It's time to put your money where your mouth is, answer the following:

1. Number of Wins:
2. Final position in Atlantic:
3. Seed in East:
4. Bargnani Scoring/Rebounding Average:
5. Will Bosh get traded (Yes/No)?
6. Which rotation player will miss the most games due to injury?
7. Turkoglu Scoring Average:
8. Other than Jack, our best sixth man will be:
9. Record on January 1st (33 games):
10. One free prediction:

Raptors brush off pre-season slump

With just two wins in eight pre-season games, the Toronto Raptors will have no momentum heading into the regular season.

Worried much?

"No. It doesn't count. It's irrelevant," Raptors power forward Chris Bosh said. "Yeah, it's irrelevant."

Their record of 2-6 might very well be unimportant; some other numbers, though, are plainly disconcerting. Not that anything from October is necessarily transferable, but a shooting percentage of 44% is merely average for a team that is supposed to shine with the ball.

Coach wants Raptors to stop passing up shots – thestar.com

In trying to make sense of some abysmal shooting of late – 2-for-20 from three-point range in their final pre-season game, a 98-90 loss to Minnesota on Friday ? the team's head coach is looking for a bit more "me" and a little less "we" to get the percentages up to even mediocre.

"I think they're trying to fit so well that they're making unnecessary passes," Triano said yesterday. "What's happening is these guys want to learn each other and they want to get along with each other so well that I'm almost at the point now where we have to be a little bit more selfish."

The way Triano and a couple of players see it, passing up good shots has a twofold detrimental effect. Not only does it often lead to more difficult field-goal attempts, it's also creating more than a few turnovers because defenders know what to look for.

The Mystery of Marco, among other fun things – Doug Smith

We were discussing Marco Belinelli in a scrum with Jay yesterday afternoon while the struggling backup swingman was over on the other side of the gym getting in some extra shooting.

Dino Nation Blog: DNB SEASON PREVIEW IS HERE!!!

Atlantic Division

Raps and the rest. Just kidding it is Boston and everybody else. Raptors if you don't know what I think about them by now not much more I can say. I really like what I saw from Philly in the Pre-season. The Knicks are a little better but not much. Nets will much like the Raps had to need some time to recover from the Post V.C experience. Celtics are the clear cut favourites in this Division. So much so to see them go 14-2 in the Division would not be so crazy to think. Boston is focused on the Conference and not the division and they should be.

Toronto Raptors Season Preview – The Return of the Titanic?Division – Raptors HQ

As most readers know, I'm a big fan of David Berri's Wages of Wins website, and the "wins produced" (WP) metric he so often employs to measure player value and effectiveness.

Is the metric infallible? Of course not.

However I've found more often than not, that it's given a pretty acurate view of both individual and team performance.

RaptorBlog.com – NBA insight, analysis and humour since 2002

One of my main concerns with Turkoglu is that, for somebody who is lauded as a top offensive player, he's not a particularly efficient scorer. His field goal and three-point percentages last season and for his career (.428 FG% and .385 3P%) are nothing special. He could return to his 2007-08 percentages of .456 and .400 (when he won the NBA's Most Improved Player award) ? but as a 30-year-old, history shows that to be an unlikely occurrences.

Wright time limits Belinelli | Toronto Sun

Marco Belinelli's eight minutes of playing time on Friday during the Raptors' loss to Minnesota in Sioux Falls, S.D., raised some eyebrows because of its brevity. Head coach Jay Triano said it had as much to do with getting Antoine Wright playing time as anything else, but he didn't give Belinelli a complete pass either.

Mystery illness hits three Raptors – Posted Sports

The H1N1 watch has hit the Toronto Raptors.

Guard Jarrett Jack, swingman Antoine Wright and assistant coach Alex English were not with the team on Sunday when the team practised in preparation for Wednesday?s season opener against Cleveland. All three called in sick, and did not go to the Air Canada Centre. That is exactly the way the NBA wants it, given the flu scare.

Now, all three could be suffering from an unrelated bug. However, given the fear of the illness, there could be many more practices like Sunday?s.

“In the past, guys would come in and we’d evaluate them and think maybe it?s better to go in and sweat it off, or maybe not,” coach Jay Triano said. “But now we?re trying to stay away from guys spreading it.

“We just hope that it?s not something go around.”

Preseason statistical oddities, Eastern edition – Ball Don’t Lie – NBA – Yahoo! Sports

Starting center Andrea Bargnani(notes) decided to pick up a rebound once every 5.9 minutes. Good for him.

The 13POB13 Wave Continues | The AltRaps Blog

I was floored when the first offer came in to add to my initial donation tweet, shocked at the second, humbled by the third and lost my ability to speak soon thereafter. Emails, comments on the blogs, DMs on twitter, IMs on my Blackberry, GTalk. All contained offers of help financially, offers of retweeting or simply what this all started being about: following Patrick O?Bryant.

