 What's the word, y'all? The Toronto Raptors lost again. They're 13 and 18. If I'm not mistaken, they're in a sixth game, losing streak after losing to the 76ers in Philly today. And I'll be honest with you, man, I'm extremely disappointed in them through the first 30 or so games of the season. If you go back and watch my Eastern cops prediction video, I predicted that they were gonna be a four or five seed out East because I was a firm believe in a few things. I thought that their defense is gonna continue to be a lead with them running the lineup where everybody's six, seven and above other than Fred Van Vleet. They're gonna cause a lot of turnovers and get out on the break. I knew that Pascal Siakam was gonna be able to build on this all NBA season last year. I thought that Scotty Barnes was gonna be taking a sophomore year jump. I think he was gonna be an all star all NBA player, but I thought he'd be more productive in the sophomore season versus rookie season. And I thought that the lack of production for Fred Van Vleet in the second half of the season was more of a showcase of lingering issues that he was playing through instead of it being actually him. And well, out of everything I just said that made me confident in the Toronto Raptors only one thing is really true. And that's that Pascal Siakam is great. Pascal today, 38, 15 rebounds, six assists. A very, very great game. I'm watching this game the entire time I'm thinking is anybody gonna help? Fred Van Vleet ended with 9.6 rebounds to reassess and jacked up a lot of shots. And you know what they were all good looks especially we got to late fourth quarter and overtime or whatever, all good looks but they were not falling. And I know they ended up losing this game but it's hard to say this wasn't a bad loss considering they were up but y'all played in my opinion solid basketball for 40 minutes. It just so happened those last eight minutes plus overtime it wasn't that great. So let's do the silver lining thing before we start talking about the struggles of the season. And this one specifically the defense look way better today than they had looked over the last couple of weeks. And that's a bright side when you're playing against Joel and B James Harden and a lot of different weapons. The defense is good. I just don't love the amount of open corner threes that were given up this game. And again, shout out to Tobias Harris, bro. He was amazing. I mean, he should have had four more points but they took away one because PJ Tucker said in the league of screen regardless Tobias Harris over the last let's say five or six games or so has been looking really, really good. And I'm happy for him in the 76ers because they low keeping very under the radar we eventually get to some 76ers talk in a little bit. But let's talk about those other things that I was wrong about. The defense so far this season is if we exclude the 40 minutes today but it has been lackluster compared to what we're used to for the Toronto Raptors. Well, Kenny, we were missing OG. People miss this and that. Every team in basketball is dealing with injury issues. So I understand it, but I don't at the same time. For example, the game against the Warriors was that last night, two nights ago. You know what? Actually, let's not even talk about it. It was just bad. And Scotty hasn't had the same impact this season as we saw his rookie season. I know it's very memeable and everybody's talking about Scotty versus this player. Scotty versus this young player. Oh, they didn't raise Scotty Barnes for Kevin Durant. I still believe that Scotty is going to end up being a stud, but right now when I watch him play he feels passive for some reason. Last shot and get that feeling. Last year didn't feel like that he was afraid to put the ball on the floor or afraid to go to the basket even if that resulted in a bad shot at him or afraid to take a jump shot. So far, it feels like he is being just out there, which is not good for a guy that you believe to be a super cornerstone of your organization. For Evan Bleat, I mean, the last couple of games, see, I think he had a 37-point game, a 37-point game, but then tonight he had this big ol' stinker. He's just an inefficient shooter at the end of the day. Inefficient score. I mean, in those, actually, in those other two games he was getting to the basket, which is dope. I mean, he's a small guy. Him getting to the basket opens up the offense for a lot of different people. And this one, he couldn't really do that because the 76ers have a bunch of like hard-nosed big defenders, whether it be Joel and Beat at the rim or PJ Tucker on some help or to buy his hair. They have a lot of people that can go out there to defend, so he didn't really have the opportunity to get to the basket at all. Tonight, there's a lot to be desired for Evan Bleat so far this season. I'll just say that. So because Freddie is struggling to shoot the ball and because Scotty isn't a plus shooter to shoot, even though his catch and shoot percentage last time I checked was pretty good, overall, they just don't have any shooting on the team. Like any. I think they were 29th in basketball behind the Chicago Bulls, of course, when it came to three-point production this season. That's not good. That's not good. When 2022 going to 2023, you have to be able to shoot the three-point shot to be a successful team. This is a team that doesn't do that. Half court offense is just bad. It's like, if Pascal came bell us out, we don't really know what we're doing. And if they aren't causing many turnovers and they're not having great defenses, it's a lot to be desired for the Toronto Raptors. So what do they have to do? I don't know. I know there's a lot of conversations about if they should make trades, and this is my take on it as an outsider looking at Toronto Raptors. I don't know what piece should be safe or pieces should be shipped out. But what I will say, if you're gonna have a guy like Pascal Siaka be on your team, you have to do right by him and build a roster that's good. Because the version of Pascal Siaka we are getting right now is top 15. So if we have a top 15 player that we're not gonna sell, I don't know if they will, but let's assume that they're not gonna sell Pascal. We have to put a team around him that's good to his strengths and also help him out. Cause right now they're doing him a disservice. I don't know what that looks like, but I will say