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It can stilt the team dynamic, creating separation between a go-to scorer's operations and all other team-driven endeavors. It undercuts any potential momentum that might be generated in transitioning from play action to play action. It lulls would-be cutters into standstill observers. It's for that reason that brutal offensive and defensive stretches often coincided for Toronto there's something deflating about a single teammate attempting so many low-percentage shots without moving the ball around or working to create lane penetration.
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Volume shooters like Gay don't merely interrupt a team's offensive flow, but throw off its entire rhythm. But we shouldn't in any way disregard the cyclical influence of offense and defense, two worlds that bleed into one another in more ways than commonly acknowledged. That could well be motivated by a desire to prove critics wrong, or out of perceived necessity with the team struggling and having traded away its most talented player. There's an urgency and a commitment to the way Toronto has defended of late that extends to the team's bolstered bench. GIVE AND GO: Examining five contenders with potential flaws Second-year guard Terrence Ross has stepped into the starting lineup in Gay's stead, and has been genuinely irritating to opposing wing scorers. Johnson (who has benefitted offensively from Gay's departure as much as any Raptor) has continued his work as one of the league's best under-the-radar defenders, though with slightly less mess to clean up relative to the start of the season. Lowry, on top of his star-level production in the pick-and-roll, has locked back in defensively. The change isn't visible solely in the numbers, but in Toronto's efforts. Still, one can't help but wonder if the Raptors' sudden and dramatic improvement is in some way tied to the team's shifting dynamic. It should be noted that not all of Toronto's troubles can be pinned to its issues on the wing there were deeper problems in play, from Kyle Lowry's defensive impatience to Jonas Valanciunas' inexperience. That group - which also included Kyle Lowry, Amir Johnson, and Jonas Valanciunas - was by far the most heavily used for the Raptors, as it took the floor for more than a quarter of the team's minutes at the time. Together in the context of Toronto's initial starting lineup, that contributed to some woeful team defense. His ability to match up with difficult, athletic forwards made him genuinely useful on some nights, but ultimately Gay is unremarkable on that end, a problem considering that neither he nor DeMar DeRozan - despite the latter's best efforts - are fully qualified to guard first-option wing threats. Essentially the same criticisms of Gay's offensive game could be applied here: For a player with such length and ease of movement, he should be capable of far more. He will and should be starting at that 3spot and shouldnt even be thought of to be on the trade block, the fact some people want to flip him.
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Rudy Gay is a former Olympic team USA member. Gay is not a uniquely terrible defender, though he's often a disinterested one. Hello Raptor fans and welcome to our Toronto Raptors blogger page, currently there are two admins for this page Roberto Mattrasingh and Jamal Johnson.