-in, they're not going to be the better-rested team going into round one because they're going to have to play one or two games, and those are going to be high-intensity games. Everything that the Raptors have done this season has been high-intensity. Scotty is not the only one. Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, O.G. Anunoby. These are all guys who've had to work very, very hard defensively to make up for the lack of defense around them. And you have to account for this. You can't just blanket it over. You can't, you can't be that stupid. You can't be that stupid and just say, "Okay, well, you know, so what? Other people do this, too." Okay, how about this? Why don't you name me one person in the NBA who's had the defensive role that Scotty has had? Yes. Yes. Victor Wembanyama is a better defender. Yes. But does he have the defensive load this guy has? He's not chasing players around the perimeter. He's not having to guard one through five. He doesn't chase around Anthony Edwards and Steph Curry. He gets to stand in the perimeter. Yeah, he switches out a little bit, but Victor Wembanyama also has played way fewer minutes than Scotty Barnes. The San Antonio Spurs used to load manage their stars, and people used to get really mad about it. They used to load manage Tim Duncan. They used to load manage Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, their main guys. This is why you build with depth. Okay? This is why you build with depth. And this is why you make sure that one guy is not papering over your entire defense. Historically, when we think about one-man defensive anchors, they're usually centers. Why? Because gifted shot blockers can anchor a defense without overexerting themselves physically, emotionally, psychologically. The tax that Scotty Barnes has paid is insane. Now, positive side of this, this is going to make him better in the long run. He's going to get an offseason. Yeah, I, I, I know you're dumb now. Like, yeah, you [ __ ] [ __ ] O.G. Anunoby does not carry anywhere near the defensive load or minutes strain that Scotty Barnes does. And Mikal Bridges, at this point, is debatable as a good defender. Are you kidding me right now? I think you just want to argue, and that's okay. That's okay. You're here to argue. That's fine. You, you, you, you think Mikal Bridges and Scotty Barnes have a comparable defensive load. That's cool. Which one of those players was an All-Star? I'll wait. Mic drop. Which one of those players is initiating offense for them? I'll wait. You think? Ah, you're a [ __ ] [ __ ]. Now, this is the seventh time I'm going to call you a [ __ ] [ __ ], but you are actually dumb. I've been seeing your comments for a while, and I know now you're really dumb. Jaylen Brown is not a good defender right now. He's not even the third-best defender on his team. He's not the fourth-best defender on his team. He's not the fifth-best defender on his team. Now that Jayson Tatum is back, he's not even the sixth-best defender on his team. But he's a two-way menace for you, huh? Yes, he has carried a larger offensive load. I agree with that. I agree with that. You think Jaylen [ __ ] Brown is a better defender than Scotty Barnes? Is that what I'm arguing? Is, is that what I'm hearing? That's actually not a factual statement. He's top 50 in the NBA in scoring. I'm not debating that. Jaylen Brown is a better scorer. Is he a better playmaker? Is he a better finisher in the paint? Does he initiate the offense as much as Scotty? Does he play defense like Scotty? Is he in the best spacing offense in the NBA? Like, come on, man. Has he played more minutes? Point of attack? No, not even point of attack, man. Like, you, you, you really have to, you have to watch these games. You just, you, you're a narrative, you're a narrative merchant, and that's okay, man. You're a narrative merchant, that's cool. People are going to crash out on Scotty, RJ, and BI today, but honestly, you needed more. And I think that we can talk about a lot of good things that happened for the Raptors today. The Raptors obviously lose by 14, and they were picked to lose by nine and a half coming into this game, so, you know, there's something there. Uh, Jaylen is a good defender. He's okay. Last year he was okay. This year he's been below okay. He's not a better defender than Derrick White. He's not a better defender than K.P. He's not a better defender than Payton Pritchard. He's just not a great defender. I'm sorry. He's not a great defender. He's not a better defender right now than Jordan Walsh. Are we being for real now? Y'all, y'all really pay attention to loud defense. Jaylen Brown will guard players when it's a national TV game, and he'll clamp up on, not clamp up, but he'll guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a national televised game. But my god, like, what are we talking about? Jaylen Brown, he's a good rim protector. Yeah, he's physical. Cole, Jaylen Brown reminds me of a very elevated RJ Barrett. That's basically what he is. He's an elevated RJ Barrett who can shoot. He is not a $60 million player. Not at all. He's not a top-five player, not a top-10 player, not a top-15 player. He's not an MVP candidate. The fact that he hit a corner three and got all the aura points on Scotty Barnes is cool. He also got stripped multiple times by O.G. Anunoby. So, I don't know what to tell you.