NBA East Preview: Raptors 5th in East – Fort Worth Star-Telegram

5. Toronto: If the Cowboys are America's Team, the Raptors are the World's Team. They have two players from Italy and one each from Turkey, Slovenia and Spain. Their key player, however, is Chris Bosh, who went to Lincoln High School in Dallas. Bosh, like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, will be a free agent at the end of the season. If the Raptors don't play to their potential and at least challenge the heavyweights of the East, Bosh could be traded at the deadline in February. Turkoglu will make the Raptors better and third-year center Andrea Bargnani is poised for a breakout season. Jose Calderon is one of the best, yet most overlooked point guards in the league.

Webber is wrong: Bosh could easily stay with Toronto Raptors

Recently, the analyst declared that the Toronto Raptors would miss the playoffs in 2010, which, in turn, would prompt Bosh and the club to cut ties through a trade or during free agency at season?s end.

To be fair, Webber has a unique perspective. Like Bosh, he was once an All-Star power forward. And like Bosh, he experienced a high profile contract negotiation with a franchise he helped rebuild -the Sacramento Kings.

On the one hand, Webber is also right. The results matters. For instance, a winning or losing season would have to influence CB4?s decision to re-up with the Raptors or migrate south to the United States.

On the other hand, Webber?s overlooking two factors. First, consider the economy. Unlike the free spending days of the 1990s, the NBA – like the rest of the business world – is in a recession. With a declining salary cap, less money is available for all players, including the big ticket free agents of next summer.

Accurate assessments of the Toronto Raptors – khandor’s sports blog

As regular readers of this space can attest, this is an observation which was made, repeatedly, by yours truly throughout the 2008-2009 season ? and going even further back than that ? based on Basketball Acumen, specific situational stats and Possession Outcome Charts, to the consternation of some Raptors fans obsessed with an individual player?s seasonal ?game stat averages? [i.e. basic and advanced] and/or drunk on the Kool-Aid distributed by the organization.

mitc ? Toronto Raptors: Sonny Weems!

There?s a lot of talk and hype behind DeMar DeRozan which has left some room for Sonny Weems to sneak in some of his own shine. Both of the aforementioned are incredible athletes and are also both former Slam Dunk Champs.

Look at these three slams from Sonny in the same game during pre-season action to add to your anticipation for this week?s home opener vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers.

You feel the excitment, Toronto? – New Leisure Blog

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to Prime Time Sports and Jack Armstrong was on, and they were talking about the lack of excitement in Toronto about basketball this season.

Actually, I sort of see that too. Last season, there were a lot more casual fans talking about the Raptors, and thinking the team was going to take the next step forward and Jermaine O?Neal + Chris Bosh would be the new twin towers, echoing what Sam Mitchell had said when they acquired O?Neal.

Of course we know what happened next. The team won the first 3 games and then it?s all downhill from there. Mitchell was fired after 40+ points lost in Denver, O?Neal was much less than advertised and the Raptors won a disappointing 33 games.

Six Spartans victims of ‘cybersquatter’ | Detroit Free Press

According to Chicago law firm Winston and Strawn, Zavala's Web site displayed ads using the name of Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh to create revenue for his company.

That is, until Bosh sued for the rights to return his domain name to his possession.

"I definitely didn't know about that," Lucas said. "I'm just finding out right now — I didn't even know anything about it. I'm going to sue, too."

Thanks to Bosh, there's no need. Bosh won his case and was awarded $120,000 under the guidelines of the Federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. He also won the rights to all of the domain names this month, and he'll donate them back to any affected athlete as well.

Eastern Conference Preview – CharlotteObserver.com

Toronto Raptors: This team could have a slow start and won't play much defense. However, Hedo Turkoglu's wide skill set will have a huge impact offensively. His ballhandling and shooting can't help but make Chris Bosh a happy teammate.

Toronto Sports Teams’ futility – Globe and Mail

TFC's collapse in New York is just the latest in bad news for Toronto sports fans; good thing for Maurice Johnston he has Brian Burke and Bryan Colangelo to help defend the MLSE fortress

Vince Carter can redefine his legacy — OrlandoSentinel.com

For another thing, he's matured since his young, foolish days, when he wrestled with then- Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell and wanted out of Canada so badly his motivation waned.

Former Magic Coach Brian Hill has said that Carter was the most coachable player he'd ever been around while an assistant with the New Jersey Nets the past few years.

Parker in great position with Cavs – Belleville News-Democrat

Anthony Parker likes the position he's in right now with the Cavaliers – right between LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal.

The 6-foot-6 forward, who was acquired during the free-agency period this summer, stands to benefit greatly from playing alongside the two as he assumes the starting job as the Cavs' shooting guard.

