Road woeful Raptors look for a reprieve at home against the Bulls

After two consecutive road losses where the Raptors gave up 129+ points to two of the three Texas teams, Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs, the Raptors will look to get back to .500 on the season with a match up against the Chicago Bulls at the Air Canada Centre on Remembrance Day night.

The Bulls are coming off a tough home loss tonight to the Denver Nuggets, after a last second ‘would be’ game winning shot by Brad Miller was waved off. The match up vs. the Raptors will be the 2nd of back-to-back games for Chicago and they will be looking to brush off that loss to try and improve to 5-3 on the season, instead of dropping to .500. The Bulls have struggled from the 3 point line this season, only shooting 23-91 for 25% from behind the arc.

Here are 3 keys points I feel the Raptors will need focus on to get a much needed win, in order to avoid a 3 game slide:

– Need to play solid perimeter defense to force the Bulls to take contested jumpshots and 3 pointers.

– Take advantage of the opposition’s missed jump shots and convert those into points on the fast break.

– Focus on rebounding at both ends of the floor, especially since the Bulls are strong rebounders on the offensive glass.

Tip off is 7pm EST, and the game will be televised on ‘The Score’ in Canada.

Want to see where the Raptors need to improve from a defensive standpoint? Here are extended highlights from their last two road games where they allowed 129 and 131 points respectively. Courtesy of Raptors.com:

vs. Dallas Mavericks:

[nba]teams/raptors/2009/11/07/RGI6091107MAVERICKS16x9flv-1120156[/nba]

vs. San Antonio Spurs:

[nba]teams/raptors/2009/11/10/RGI6091109SPURS16x9flv-1122297[/nba]
Arrow to top