Anyways, let's take a look at this game. Enough Scotty defense here. The Toronto Raptors lose again. Sad, sad, sad, sad. They've lost three out of four. And this one was 115-101. The Toronto Raptors were led in scoring by Jakob Poeltl, who had, I believe, 13 of his 16 points in the first half. In terms of rebounds and assists, of course, Scotty Barnes led the way, but that kind of is sad because your starting center had two rebounds in 20 minutes. Managed to get 14 points mostly off of pick-and-roll dives from Scotty Barnes and, you know, Pascal Siakam. I think R, I think you know, you know, again, this is why the box score is misleading. Jakob Poeltl was horrible today. Horrible. Terrible defensively, terrible offensively, terrible across the board. Did he make open layups? Yes. Congratulations. You made open layups. Still horrible. I do believe that the Raptors could use Jakob Poeltl better. And I don't know why Jakob Poeltl insists on hugging Neemias Queta 24 feet away from the basket, allowing blow-by after blow-by behind him. I also don't know why Jakob Poeltl does not know how to block shots anymore. But hey, that seems crazy to me. One offensive rebound, one defensive rebound in 20 minutes. Thoroughly getting outplayed by a guy who was on a minimum contract in Neemias Queta. And honestly, the gap between these two teams today was simply their starting centers. If you want to be honest, yes, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum outplayed RJ, Scotty, and BI combined. Yes, nobody broke 16 points for the Raptors. Yes, that's all scheme-related. And Derrick White is an incredible defender. Jayson Tatum, even after post-Achilles injury, is still an incredible defender. But man, you got to be kidding me that the Raptors couldn't generate better looks against this offense. And of course, you know, you're going to have, uh, Pascal Siakam struggled a little bit from the field, but I think overall he was, he was very competent. Um, Christian Koloko was awesome. I really liked Christian Koloko's game. I think defensively, right, defensively, I think C.K.B. was probably the best matchup for Jaylen Brown. And I'm somewhat pissed that they didn't start him, right? Like the Raptors had this game with three minutes to go in the second quarter, and Scotty went on that little scoring run where he scored like six points very quickly, and you could tell right after that that he couldn't move. Like there's multiple times in this game where Scotty just ran out of gas, and he was just going through the motions. And after that 6-0 scoring run, he just couldn't move. Like he put six points on the board. There was that foul attempt on Derrick White, and after that he couldn't move. And for the next two minutes, he was not really useful on offense or on defense. And the Celtics went on a major run. At that point, Darko needs to look at the court and say, "Either I need to get Scotty Barnes out because he already has two fouls." Or or Matt Rap Beats, why can't we just disagree on basketball takes instead of name-calling, Penn? I think we can't disagree because you approach this like, um, fact. You're not really asking a question. You're not really presenting an opinion. You're making a declaration. You're saying Scotty Barnes is like this terrible player. And I think that's very unfair. And I think you're missing gaps. And I don't know if you're intellectually curious enough to figure out your gaps. I don't know if what I said earlier about oxidative stress and progressive overload made any difference to you. But my, my view on this is having listened to people like you for the last five years, people like you don't change your mind. You come in with a very solid opinion on something. And that's okay. I would lean on, I would lean on experts. I would lean on people who are trainers and who are nutritionists and people like that to fill in my gaps in terms of understanding what is happening. And if you can't use your eyes and figure out that this is not the same Scotty Barnes that we saw six games ago, eight games ago, or, or most importantly, 40 games ago, then that's just hating to me. You're just hating. And you present yourself as a Raptor fan, which is weird to me. Why hate on your star player when you like, really are a Raptor fan? That's just really, really messed up. Uh, swap O.G. with RJ in the starting lineup. It would certainly help your defense a lot. I'm not sure what it would do for your offense, but it's not like either one of them are shooting threes. And you know, Ingram has been buns lately. I don't know if Brandon Ingram has been buns necessarily. It's just the offense is not really finding him in opportune spots, and he very often, I think he desperately needs Immanuel Quickley. Like he and Scotty obviously have not had positive synergy all year, and they've kind of been, you know. Yeah. Uh, Penn says, "Don't presume about me, then starts to presume about others." Lol. What? There is this old saying that you shouldn't argue with idiots because those from a distance can't tell who's who. I hope people here can tell who's who. But if you can't tell who's who, by all means, man, it's cool. Anyways, I, I, I think generally speaking, Sandro Mamukelashvili was very positive. I think he contributed to the pace of play that the Raptors played with, and he played with a lot of toughness and aggression, and I also like some of his defense tonight on Jayson Tatum. I think, you know, he was tasked with that matchup a little bit when he was on the court, and I think that was really good. Um, yeah, like this chat cooking, like you chat cooking, like, like, like, do y'all understand what generation you're a part of? Like this is what kind of drives me crazy. Do y'all understand like this chat cooking Scotty? Like what would you rather do? Would he? Would you rather he sit? I would rather he sit. You and I agree are in [ __ ] agreement. I would rather he sit. I want him to sit. But you know what [ __ ] sucks? I'm going to tell you, Matt Rap's dumbass. I'm going to tell you what sucks. I don't like watching people work really hard and watching other people [ __ ] on them. I don't want, I don't like that. If Pascal Siakam goes out and he burns himself out and he starts missing some jumpers, I'm not going to be critical of Pascal Siakam. The reason that I'm often very critical of RJ Barrett is because he doesn't play very much defense. So when he misses shots, I really don't have a lot of empathy for it. But when selfless players go out and put their body on the line defensively, just like I did with Kyle Lowry, just like I did, you know, without not so much with Alvin Williams, to be honest. I was a bit of an Alvin Williams hater, but I've always defended Kyle Lowry. When Kyle Lowry would kind of fall apart in the playoffs, I would always say, "Look at what this guy has to put his body through. Look at how much he plays. I understand this. You have to, you have to empathize this from an athletic perspective. You just have to. If you have ever played any sport, you know, you know that there is a progressive fatigue factor to basketball. I'm going to guess that you haven't played sports. I'm going to guess that you're somebody who likes to sit back on his couch and judge players for not meeting your parlay. And to that I say, that's kind of gross. That's kind of gross. There needs to be a general understanding of what players have represented. And to act like this season that because a player is not playing well, I don't watch other fan bases do this, man. I, I got to be honest. When when Jayson Tatum went three for 15, I don't remember Boston fans going like this at him. And he's an All-NBA player. So like, I think Raptor fans are uniquely toxic when it comes to Scotty. And me personally, I don't like it. So you like, um, we agree. Why are you so mad? Um, you know what I would love, Matt Rap Beats, since you have so much to say. I would love if you actually called in. We can probably have a relatively okay conversation, but I would also like people to hear the voice on the other end of these chats. I would like people to hear the voice of you because you clearly have a lot to say about Scotty over the last four or five games. You clearly believe that, you know, he, that Jaylen Brown is better or whatever. So, why don't you call in? Use the little link, and you can call in. You can use your phone, you can use a PC if you have one, you can use your Mac, you can call in, and we can talk about it. But if you're not going to call in, you know, hey, man, I'll give you a, I won't give you credit for that. On the Boston Celtics side, 23 points from Jayson Tatum. Nice to see him back, man. Nice to see him back. Five turnovers for JT, five turnovers for Jaylen Brown. The Raptors' one saving grace in this game, honestly, was that they forced a ton of turnovers. And a lot of that was, I'm going to say, like 40% of the turnovers were just bad execution by Boston. But a lot of that was Scotty sitting in the gaps, Jakob putting a lot of pressure, you know. Uh, I played sports my whole life. I mean, I find that very, very, very hard to believe. Competitive sports. I, I mean, I'm sorry. Like, I know there are athletes out there who who act like athletes don't get tired, but yeah, we are toxic because Scotty is cheeks. How does that work? No, you're not toxic because Scotty is cheeks. You're 14 years old. That's why you talk this way. You talk this way because you don't understand basketball very well. And I played with multiple dudes on Team Canada Soccer. I don't understand the character attack. This is not a character attack. You're just gaslighting right now. This is not a character attack. I'm saying I don't think you played sports. That's it. Saying you didn't play sports is not a character attack. Saying you're a jackass is a character attack, which is kind of funny because I'm I'm kind of saying that too. Okay. Yeah. Like call in or shut up. Like honestly, at this point, like I think you've gotten enough of my energy. Like just call in or shut up. Like that's that's it, you know. Um, yeah, 17 points for Payton Pritchard. Payton Pritchard is really like, this would be, um, one of my favorite backup players in the league. Just love Payton Pritchard, uh, for all he brings. I love the fact that he keeps, he keeps the ball on a string. He keeps it, he keeps it live. He's constantly probing. He's insanely smart and just such a great shooter. Just provides consistently positive spacing. He isn't ball-dominant. He just has a great verve to how he plays basketball. And I think between him and Derrick White, that's one of the best guard rotations in the NBA. And you can obviously add Jaylen Brown to that. The Raptors just don't have anywhere near this level of guard play. Whether Quickley plays or not, you're going to get outmatched in the guard, uh, on the guard rotation with this team. RJ Barrett. Again, let's just say the Raptors play their traditional starting lineup. You're going with Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, R, Pascal Siakam, Jakob Poeltl, RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley versus Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Payton Pritchard, and Baylor Scheierman. And yeah, Baylor is the worst player in that group for sure. He didn't make a ton of shots today. He missed, you know, four of his threes. That's not usually going to happen. But yeah, Sam saying, "Penn is the only one that can see basketball the way we see it as wrong." To me, that's crazy. Of course, to you, it's crazy. Of course, to you, it's crazy. But I do think that I understand basketball a lot better than you do. And if you want to put that to a test, you can call in, too. How about that? Okay. Anyone who got a problem with what I'm saying, call in. Have a conversation. We can make this real nice. We can make this real toxic. I really don't care. Me personally, though, I'm kind of sick and tired of listening to the Scotty slander. I am 100% on record saying he is not playing well. If you want to use him not playing well for a five-game stretch to wipe out his entire season, then you are a [ __ ]. And that's all I'm going to say. If you can't see that the guy can't jump and he is not blocking shots at the rim like he was, you're dumb. That's it. That's all it is. It's not about really even being dumb. It's actually being intentionally obtuse. It's like you want something to be true very badly, and you're not even disappointed that something bad is happening for your team. You're just so happy that you're right. And you're not right when you look at, when you zoom out on the whole season. The whole season has been 78 games. You're completely wrong. You're wrong about Scotty not being able to be the best player on a playoff team, which is what people told me for years. You're wrong about him not being able to be a top-four defender. You're completely wrong about that. But for three to four games, he can't score. He can't shoot. And actually, for the last 40 games, he hasn't been able to shoot from three. And so you think, see, this is why this is why you're so, ah, this is why Scotty Barnes is Draymond. Okay. Well, was he Draymond? Was he Draymond when he was averaging 24 points per game? Was he Draymond when he was averaging 22 points per game and became an All-Star? Like, was he Draymond then? It's it's sad. It's sad. Like with fans like you guys, who the [ __ ] needs slander? Who needs enemies? With friends like this, who needs enemies? I don't understand it. You have a player who's going out there trying to help his team. He is not going out there stating. He is not going out there trying to get All-NBA. He is not going out there trying to force up shots. He is just trying to get through the motions to help his team. And if you can't see that, then you really don't understand basketball. That's it. That's all it is. Okay? Players go through rough stretches. When players are tasked with this level of defensive, uh, load, they definitely go through rough stretches. There's a reason why a lot of players don't play high-motor defensive minutes. There's a reason why even a defensive guard as good as Michael Jordan and LeBron James have never been their team's best defensive players when they were in fact the number one option. The only year I could actually say LeBron was the, his team's best defender was probably 2013 with the Miami Heat. Like, okay.

