National Basketball Association

Raptors lean on Barbosa to provide speed, smarts;Veteran's experience and Jack's offence lead way

Published Oct. 14, 2010 10:14 a.m. ET

foxsports

Leandro Barbosa affords Jay Triano a luxury he's never really had, a package of speed and savvy and experience that will be a huge component of what the Raptors eventually become this season.

And while all those attributes are much appreciated in the package Barbosa brings to the floor, his presence in practice is just as important.

If the guard known as the Brazilian Blur does nothing else this season other than teach young teammates how to best use their athleticism, it will be fine with Triano.

"Sonny (Weems) and DeMar (DeRozan) have (the speed) but they don't have the experience that Leandro has in chasing and getting up and pressuring the basketball," Triano said after the Raptors subdued the Philadelphia 76ers 119-116 in a double-overtime marathon at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night.

"That's kind of one of the things hopefully they learned from playing against him and learn from watching him do. I think that they both have the talent to do it, they're both working at it."

They will have to go a long way to match what Barbosa has, though. The 6-foot-3, 175-pounder is by far the quickest Raptor today and maybe the fastest in team history.

Barbosa logged 35 minutes in Wednesday's game, finished with 16 points and six rebounds and was as fresh at the start as he was at the end.

"His speed is the thing and he has been in that situation before," Triano said of the seven-year NBA veteran.

"I think he's a real tough guy to keep in front. He's super quick, can get to the basket, can make plays. His experience is something we're going to have to use a lot of.

"He was on the floor more for the way he defended (Wednesday). He did a real good job, they went smaller and he was able to chase guys and get right up on them. His defence was good and that's why he was on the floor that much."

Triano and the Raptors have been using the pre-season so far to mix and match lineups, rotations and situations, and were presented with several in Wednesday's game that went three hours and four minutes on the clock.

They got a great defensive stand at the end of the fourth quarter to force overtime, could have won it after one session except for a missed DeRozan free throw with 1.8 seconds left and escaped with a win when Philadelphia's Louis Williams missed a wide-open three-pointer at the second overtime buzzer.

"It's good to go through a game like that in the pre-season," said Triano, whose team got 24 points from Jarrett Jack - including seven points in the second OT - and survived a triple-double of 18 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds from Sixers guard Jrue Holiday.

"We get used to going offence-defence, get used to diagramming plays and having guys follow them and try to make plays at the end of a game, both offensively and defensively and it's tough to duplicate that in a practice setting."

But nothing became clearer in the big picture with the win. Triano said before the game the real work of preparing rotations and specific roles for players begins now, with four of eight pre-season games left.

Triano started Jack, DeRozan, Linas Kleiza, Andrea Bargnani and Reggie Evans against Philadelphia, but that's likely to change before their next game, Friday against Boston.