I do trust the front office over there. They have a track record of being good and making these tough decisions and they have one coming up for sure. Let's get to some of the other games of the day. The Atlanta hogs beat the hot Orlando magic. Shout out to Orlando. They made this a game behind Markel Foltz, a little scoop layup, the foul obviously. And then Dejante closed it out, hitting the free throws. There's only free throws of the game. The bright side for this, for the Atlanta hogs is the last couple of games, Trey Young has looked more like himself than the first 20 or so. Where he ended up with 37 and 13, which is a crazy stat line. But deeper than that, he shot it officially. And me and the guys were talking about in our podcast recently about the Trey Young struggle of shooting and how we didn't really understand it and that we knew he'll eventually get there. But at that point, he had only had like two games in a season where he has shot over 45%. I was a little while ago, but he had shot over 45% from the field. That's not good for Trey Young. And the last couple, he's been efficient, that he's been helping them win. And I don't know if this is the turn. I really don't know. But they beat a scorching hot team and they should be happy about that. I'm sure the Mavs will get their video eventually. But we spent five minutes on the Toronto Raptors in their struggles. I wanna go the opposite direction and start shining some light on the team like the Minnesota Timberwolves. Cause they're without Carthage Towns, Rudy Gobiar went out with an injury. Kyle Anderson didn't play today. Who else didn't play? The list goes on and on and on and they beat the Dallas Mavs. Don't ask me to talk about the officiating or whatever. I'm not here to do that. They beat the Dallas Mavs behind Anthony Edwards. And I'm very close to making an Anthony Edwards centric video about the last week or so of basketball for him. Because if you remember when we were talking about the Rudy Gobiar trade or just Anthony Edwards in general, one of the main things I said on this channel is that what's gonna make Anthony Edwards at threat deeper than just what he is right now will be his ability to play make. If you're the first 20 or so games he was kinda used as an offensive go get us a bucket and not much more. He was running some pick and roll, Rudy Gobiar, but he never really passed the ball as more shots. These last couple days games bro has been out there play making like it hit a whole nother level. It has hit a whole nother level. Listen, I gotta see it first hand when he went against my Chicago Bulls goddamn. But like today a nine assist one turnover game for Anthony Edwards is something that they gotta make a plaque for. Because that was not something a lot of people saw coming. So his play make it opens up the game more to like now he can go out there and get his own when he needs to. And in his post game interview I think it was yesterday or whatever it was against the Bulls. He was talking about how recently him and D'Angelo Russell have kind of shared the point guard position. And he said it's opened up his eyes more because now he's not necessarily focused on just taking shots because he ain't touched the ball recently. It's like I could create for others. And if we could keep that mindset for Anthony Edwards once everything gets going and everybody comes back it could be a scary sight for a lot of people. We'll be able to do this when everybody's back is the big question. But these are quality, quality wins where we watch Anthony Edwards develop. And these are the type of wins you need. We're talking about a young guy that you bought into by making the Rudy Gobert trade. You bought into him because you gave up the future because this is your future, you know? So I'm really excited and happy for it because this game was elite. And Nas read, he gets buried obviously because Rudy and currently in town he's too damn good to not be getting like real, real, like good minutes. And it scares me because I think Nas might end up getting dealt because they have too much depth there. Maybe I'm crazy, but I guess we'll see once we get closer to it. He's one of the things on this roster that has current value now. And I think there'll be a team that will be willing to buy a little bit. Austin Rivers also on a non-guaranteed contract. He has 16 points and five rebounds and this defense has been good. So set out to him. Congratulations to Damian Lillard who passed Clyde Drexler on the all-time record for the Portland Trailblazer points. Really proud of him for that. Mama got taken away a little bit though. Kasey gives out his end. There's actually that boy. One of my favorite things about this game is at the end of the game when he's dapping up his teammates, his point and whatever. And while he's celebrating he finds the three referees at the scores table and dapped them up to. And he have 14 free throws today. He like, hey, I know I do my thing but y'all got to actually blow the whistle for me to get there. So he ended up spoiling Damian Lillard's big night. The mellow ball is back and in the games he has been back. He's been, he's been good. 23, seven and a half, three rebounds. Even though today he didn't shoot the ball efficiently at all he was in control of this game from start to end. He ended up with two turnovers but like three quarters through he didn't have any. He was making full court lobs. He was playing really good basketball and I like to see that from him. I want to shine some light on DeMonte Sabonis and DeAaron Fox in this one because if it was not for them this game is nothing. Mostly I know that DeAaron had the 37 points which is elite. It was mostly Sabonis because anytime Sabonis went to the floor they fell apart offensively and defensively. So I want to give a big ups to DeMonte Sabonis even though they ended up losing this game. His defense this season has been 50 times better than any season in his career. So he deserves some praise. And the game that I wanted to watch the most today I did not get a chance to watch a single second. So I see the JV ended up with 37 points and 18 rebounds and CJ shot 46% from the field they ended up losing to a 42 piece Giannis. I'm going back to watch this game tonight before I go to bed. Cause Giannis versus Zion had to be a show even though Zion only had 18 points or whatever it had to be a show. So I'm gonna tune in. I'm gonna tune in.