Anyway, taking a look at the team stats here really quickly, and then we'll get to the film session, which is going to be spicy and very interesting. The Celtics managed four more shots than the Raptors. They shot better from the field than the Raptors. Kind of interesting. The Celtics, who are one of the best three-point shooting teams in the league, shot 29%, and still won this game by 14. That's probably the troubling thing if you're going to look at this from the Raptors' perspective. The Celtics just missed a lot of shots. It's not because the Raptors closed out. In fact, the Raptors contested a lot of threes. There was a Scotty Barnes contest on Jayson Tatum where he hit three, and there was a Scotty Barnes contest on Jaylen Brown where he faded away on the corner and hit the three. If you take those two threes away, the Celtics actually shot six threes tonight that actually went in. What I'm curious about is of the 20 that didn't go in, how many were wide open? And the answer to that is a lot. A lot. The Celtics missed open threes. If you were a Raptor fan saying, "Well, we held it to within 14, and we didn't have Immanuel Quickley, and Immanuel Quickley scores 16 points per game, so we'd win with Immanuel Quickley." No, you wouldn't. There is a very, very big, uh, gap. Um, Bill Withers saying, "Please get JB off the first team All-NBA. What a joke. Scotty is top 10, 10 times the defender, passer, facilitator. It's not close, but, uh, not close. BT. What is BT? Um, not close between Scotty and JB. And the film shows it. Hey man, no debate. No debate for me here. Every time I've been asked for the top 15 players in the league, I have left Jaylen Brown off of it, and I've put Scotty Barnes on it. And nothing that I have seen over the last five games, last 10 games, last 20 games, last 30 games, last 40 games, last 50 games, last 70 games is going to change my mind on that until Jaylen Brown learns to handle the ball, finish better in the paint, make better decisions, and actually become the defender that people think he is. Like, like, wow. Okay, Derrick White's one of my favorite players in the league, but what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Like he's literally better at Jaylen. He's better than Derrick White at everything Derrick White does. Like, what are we doing here other than three-point shooting, and even that was very close this year? Like, what are we doing here? I think he's just a hater, right? Like, it's just the haters going to come out after a game like this, man. What, what, what can you say? The Raptors get completely thoroughly outmatched on the rebound battle, 12-6. That's really how you lose this game. You managed to get some very, very positive three-point shooting luck into say you shoot 8 for 20, they shoot 8 for 28. That's a win in your corner. You managed to get to the line more than them. And then Jakob Poeltl misses three straight free throws. Like things like this, but the Raptors really lost this game on the glass. 12 offensive rebounds for the Boston Celtics. Those offensive rebounds limit the transition. And shout out to the Celtics. They did a good job of limiting transition. The Raptors get 31 assists on 40 field goals. I think Scotty had some really brilliant passes and also some very, very bad turnovers. The Raptors lose the steals battle. They narrowly, uh, win the blocks battle. And in terms of total turnovers, the Celtics, of course, turned the ball over 18 times to the Raptors' 15. So good job for the Raptors, and the Celtics just win the points in the paint battle. And again, there is a fundamental misunderstanding in terms of why you prioritize spacing. You prioritize spacing to open up the key area on the court, which is the paint. Everyone thinks all these people shoot three-pointers because they want to shoot three-pointers. You shoot three-pointers to open up the paint. And the paint was wide open. In large part, at least because Jakob Poeltl is completely helpless in the paint. In large part because RJ Barrett cannot contain his man. In large part because Scotty Barnes can't really paper over those, those drives the way he's been able to. And Brandon Ingram, although he made some really, really good efforts today, honestly, is just not a great defender by any means. And yeah, man, you needed more C.K.B. tonight. I'm, I'm going to say that you needed more Christian Koloko tonight. He didn't get it. And I think that's on Darko for sure.

Let's take a look at some of the plays from this game. There's a lot to look at in this game. And I got to tell you, um, I felt a lot of nerves coming into this game. I said this is the first time this season I've actually felt nervous before a game. The Celtics are at home, fully rested, fully healthy. The Raptors are playing some of their worst basketball this season on the road, not fully healthy. But what if we win? And then I ranked out the outcomes. Now, you can tell me later if you're watching this, which outcome actually happened because these are subjective. Number one is a blowout win. That would be great. Beating the Celtics by 20, 30 points would be tremendous. And I think there would be 800 people in here victory lapping. Uh, number two, a close win. So maybe, you know, 101-101 and you hit a buzzer-beater. That would be a close win. That would be great. Number three, lead 60% of the game, lose late. Uh, this is not really what happened. Um, we're somewhere between three and seven. We're somewhere between three, seven, and eight in terms of how bad this feels. So, yeah, you did lead. You did have moments. You were competitive, but when it came down to it, there's two particular moments where the Raptors completely got obliterated in this game. At the end of the second quarter and at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Raptors just completely gave up on this game. Um, it was turnovers, it was bad body language, it was bad defense, it was bad transition offense, it was just terrible. There was a play where Jaylen Brown got his own rebound and then Jayson Tatum gets a dunk the other way. It's like a quick 4-0 swing. So, really bad. Scotty Barnes, to his part, not losing any aura points, shows up to the arena looking like a badass in leather shorts and leather gloves, looking like he's gonna actually put up 20 points. Turns out, puts up 10 points. And honestly, Scotty got one of his buckets basically in garbage time. You know, those final two points that he got on a breakaway dunk was garbage time minutes. So, if you really think about it, Scotty played how many minutes in this game? He played Scotty Barnes played 32 minutes, and he went 29 of those minutes completely without scoring. Those 10 points were in like 3 minutes. Hate to say it, but that's actually what happened. That sucks. That sucks, man. It's not what you want. Okay, here I said brilliant Scotty initiation, and I agree. Like this is this is good. This is good basketball. Like this is what you needed to do. We needed to attack these little mismatches, and the Raptors didn't want to do this for whatever reason, but also it's on Scotty. Don't blame his teammates for not finding him. It's really on him. He had his hands down. He didn't look like he wanted the ball at all. So, here we attack. We attack Sam Hauser. We take Neemias Queta. And this is how Scotty Barnes creates offense. Great open three for Jakob Poeltl. That was Jakob's first three of the game, and we saw him get like way more into it after. I said, "This is the way to beat the Boston Celtics." I mean, this is definitely one way. Once again, attacking this matchup with Sam Hauser. Sam's not a bad defender by any means, but here you just find Jakob Poeltl zipping along the baseline. And you have to ask yourself, do you have to pay $20 million for a player to just be able to catch a pass and and and and throw a dunk? Minimum players can do this. I'm pretty sure Trace Jackson-Davis can do this. Here I said, "Cook these bums." BI, once again, it is Sam Hauser and Neemias Queta, and these are the guys that are able to be exploited in space because you're definitely not doing this to Derrick White on the perimeter. Shout out to Brandon Ingram for getting he looks a lot more explosive after missing a couple games. He looked really dead in the water with his legs, but he is just looking a lot better recently. And here, once again, even though his legs are dead and his brain might be dead right now, look at Scotty Barnes with that great defense there. And here we go on the other end. And to the people who say, "Well, R.J. showed up a little bit." Well, this is how he showed up. He caught open layups. When you look at the complexity of offense, no offense, some players get very easy, easy offense in this offense. Some players get very hard offense here. I like this as a potential like future usage for C.K.B. Now, of course, this becomes a lot less valuable because nobody's guarding him. You'll see the Celtics backed off about 15 feet from C.K.B. all night. That really limits what he can do as a driver. So, it kind of resorts into, well, I have to become this sort of passing guy. And here, Payton Pritchard gets lost off-ball. Smart cut by Jakob Poeltl. Great pass by C.K.B. I like that. I like that. That unit really had it going. And I said, "Here is what Brandon Ingram thinks of Jaylen Brown's MVP." Okay, here Jaylen Brown going up at the rim with that dreaded left hand. And Brandon Ingram says, "Get that garbage out of here." Of course. Okay. All right. These are the types of plays you really wish you could have back when you consider how this game turned out. Once again, C.K.B. use being used as his passer. I have no idea how he got this pass through. I have no idea how Jaylen Brown didn't pick this off. But hey, man, maybe Jaylen Brown is a better defender than we think because he's forcing RJ Barrett to miss.

Layups, even without contesting layups. Or maybe RJ Barrett just can't hit threes. Uh, he can't hit free throws. Uh, sorry, can't hit layups. This is a crazy pass. This truly is an insane pass here. But this is not the pass I'm talking about.

So, this pass here. Now, here, Scotty is going to attack Jaylen Brown. Once again, we get Neemias Keta to commit. Jakob Poeltl cuts behind, and you can see how much of Jakob Poeltl's offense was basically created through Scotty.

Okay, I said Jakob Walter will be a Raptor for a very long time. And I sincerely mean this. Brandon Ingram cooking off the dribble here, once again. And Sam Hauser, Jaylen Brown getting completely lost off the ball, and Jakob Walter capitalizes. And I believe that was his 16th point of the night. So, shout out to Jakob. Really showed up. And I don't even know where the Raptors would have been tonight without Jaylen Brown. Sorry, without uh, Jakob Walter. Huh, little slip there.

Um, speaking of Jaylen Brown, here's Scotty Barnes one-on-one isolation against the MVP candidate Jaylen Brown. And this is Jaylen Brown basically losing his handle, and Jakob Walter comes in at the right time and pokes it off his foot. Shout outs to Scotty and Jakob. And this is where I say, if you put good defenders around Scotty, you're going to make everything he does so much better. Good defenders, good finishers, good shooters. This is what you need around Scotty. And unfortunately, RJ Barrett is none of those.

Once again, Jaylen Brown with a crazy ass pass, which goes right to Jakob Walter, which turns into good defense by Jaylen Brown to recover. But here, Payton Pritchard is not able to recover in time to stop Koloko Mary Boils from getting that wide-open putback dunk. And I said here, I don't care what anyone says about Jaylen Brown. He is not a top 10 player. Here, Koloko Mary Boils showing why he is, in my opinion, the best Raptors rookie defender of all time. And once again, dominates on one end, dominates on the other end. Sorry, got to tell you.

Now, this is a play that drove me insane because things like this happen pretty much all night here. Jamal Shed is going to get knocked out of this play from Derrick White. Derrick White just kind of bowls him over with the screen. Jamal Shed is obviously he's got a talent for this. Like, he's very, very good at trying to bait teams into giving him an offensive foul. Unfortunately, Neemias Keta is kind of hiding him from the referee. So, the referee doesn't even see the foul.

And here, unfortunately, Jakob Poeltl is way too high. And the second I saw this setup, I was like, someone has to recover. Someone has to recover here to help Jakob Poeltl. He's way too high. But the question remains, why is Jakob Poeltl way this high? Why is Jakob Poeltl not already two feet into the paint trying to stop this drive? Well, one of the reasons could be at least that Payton Pritchard is an insanely good jump shooter. And so, you really don't have that advantage that you would have against, say, someone like RJ Barrett where you can just back off and try to prevent the drive because if you back off of Payton Pritchard, he's just going to absolutely destroy you with the pull-up jump shot. So, here, Jakob Poeltl has to try to contain this live dribble, and Payton Pritchard is no dummy. He's going right to the basket, and Jakob Poeltl can't even get there to contest. So, this is really like the lost mobility of Yak. I really hope this is not a, this is not a Jakob Poeltl is old. And more like a Jakob Poeltl is hurt, injured, or tired. Because if this is the Jakob Poeltl you have for the next three, four years, holy [ __ ] you are completely [ __ ].

And if you want to look at this game ending in real time, this is where the game ended. Really look at the Raptors three defenders. Everyone is kind of pointing. Nobody goes for the basketball. Neemias Keta is basically holding Scotty Barnes and Sandro Mamukelashvili. Really, CMBB is not able to get back in time. And here, Scotty and CMBB are not able to close the gap on Jaylen Brown. And he is able to get this layup. And now we're going to go down the other end. The Toronto Raptors are going to get a turnover on a Brandon Ingram pass. And here comes JT. And Scotty Barnes has to split the difference and obviously has to be mindful that, you know, if he closes the gap too much, that's going to be an open jump shot for Jaylen Brown. And so Scotty is here, and Jaylen Brown just goes up for the dunk. And there's the game. There's the game. It became a 14, 15-point lead at that point, and that was just insurmountable. When you're going up against a better team, um, that's just not going to happen.

Uh, I saw Matt Rap Beats had called in. Unfortunately, I was doing the film breakdown, but if you want to call back in, you can call back in and we can have a civil conversation. If you really want to talk about it, but if you don't want to talk about it, that's cool, too. I did not like this game for the Toronto Raptors at all. I, I think, you know, um, there's moments where you can really hang your hat on. But I think the Raptors got out-coached, out-executed, out-played, out-hustled. Again, the same thing I said about the Sacramento Kings game can be said tonight. You know, um, he just got beat. He got beat. That's not fun.

Bro, loves Scotty more than his own mama. Whose mama? Scotty's mom or my mom? If you're talking about my mom, she's dead. If you're talking about Scotty's mom, you are incorrect. And also, Scotty Mama slander is definitely not going to be tolerated on this, on this channel. Yeah, gold link. I'm going to need you to find a new hobby, bro. Peace. Join the 585 people who've been banned from this channel. If you want to hammer home how bad a player Scotty Barnes is, you have definitely come to the wrong place, man. We're not listening to it. I'm not listening to it, at least. And you know what? It's, it's fine. Y'all want a victory lap on a couple of bad games, that's cool. You know, I'm always, always going to be open to admitting when Scotty's not playing good defense. Always going to be open to admitting when he's not playing good offense. Always going to be open to it when he doesn't look right. When his defense is kind of falling off a cliff a little bit, when his process is wrong, when his approach is wrong. I'm always going to keep it 100. What that doesn't look like, though, see, there's a [ __ ] difference between me and, let's call it, how shall I say this without being so personal? There should be like an amalgamation name, the William Luenberger Smiths. William Luen Berith. Okay. So, yeah. So the difference between me and William Louu and Burger Smith is that William Louu and Burger Smith assumes that four games is a trajectory of an entire career. Whereas I look at four games as four games, and I look at 10 games as 10 games, and a 25-game good sample in the same light that I look at a 20-game bad sample. I know what Scotty is when he's rested and when he's okay, when he is physically right. I have seen this guy go out and put up 30 points against good defenses. I know what he's been able to do against this Boston Celtics team when he's right. When he's not right, he is one of the worst offensive players in the league when he is not right physically. Um, seen it in year two, year three, year four, and now in year five. This is not a guy who deals well with playing hurt. But that being said, I like the compete level tonight. I like the compete level tonight.

We got Caleb calling in. Caleb, what is up, man? You're, you're on mute. >> You need to >> Oh, I'm so sorry. Hi. How are you? I'm so sorry. Hold on one second. >> Can you hear me? >> Yeah. You're gonna have to turn off your YouTube, though. >> Yeah. Okay. Can you hear me now? >> Yeah, I can hear you. >> Okay. I just want to say Rob, uh, I wanted to first of all thank you for everything that you do for the Raptors community. Um, it honestly takes a lot of courage and resilience and, um, integrity, um, to do what you're doing. Um, so, yeah, I just wanted to share some love and support. Um, honestly, uh, seeing all these comments, especially after like us losing and whatnot, uh, I can, yeah, I can imagine could get very annoying and frustrating. Um, but yeah, man. You, like, honestly, I feel like you have a majority of people that listen to you and that agree with you, and um, you're not alone in, you know, actually being a true Raptors fan. Um, especially those for, like, you know, supporting Scotty. Like, it's insane sometimes to see the judgment he gets, especially considering he's only 24 years old. Um, it'll be really cool to see how he grows, especially, you know, after this entire season, seeing how he's grown from the start to where we are today, where he seems a lot more confident in that leadership role and that sort of franchise player type of role. Um, it's just very inspiring, motivating, and man, I love, like, if you're a true fan, you love this team, even though we're going through our downs, like, yeah, it sucks. Like, damn, like we for sure have to make some moves, but man, sometimes some of this hate and some of this trolling, it just seems very, uh, very insane and annoying, but man, keep going. Honestly. >> Yeah, I, I wish I'd handled it a little bit better. Probably not, you know, giving giving it so much fuel, but man, it, it, it does, it sucks to watch people do the right thing, right? Like, it, watch, it sucks to watch people do the right thing and then to have people hate them for doing the right thing. >> Right? >> Like >> I don't know how many players are going to play hurt against the Celtics. I think a lot of people would just be like, forget it. Like, I'm just going to go out and look bad. We're going to lose. I'm going to get all the hate. So, forget it. I'll just sit out. And we have so many players in the NBA that sit out. That's why that's why we're the 65-game rule. And you have a guy who goes out there and plays balls to the wall defensively every single night. And people can't, people can't focus on like the good. They only have to tear down the bad, right? Yeah. I'm not sitting here saying he scored well tonight. That that would be insane. Like, I would be crazy if I said he scored well tonight or this jump shot's been going in or whatever. >> But I've seen enough progression from Scotty Barnes. Like, every three he took tonight was in and out. It went in and then it just popped out. It's been happening for a couple of days now. So, it's like, this is horrible shooting luck, as well as this is just no lift on his jumper. Like, I've watched him, like, I study his film, like, so, you know, um, yeah, thanks a lot for calling in, Caleb, appreciate you. >> Yeah, all right, man. Any final thoughts, Caleb? All right, thanks a lot for calling in, Caleb. Coach Mo, what is up? >> Um, I, I like your, your semi-rant to start the live, but, um, yeah, >> when I'm watching this team play, I'm like, there's no way a team can be successful >> when one player is their best shooting guard, point guard, small forward, power forward, center, the best guy to run the bench unit, their best rim protector, their best all-ball defender, their best help defender, their best player in transition finishing and with the ball in his hands, their best post-up player. The only thing he isn't is like a, I guess isolation scorer and three-point shooter. >> You just, it's, he's wearing too many hats. >> For sure. >> It's just not sustainable. >> And, and I'm watching the game today and it's like, I just had a random thought like, Grady Dick couldn't touch the floor on this game if he wanted to win there. How many players on our team could have actually played in this game? >> Not a lot. >> Not a lot. I, I would have liked to see AJ Lawson get a few more minutes, though. >> Yeah, this is it's >> minded that. >> Yeah, but once you start getting to play against these higher competition games >> where playoff intensity kicks in and >> the other team has players that don't have many flaws, >> right? They just don't players with many flaws. It's just the talent gap and then the fit of our players, the fit starts to be more exaggerated, right? The the the amount of guys you can go into the rotation starts to get less, and you just start to the, you know, the like the proverbial noose just gets tighter and you just suffocate because you can't keep up with them. It's just not possible with this current roster. The Raptors have to play perfect basketball to win by four against >> Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Basically, >> right. And perfect basketball would include RJ Barrett hitting his layups. RJ Barrett containing the dribble, Brandon Ingram not completely coasting on possessions offensively and not allowing the defense to gather on him. Scotty Barnes hitting open shots and open layups around the rim. Scotty being a really good defender. Uh, Jakob going, I think Jakob played just about as perfect as you could possibly hope for. Um, CMBB coming in and doing what he did. Sandro doing, like, let's just be honest, I, I don't think the entire team deserves equal slander today at all. And I don't think anyone deserves slander to be honest. If you walked in thinking this was a, this was a win, you're insane. >> But it's good to test yourself against teams like this because it does expose holes. But also, I don't know what you're learning about yourselves when you're dog tired. Are you learning anything? Like, at this point, I'm just like, every single game I'm just like, okay, I know Scotty's not going to play well. I know he's not going to hit shots. I know he has no lift. Please just don't get injured. Please just don't get injured. Every single game I'm like, please don't get injured. You imagine going into the playoffs with this guy missing the first round. We're dead. So, I think at this point, like, I don't even care about the rest of the regular season. I care about making sure that we have a chance in the play-in or the playoffs. I would rest him for the rest of the season. >> I would too. And watching watching the Pistons win games without Cade. >> Mhm. >> It's not, it's not a detriment to Cade. It's that they've built a good roster. I was watching the, um, I remember I think Richard Jefferson said it on his podcast where it's like, if you're a true, if you're a true championship-level team, even Michael Jordan when he left the Bulls, they still won 56 games. You still need a great team around the great player. >> Agreed. It can't just be if the best player is not there, the whole thing falls apart. That's not a championship team. When we won the championship, what was our record with Kawhi? Like 17 and five. >> 17 and four or 17 and five, something like that. Yeah. >> Yeah. We need, you need that best player. You need him in the big games, you know, but it seems like we need our guy in basically every game that isn't Washington.

Okay, so, here's my question for you. Rack your brain through the entire league. Okay, assume I, I don't know how much you think Scotty impacts winning. So, like, let's say the Raptors have 43 wins right now. What would they have if he just didn't play the entire season? >> I mean, they'd be lucky to crack 30 on this roster with the amount of holes he plugs. >> Okay, so let's say he's plus 13 wins already, and maybe by the end of the season he'll be plus 14 wins. Name another player that's plus 14 wins for his team. >> I can think maybe maybe two. >> Who? >> Or three. Or three. >> Who? Who are those players? >> SGA. >> Jokic. >> Yep. >> Wemby. Probably not Wemby. Luka. I'd say Luka. >> Not SGA. >> I think 14. I mean, maybe 14. They'd still be a really good team. They're making the playoffs. >> I can think of another one. >> I don't think they're a first seed, though. >> Haliburton, Joel Embiid. These, these are names that I would agree with. I, I would agree that Joel Embiid. >> It's a short list. It's a short list. It's not long. >> Uh, Maisy saying members live today. Yes, we will do a members live around uh 9:30, 10 o'clock. Yeah. >> I wouldn't argue against SGA, but it's not long. It's, it's like a six, seven-player list. That's it. >> Exactly. And, and that's what I'm saying, like >> and, and, and it's not because Scotty's on their tier. It's the roster construction is so bad. It has less to do with the caliber of player he is than what he has to work with. If he was on the Boston Celtics in place of Jason Tatum, it wouldn't be 14. >> Yeah. It would be like six or seven. >> Yeah. But on this team, it's like 134. >> Yeah. Um, Coach Jay, I agree that Scotty is not on their tier, but in terms of what he has to do for this team to get out of the mud, he absolutely is. Um, like >> impact on winning for the team. >> Yeah, like he's, like, to to to compare these two players, which is kind of hilarious. Scotty Barnes is plus 8.4. Jaylen Brown is negative 8.4, which means Jaylen Brown's team when he sits is plus 8.4 without him. Scotty Barnes' team's negative 8.4 when he sits. Like, these are two opposite players in terms of what they're asked to do. And yet, if we rank out the top 10 players in the top 20 players in the NBA, they're probably 13 and 17. Like, they're close, >> but what they're asked to do is totally different. Would Jaylen Brown be way, like, okay, let's make one swap. Jaylen Brown for RJ Barrett. Do you know what a [ __ ] difference that makes for these two teams? You, you're talking about swapping out maybe the 110th best player in the NBA for like the 20th or 19th, 18th best player in the NBA. Yeah. It makes all the world, it makes a world of difference. Also, Jaylen Brown's not a defensive liability. He's not a great defender, but he's not a defensive liability. You don't have to cover up for him that much, right? So, it's just like, it's, it's just a talent thing. The Raptors are missing that talent. And, you know, Scotty's been scoring like 15 points per game since RJ Barrett came back into the lineup. >> I am not. He was scoring 24 points per game in like the seven points, uh, seven games he before RJ came back into the lineup. And so I'm not oblivious to the fact that, yeah, like having RJ back makes your defensive load harder. It also cramps spacing because you're not playing with Jontay Porter, Sandro Mamukelashvili. Those lineups that create max space for Scotty to actually move. They don't exist when RJ Barrett's on the court. So RJ forces Scotty to more of an initiator role because RJ is going to cut for his own scoring opportunities, right? Um, it's kind of sad people don't see that. >> It's also what you mentioned before where it's like, okay, if RJ comes into the lineup, if he doesn't score 20, what is he? He almost has to score 20 because if Scotty doesn't score 20 and he scores 10, he's still impacting winning in other ways. It was like he, he's forced to fill certain hats because his teammates can't fill those hats, >> right? >> So he, he has no choice, right? What are you going to tell Brandon Ingram to be a lockdown defender? No, you're not going to ask him to do that. You're going to ask Immanuel Quickley to to guard point of attack? No, he's just not going to be successful on it. So, right, I mean, Jakob could barely stay on the floor in this game, right? He played 20 minutes and CMBB was much more successful. So, it's just, it is what it is. >> Yeah. Politics are going to ruin Scotty's career, man. Uh, in Toronto, like the the contracts that you've handed to Jakob Poeltl almost necessitates that he has to be part of the starting rotation next year. And I'm just like, okay, if CMBB's best position is four or five, right? And Маму is coming back, that's a four, and you need a center better than Jakob Poeltl as a starter, then Jakob Poeltl is the fourth player that I have in that in that situation. And I just feel like the Raptors care too much about his asset value given that he's going to be making 27, 27 a year in two years. Like, I just think they care way too much about the asset value of AR of Jakob to acknowledge the reality of who he is as a player at this point. And who he is as a player is unplayable against space. Unplayable in a game like this. I walked and I was like, I, I looked at the starting lineup and I was like, Jakob Poeltl, we're [ __ ]. Like, we are [ __ ]. Neemias Keta has been wrecking this man's life. Every time the Raptors have played them, he has lost that matchup. >> Last game against the Pistons. Jaylen, Jaylen Duran destroyed him. Paul Reed destroyed him. Ausar Thompson destroyed him. He can't guard in space. The question is, who can he guard? Because I remember Scotty having to guard Jokic because he couldn't guard him either. >> This is the worst move in Raptors. >> Yeah. And guess what? Guess what Neemias Keta makes? 2.3 million. >> Yo, Neemias is a good player. And honestly, it's funny, like anyone who paid attention to analytics last year would have told you he was a 95th percentile defender. I was like, "Oh my god, this guy's good." It's the same thing with Isaiah Hartenstein when you know the Knicks signed him and we ended up signing Otto Porter. I was like, "You know what? Like, we should probably sign Isaiah Harten." The Raptors really overpaid for Jakob Poeltl. I don't think that's a surprise to anybody. Anyone who's with this channel knows that I hated that move more than I hate anything in the world. Um, but it's >> he makes 10 times less, almost 10 times less, and he played 14 more minutes and was more successful. >> Unbelievable. >> And what I don't understand about this front office is they've done it once with, um, Gary Trent, where it's like they just let the contract expire. They just let the contract expire. I don't understand this. We got to get something for this asset. Sometimes you just let the contract expire or see what the player can get. Go out and see what you're worth, right? It's like some guy working a comfy union job and he was making all this money an hour, and it's like, go outside into the real world and see what you're worth in the open market. But no, we don't let our players find that out. >> Yeah. I mean, you could have played this game with, you could have played, you could have easily played this game with Immanuel Quickley, you know, restricted free agency. That's the benefit of restricted free agency. But the Raptors wanted to control the contract structure on Immanuel Quickley. They wanted us to be able to control the 32 flat. So, they were like, "Okay, if you have a deal for 27, we're just going to do 32 flat." Okay, Immanuel Quickley is far from the worst contract on this deal, on this team. The worst contract is easily Jakob Poeltl. We can go debate who is the second worst contract between Brandon Ingram and Immanuel Quickley. Like, these are two not so easy to trade contracts this off-season. But, um, yeah, I just, I, I think there's some hope here, which is CMBB and Jakob. >> Yep. Watch. >> I really like how these two guys play with and fit around your star player. It's a really good thing. And also, I think great offensive players, much like great defensive players, are great me they're they're magnifiers and amplifiers for like pre-existing talent on your roster. So, a great connective passer or even a great initiative passer is going to magnify or amplify shooting talent, right? Just like great defenders are going to actually magnify or amplify great defensive talent. Unfortunately, Scotty has not been really given the magnification role or the amplification role. He's been given more of the paper over and cover up role. And I don't like that because if you pair Scotty with an elite, elite rim protector, he's even better. If you compare, if you, you know, compliment him with elite shooters, he's just so much better. So many passes this guy makes. Like, I'm thinking to myself, there's passes that he could make, but the corner shooter is Jamal T. or the corner shooter is, you know, CMBB. Like, he's making passes. It just, the talent is not there. So you could have one or two, you know, non-shooters. You can't have six. You just can't have five or six. Like, it's just, it's tough. Um, so if, if I could do anything, if there was an amnesty provision, I would amnesty and stretch, wave, whatever. Jakob Poeltl immediately. I don't care what this guy becomes, you're trapped with him. And centers are cheap. In my opinion, it's cheap. >> Non-star centers are cheap. >> Yeah. 5 million tops. The, you don't pay 20. I would never pay over $20 million for a center unless that center was a borderline star or I needed that center so badly because I was a title contender. >> One caveat would be like teams like the Nets or like teams that just need to fill salary and they're not really competing, they're not trying to be competitive, then it doesn't matter. But when you're when you're trying to compete, the year like Boston, you can't pay these centers much, you just can't. >> Yeah. Anyways, man, any final thoughts? >> So, when is the season, is this? When is the season over? >> April 14th, 13th. >> It's looking like we're going to, like, we're just dragging ourselves to the finish line. It's looking like a play-in tournament. >> Yeah. >> And >> I don't like our play-in chances against New. I don't like our play-in chances against Charlotte. And I don't love them against Orlando either. But we'll see. Orlando's been sputtering. But Franz is back and I really like, I think Franz is their best player. So, yeah, in one game, we can get clamped. We can get clamped by either Miami or Orlando. >> Oh, if we have one of those horrid shooting games. Oh my goodness. >> Yeah. >> I mean, we can go cold in a in a hurry. I don't know what this will, like a play-in loss. What does that do for Darko? Like the end of the season being what it is, and then you lose. According to Hello and welcome, Keith P is keeping these guys and no one's getting fired according to them. But if it's not, you know, um, if, if it's not according to them, >> honestly, I, I would probably explore a new general manager immediately. >> Oh, I would have done it last off-season. >> Immediately. Immediately. >> Like, you, you need fresh eyes. You need fresh eyes who don't have the emotional attachment to Jakob Poeltl, who weren't there when he was drafted, and just can look at this objectively. Come in, look at the assets objectively. Hopefully, someone who sees the value in building around Scotty Barnes, but even if it's someone who doesn't see the value in it, at least somebody who sees the value in building with him. Anyway, yeah. All right, man. Peace. >> See you later. >> See you. Okay, let's get Matt Rap Beats on here. Matt Rap Beats, what's up? >> What's up, man? How's it going? >> Not too bad. What's going on? >> Nothing much. What, what are your thoughts on the game? >> I mean, you already know my thoughts on the game. You've been here the whole time. Well, yeah, I've been in and out, but, um, I guess you want to hear my thoughts on the game or >> you said all in. So, calling me an idiot 10 times. >> Okay, cool. So, my, my thoughts are basically, what is your issue with Scotty Barnes? >> I don't have an issue with Scotty Barnes. I think that maybe you're just a little bit higher on him than I am. And it bothers you that I don't feel the same way about him. >> No, I'm higher, I'm higher on Scotty than just about everyone in the world. It doesn't bother me. It bothers me that when you come in not understanding that he's had an incredible load to carry this, uh, this season defensively, which I'm sure you know, if you've watched the games, you can agree. No other player is being asked to do this. No other player has asked to guard one through five. No other player has played this level of minutes. And so, if his legs are dead, then I don't necessarily see why we're trolling 10 points. Oh, this is not a real franchise player. Like, this is supposed to be our star player. He's going out there playing for his team, playing to win. He's playing winning basketball. He's trying his best. His legs are obviously not working. His jump shot's not falling. Why do we have to hate on that? Why do we have to go and victory lap on that? That's my issue. >> Yeah, for me, I don't think I'm hating or victory lapping. I think that even peak Scotty Barnes this year didn't show me anything that shows me he's going to be a number one option on a real contender. So, I think that's more of the discrepancy. What is that Scotty? What is peak Scotty for you this year? Was it against Cleveland when he put up 30 points? Was it against Orlando when he put up 25 and 13? What was peak Scotty for you? >> I think it was that 2020 game when RJ came back when he was exhausted. I forget who they played, but he had, you know what I'm talking about. >> Um, >> Yep. 25 and 23 against Golden State. >> To me, that is beautiful. Scotty Barnes. He puts up 20 points. He's a beast on the rebounds. Amazing defensively. I just don't think you ever need more than 24 points from him. And I think, um, the roster construction is the biggest problem here. Um, I think I agree with you on that. Like, I think, um, the fit is horrible. I think, uh, the idea of going forward with Scotty and Poeltl as a front court is like suicide. And that in a league that's so shooting-based, and, uh, I just don't really see Scotty as that guy that's going to be the guy you count on for isolation bucket late in the game because I don't think the, the jumper is consistent enough and I don't think that the finishing, especially over bigger guys, is there yet. But he's a really good finisher. >> He is. He's a good finisher, especially over guys around his size. But once he >> is in the post against maybe seven-footers and stuff, he has trouble finishing against bigger guys. And that's not really a knock on Scotty. He's his height is his height. But I'm just saying, uh, there's guys with more finesse around the rim. Um, I just don't necessarily see it as a, a three-level scoring. I don't see three-level scoring potential at all. Uh, I think the, the three-point shooter, three-point shot always looks good at the beginning of the season, and then like you said, his legs go, and then, uh, it becomes pretty much abysmal towards the end. Um, you have stretches where he's pretty much a 15% three-point shooter for months. And I just don't think in the modern NBA you could build around a guy like that. I don't think any team in the NBA is building around a guy that's shooting sub 30% right now. You could make an argument for Sengun, but I don't even think the Rockets are taking Sengun as a franchise player right now. But if Sengun was the second best defender or third best defender in the NBA, they would absolutely be building around him. >> He's also a seven-footer though, and he's like the closest thing in the league to Jokic. >> He's definitely not the closest thing to Jokic. Just because he physically looks like Jokic doesn't mean he's anything like Jokic. Just cuz he's >> Well, he's a great passer. >> No, he's not. >> He's a great rebounder. >> Is he a great passer? >> Sengun is a good passer. >> I didn't say >> he's averaging more assists than Scotty Barnes. See, this is how this is how I think this is the problem. >> This is the problem. Okay, let's get to it. >> The problem is you assume that role dictates talent. That if a player is given the opportunity or green light to playmake for an offense that is completely bad, that you shouldn't hold the offense being bad against that player. You should just look at their raw assist totals. And I think that's the problem. If you see the passes that Scotty Barnes throws, if you throw Scotty Barnes with like athletes like Amen Thompson and shooters and scorers like Kevin Durant, shooters like Reed Shepard, that offense would look amazing. But Alperen Sengun is slow to process. He's not a great passer at all. He passes a lot. Congratulations. He gets stressed by length. He takes way too long. His passes are flashy sometimes, but they're not advanced reads. The gap in passers between Scotty Barnes and Alperen Sengun is insane. It's huge. They're hugely different as passers. They're hugely different in my opinion as defenders, massively. But you'll look at raw rebound totals and assist totals and be like, "Well, I guess it's close." It's not close. It's not close at all. >> So, do you think Scotty would be averaging eight plus assists on the Rockets right now, even though the Rockets struggle to shoot as well? Easily. Amen Thompson would get easier looks. I think Scotty in place of Amen would would help them. I think Scotty in place of Sengun would help them. Of course, Scotty is a way better player than those two players. And it's just like, Jabar, like you have to look at optimizing players in terms of putting players in spots to succeed, but also understanding how to map gaps in defense. If you want to talk about the closest thing to Nikola Jokic in the NBA, it's Scotty Barnes, >> not Alperen Sengun. Well, that's cool. You're, you're allowed to disagree. >> Yeah, that's fair. >> Um, but I don't think that Scotty's assist totals and point totals are like indicative of what he could do in a situation. I really don't. >> Yeah, I guess you will never know until Bobby figures out how to get Scotty in some space and then we can really see how it is with Scotty with some legit shot makers. And I think it's hard to make an argument when you haven't really seen the numbers translate. Like, we're here what, three years in a row, sub-20 points, around six assists. Um >> But to think this is such a bad way to look at basketball, sub-20 points. >> We want to see, we want to see growth, right? In the numbers, right? The shooting percentages aren't even getting better. It's not like he's even getting more efficient from three or anything. >> Right. He's become a better defender. >> For sure. But like >> This is wrong. The shooting numbers haven't gotten better is wrong. >> Mid-range has gotten better, and the free throw's gotten better. So, yeah, you're right. >> So when you say, when you say he's a zero-level three shooting, if his, if his paint scoring better and no. Okay. When you say he's not a, I haven't seen any three-level scoring potential, what you're really saying is he's not shooting threes. That's really what you're saying. He's >> That's exactly what I'm saying. And like, in this era, I just feel like if that's going to be your go-to guy, the guy you're building around, you better be able to knock down a three. It doesn't even look like he wants to take them these days. RJ will happily break wide open threes. And I'm not saying this is a good thing, but I'm just saying at least he'll take them. And I think so, it takes some balls to at least take the open shot. I think that's kind of the mentality you have to have if you're going to be leading a team offensively. If you have an open shot, take the shot, man. Like >> So, do you think RJ is a better offensive player than Scotty Barnes? >> I think he's a better scorer. I don't think he's a better passer. Um, I think >> he's a better offensive player. Like, like if I plug RJ Barrett in on a team with four average NBA players and I plug Scotty in on a team with four average NBA players, which team is going to have a better offense? >> Depends on the shooting. But, um, >> I think if he needs >> average, everyone is a 36% three-point shooter. >> What position is Scotty playing? Point guard or makes a big difference. >> Doesn't matter. Just, you don't know anything about the roster. Just four very average players who are average efficiency, average height, average height for their position, whatever. >> I think it's close, but I'm going to have to give RJ the edge. I think it's, I think it's close, though. >> Perfect. I, I wouldn't. And, and that's the difference. I think if Scotty does not have to carry this type of load defensively, and he does not have four average defenders around him, he has defensive liabilities around him, left, right, and center. Having to play this level of defense is going to kill your legs. Jump shots require your legs, especially if you're not a great three-point shooter to begin with. I don't know any great great defenders who are good three-point shooters. In fact, Derrick White was an awesome three-point shooter last year, right? This year, he's been awful in large part because his defensive load has gone way up. >> We've seen this with OG Anunoby too, dude. Like OG, probably as a shooter, is probably like a 38, 39% three-point shooter. He often shot 35, 36, 37% lower because he simply has such a hard, hard job on defense. If you've ever watched OG, like up close, dude is sweating like he's dripping puddles on the floor. We're talking like three minutes into the game, he works hard. Scotty's the same way. And when Scotty has gone into his, I'm not going to play as hard on defense, the Raptors can't win. They can't win a single game. I've never seen Scotty play bad on defense. Okay, I've watched two games this season where I, I'd say Scotty was subpar on defense, and the Raptors actually won. So, he has to play balls to the wall on defense, and then on the other end, he has to score 20 points to have people like you saying he's not, you know, if he scores less than 20 points, then we have people like you saying he, you can't build an offense around him, you can't build a team around him. I don't think >> so. What is he then? Like, why can't he be a guy that averages 22, 8, and 5 and is an All-NBA defender? Like, why can't we build around a guy like that? Like >> why can't we have those? >> Name, name a player who's a 20, 22-point per game scorer and an All-NBA defender other than Wemby. >> Um, all, not first team. Isn't Jaylen Brown going to be on All-NBA? >> Jaylen Brown is an awful defender. >> Okay, but I don't know. >> Do you watch? >> Well, he's not an awful defender. Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. That's the same guy that clamped Luka in the finals. So, >> okay. >> I know you don't win a Finals MVP without being a good two-way player and actually doing some [ __ ] So, um, that's an award that we may, we, we may never see Scotty get an award like that. We may never see Scotty get half of Jalen Green's accolades. And that's the reality of it. >> Here is, uh, Jaylen Brown according to Crafted NBA. Here are his, uh, defensive analytics. He is. >> Is it for this season where he has to score all the points without Tatum or when he has to play with >> Oh, okay. So, so when, so Jaylen Brown gets a pass on defense, but have you saying that he's lockdown defense? He is a 15th percentile defender according to, uh, Crafted. I, I could pull up like all sorts of numbers that would show you that Jaylen Brown is not a good defender this year, and Anthony Edwards is a terrible defender this year, even though he's coasting off of reputation as well. But >> I think they were both good last year. I think they both had bad defensive years picking up more offensive load. >> Neither one of them have even touched Scotty Barnes defensively ever. >> Oh, for sure. I agree with you there. For sure. Scotty Barnes is like light years ahead of these guys defensively. >> Okay. According to Dunks and Threes, here is EPM on the season. Let's see where we get to. We have Derrick White. We have LaMelo Ball. Joel Embiid. So, all pretty great players so far. Let's see. We're going to get to Austin Reaves, Jason Tatum. Cool. Anthony Edwards, Jalen Brunson. Shout outs, man. Uh, we're going to get to Scotty Barnes right here. Not great. Plus 2.6. Not great, but it's solid. Plus 1.8. But notice we haven't seen Jaylen Brown yet. We got a Jalen Brunson already. We don't see Jaylen Brown. >> No Jaylen Brown. We got Jalen Suggs, but we got no Jaylen Brown. >> All the analytics are wrong. We got Immanuel Quickley, but we don't got Jaylen Brown. We got Jalen Williams. We don't have Jaylen Brown. Ah, we finally have Jaylen Brown. Below on the same level as Moses Moody, Evan Mobley. And this is where I say the numbers are not lying on this dude. I'm not saying he's this bad, but he's not as good as y'all talk about him. And if you poll the average Raptor fan based on the deluded mental, you know, uh, gymnastics that the media has played with Scotty Barnes, the average Raptor fan, okay, you're making a lot of noise, bro. Uh, the average Raptor fan would probably pick Jaylen Brown to build around right now than Scotty Barnes. And that's when you get sad. All right. Anyways, Matt Rap Beats, shout outs to you for calling in. Can't, can't deal with these, uh, sound. >> All right, man. Sorry about that. I appreciate you. We got, we're going to have a thousand people plus watching this. Appreciate you for calling in. We've got Juno calling in. I mean, Matt Rap Beats, uh, if you ever call in again, you could just mute yourself, man. You could just mute yourself when you going into a wind tunnel, right? We don't have to. Yeah. Uh, but shout outs to you for calling in, keeping it respectful. I don't agree with you at all. I think we have a fundamental disagreement on how we see basketball, and that's okay. Um, yeah, maybe I was out of pocket for calling you an idiot. Okay, we got Juno calling in now. Juno has been waving at the camera and presumably also, um, writing, uh, in the chat. Juno, what's up? Hey, Pen. How are you? >> I'm okay. How are you? >> I'm, uh, I'll be honest with you, Pen. I'm disappointed. I'm, I'm real, I'm real disappointed. Pen, >> I'm real disappointed. Robert, >> 10 points. 10 points, 14, five, averaging 18. This ain't a guy. >> Yeah, we're done. All right. I don't like. Look, man, here's the thing, Mr. Juno. If you're going to try and convince a director that that is an accent, I've worked with people on accents. Um, like, okay, you, you want, you want to try to start over with your real accent? >> Hello, Robert. How are you? >> Yeah, [ __ ] off. But you know what's interesting? This Juno person sounds a lot like this guy on Twitter. And every single time I get on Twitter Spaces, he'll be like, "Hello, Robert. How are you?" And I'm not going to say it's culturally offensive and act all like offended by this [ __ ] But, uh, Raptor fans, I'm really happy for the Pensar basketball community. I really am because honestly, generally speaking, the general discourse around this team is sickening. Truly vomit-inducing. And I think this team deserves a better fan base than that [ __ ] Um, yeah, but shout outs to this team. Uh, and shout outs to this team for going out and competing. Um, tough, tough loss. Tough loss. Disappointing. Of course, you want to win. You play hard. You want to win. You go out there, you get hurt. You

Know, you're hurt. You know, you're I think the Raptors are suffering from their inexperience right now. Experience would tell you that you need to gear up for the playoffs. Yes. But you also want to walk into the playoffs with, you know, lively legs, right? Uh I agree with you. Agreed. Yeah. All right, man. 1 hour and 20 28 minutes is all she wrote on this one. Um, the Raptors get beat and let us pray for better better times against Miami at home. The Raptors have really really suffered in solo back home games for whatever reason. I don't know if it's the travel or something about it, but yeah, not taking any Scotty slander. Look, man, if you want to point out that his process has been a little bit bad, I can I can see that. If you want to say some of the turnovers have been sloppy, I'll agree with that. If you say he's not playing well, I agree with that. What you're not going to tell me right now is that he's not a player you can build around. No, I'm not going to listen to that.

You're not going to get to use three, four games cuz the same people coming out here with their, you know, absolute jackassery right now were the same people. They were hiding in caves. Hiding in caves, dodging. They were hiding in caves, dodging overflying helicopters six games ago. Diving in caves. They were hiding in caves, cowering. Okay. Not a peep from these lunatics, but let Scotty have a couple bad games. Hey man, this is what you want. This is what you want. You don't want people to excuse 10 points and bad defense or, you know, turnovers. You don't want people to excuse that. Let him hear it. Let him hear that he's got to be better. I'm sure he knows he he's got to be better. But also, can we get this dude some rest? Anyways, I'll talk to y'all later. Make sure to give this video a like. And also, we have DoubleM Productions 1955. And I'm sorry, Scotty's your best player, man. He's got to be more aggressive. It's been years we've been saying this. I'm tired of excuses. I hear you.

There have been moments where you really just hope that he would just attack a matchup and instead of attacking the matchup, he would just go for the pass. And my view on this is if you draw a double team, you've done your job. You don't have to go through double teams, but at some point, yes, you do have to attack Baylor Shyman. You do have to attack, you know, Sam Hower, but if he doesn't have lift and he can't move and he has this tremendous task that he has to carry on defense or his team can't win basketball games, I'm sorry, you've really put him in a situation where he has to carry two ends of the basketball court and I don't think he can do that. Um, is there a plan, topic, or focus for tonight's member stream? Or maybe we would have more of a laid-back show. Take some calls. I would love to take some calls. I would love to take some calls. That would be really really great. Um, there there are two topics that I'm going to work work on. Raptors Nation, you're a very sad human being and I hope you get the help that you need, but you know, like all caps gets you banned. That's two bands. Two bands. Y'all want to go for three? We can go for three. I really don't have chill about this stuff, man. I know where this is going. I've known where this is going for years. Said this team was going to be good this year. They've actually underachieved relative to my expectations. They may not make it to 45 wins right now. That's sad that you think that, but okay.

Uh Rob, what do you suggest the Raps should do moving forward? It's clear the team cannot compete deeply in the playoffs as constructed. What do we do? I think we need to I think we need to prioritize better defensive players. I think we need to prioritize better offensive players, better screeners, better shooters, and most importantly, I think we need to prioritize spacing above everything. Obviously, Scotty's got to get a lot better. I think he knows that this is not who he is. This is not who he's going to be. In a couple of years, you're going to be looking back on the games like this. You're going to be like, I can't believe he had 10 points in a game like this. But you got to play out the longer term vision. And if people want to, you know, slander the guy, okay, cool. You can look stupid in two years. You can look stupid in two months. But I trust where this is going. And I'll always trust a 6'9 elite playmaker who has insane um separation on his jumpers that he's eventually going to figure it out. And I know he's got to he's going to and I agree with you. If this was the only comment we got tonight, Scotty Barnes got to play better. I believe you. Like if Scotty plays even better than this, but Scotty playing better is not bridging the gap in 14 points, right? I'm trying, Rob, but Scotty ain't it, man. On defense, yes. But the lack of jump offensively is really hurting the team. I think again, like, you're just looking at the box score and you're really just being emotional about this. There was a huge jump offensively this year. There's been a huge jump in terms of offensive efficiency. There's been a huge jump in terms of playmaking and passing, but you're not seeing it. Last year, there was a huge jump in terms of uh mid-range efficiency and postwork and handle. There's so many. And you know, um, you just got to package it all together. This is a guy who's been learning five positions over the last 5 years. Like, at some point, this is going to come come together for him. And I find it sort of strange that this is a two-time all-star that some of y'all I'll tell you what makes me mad. I'm going to tell you what makes me mad. What makes me mad is the constantly sliding bar. People who said when we drafted him that this guy was going to be Patrick Williams or this guy was going to be a bum or this guy's going to be this and that, whatever. He's never going to average 10 points per game. This guy averages 19.9. Y'all just complain about 20. When he averages 20, you're going to say you're you're going to say he's not averaging 22. When he averages 22, you're going to say he's not averaging 25. When he goes out and play balls to the walls defense, you're going to say, "Well, his jump shot's not falling." Like, it's just it's like I don't know why y'all are so comfortable hating on this dude, but it does feel like hate because I don't see you complaining about the $40 million Allstar not showing up today. I don't see y'all complaining about the former McDonald's All-American Gatorade National Player of the Year, top three pick not being able to make layups today because everything becomes about Scotty Barnes. It's sad. It's really sad.

Uh CMBB and Jacobe better go nowhere. Like those two to me, I'm like stamp those guys. Please keep them forever. Jameson Battle, he can stay. Jonathan Moble, he can stay. You know, Third String for sure. Um, I've seen enough from Elijah Martin to say maybe he can stay. Jameson Battle has just said he can stay. But man, some of these other pieces they got to get revamped. You got to you got to find a place to get athleticism. You got to find you can't just be you can't be the slower team that also can't shoot, you know? You can't be the smaller, slower team that can't shoot. Like, that's how you get whooped. And I'm not really sure how the Raptors are supposed to like everything the Celtics did today. That's exactly what the Charlotte Hornets are going to do to you. Everything. Uh would you trade CB for AJ Mitchell? AJ would help so much. I don't like the idea of trading CMBB. If I could trade anything else for AJ Mitchell, I would absolutely do that though. AJ would be a huge godsend for this team. And you know, again, go back two drafts, he was right there, but you picked Jonathan Mobile. So yeah, uh seeing Maxi Marino playing really well hurts. Uh yeah, sure. And as the guy who was crying on draft night that he wasn't picked, yes, it hurts very much. Anyways, uh I'm going to go work on the members live as much as I humanly possibly can and we'll do the members live around 9:00. We'll do call-ins for for members. So, if you are a member and you would like to call unencumbered and unbothered from all the trolls and all the and all the haters and we can just have a really nice conversation about what's really been going wrong or right with the Toronto Raptors, maybe even do a little bit more uh thought process on that. I really just have to spend like 30 minutes right now just thinking like exactly what I want that subject to be. And once again, a reminder that on um whatchamacallit on Monday, we're going to have a live stream with Jacob's trainer. We're going to talk about Jacobe. We're going to talk about his progression and obviously what a great awesome thing, you know, for Jacobe to be playing this well and we're going to be talking to his trainer right at the midst of it. That's going to be really cool. Uh talk about Jacobe, talk about what he can do this off seasonason. Obviously, he looks like he's going to be a starter for the Raptors next year. So, let's talk to the guy who's been super instrumental. Eric is such a genius when it comes to basketball and the body and athletic training. Like, I've learned so much. I'm so glad he's a friend of mine. And so, yeah, like I'm I'm really looking forward to it. Really looking forward to it.

Uh, happy Easter to you as well. Uh, I am Orthodox because I'm Serbian. Our our uh our Easter is next weekend. Uh, Re Rex Soul, a new member. Shout out to you, Rex Soul, man. Thank you for becoming a member and shout outs to our near 200 members. It is a fire community. I apologize. Let me just apologize at the 1 hour and 37 marks for getting a little bit heated earlier. Um I think it really hurts to watch somebody go out there and put their body on the line and then to watch people rip them. As I as I mentioned before, it really bothered me when people called Kyle Lowry a playoff choker cuz I knew what drove Kyle and I knew that he was a winner. And when you go out there as a basketball player, if I was your coach and you go out there and you're playing hurt and you're putting your body on the line and you're trying to do your best and you just can't jump, I'm never ever going to hate you for that. But if you go out there and you hijack my offense because you want to put look pretty and you want to put up big numbers, I'm a bench ass. We have very different ways of looking at basketball. And yes, I'm sorry to say may sound condescending, but I definitely think the way that I'm looking at this is correct.

Uh yeah, uh but yes, Red Salute, we will get on this. We'll we'll aim for the members live around 9:30. That's about 2 hours from now. And yeah, maybe we can talk draft a little bit as well. We will have a good one though, don't worry. Uh I just need I need a little bit a little bit of time to focus on making sure that members live is a really good one. And yes, but it will happen between 9:30 and 10 o'clock. All right, I'll talk to you'all later. Have a beautiful, beautiful Easter Sunday to those who celebrate. Um, talk to you'all later. Peace.