"They get most of the attention. They make it easier for guys like myself offensively," Parker said. And Parker has taken the opportunity to show what he can do offensively on a few occasions during the preseason. A couple of times, he has moved off O'Neal screens to make a quick jump shot with little difficulty. It's not something that the Cavs did with consistency.

Notes and Quotes from Raps Practice: Sunday, October 25th, 2009

- While we were waiting in the hallway, the place felt dead. Walking into practice, it was easy to see that the guys did a lot of running as everyone was dripping in sweat and most wasted no time in clearing out of the gym. Amir Johnson stayed to work on free throws with assistant coach Eric Hughes while Quincy Douby was at the other end of the court and went head-to-head against Alvin Williams to get some extra work in.

- We were notified that Antoine Wright and Jarrett Jack along with assistant coach Alex English were all absent from practice due to illness. Tough break for the Raps, especially in the case of Wright, who needs this extra time to get repetitions in as well as conditioning. Sidelined for most of training camp and almost all of preseason with the sore right knee, Wright was unable to keep up with his conditioning and the plan was to play himself back into game shape with practice.

NBA Preview, 2009-10 | New Jersey Nets – - Raptors 42-46 wins

WHO WON’T: We’re not seeing Toronto. Yet. Yes, the Raps turned half their roster over to add significant depth – Hedo Turkoglu, Jarrett Jack, Reggie Evans, Antoine Wright, and rookie DeMar DeRozan are the new recruits, but this is not the kind of group that will gain much traction in the postseason. Still, it bears watching: This team’s style will undoubtedly have a European flair (Hedo, Andrea Bargnani, Jose Calderon), and everyone wants to see if it will make a guy from Texas (Chris Bosh) happy enough to stay.

Official Atlantic Division 2008-2009 Team MVPs | Bleacher Report

Toronto Raptors – Chris Bosh

The Raptors had quite a disappointing season finishing 33-49 but it was mainly caused by injuries and chemistry problems with the firing of former coach of the year Sam Mitchell and having so many lines up changes. Aside from the emergence of Andrea Bargnani late in the season, Chris Bosh was the only bright spot on this team during the year. Bosh had his healthiest season in four years playing and starting 77 games this year. He also put up a career high 22.7 PPG and led the team in rebounding with 10.0 RPG. Aside from Dwight Howard, Al Jefferson and Zach Randolph, Bosh was the only other player to average at least 20 PPG and 10 RPG this season. Unlike the other Atlantic Division teams, this selection was a no brainer and there is no other player on the Raptors that even comes close to match Chris Bosh?s contribution to the team. Without anything else to say, proclaiming Chris Bosh as the Toronto Raptors MVP of this season is without question.

Have a listen by clicking on the play button below. You can also listen directly in iTunes, if you’re on a mobile device you may download the file.

[audio:http://raptorsrepublic.com/blog/audio/2009-05-15-JackArmstrong.mp3]

You can also browse the archive of all RapCasts. Thanks again to Jack for taking the time out to talk to us on his drive home.

You can listen to the audio by clicking the play button below or directly in iTunes. If you’re on a mobile device, you may download the file. You can also listen to previous podcasts in the archive.

[audio:http://raptorsrepublic.com/blog/audio/2009-02-05-JackArmstrong.mp3]

Thanks again to Jack who gave us a BIG TIME HELLO!!!, unfortunately, I spoke over it. Forgive me, I’m still trying to learn this stuff.

I’m going to be talking to Jack Armstrong on Thursday and thought instead of asking him the same old lame questions which he answers every day I’d let you guys do the asking. You’ll probably come up with better questions anyway, so go ahead and fire away questions for Jack:

Here’s some classic Jack: Vid 1 :: Vid2

And what lies at the end of the season according to Jack? A second-round appearance with an outside shot at the Conference Finals. That’s a lot of things that need to happen if we want to have our best ever season. It’s an optimistic article but keep in mind that this is the time to be optimistic and in fairness to Jack he did bring up the major question marks on the team, I just wouldn’t bet on us delivering on the 7 points. I think hoping O’Neal plays 70+ games is expecting too much and I don’t think Sam Mitchell is the coach that anyone can have a career year under nor is he a coach that is able to mask our lack of depth by hiding weaknesses. We should also keep in mind that the SF need has not been addressed. Even if these 7 things do end up happening it’ll probably land us a .500 or so record with us being considered a tough matchup in the East given Bosh and O’Neal’s potential for firepower.

Jermaine O’Neal’s being honest with himself these days and gives himself a D- when asked how he handled the leadership role in Indiana. He also says that early on this pre-season the Raptors spacing in scrimmages was terrible (*shudder*) but is getting better (*whew*). O’Neal sounds like he’s into playing defense and calls out previous Colangelo Raptors teams as being great on offense but shitty on defense. So given that we’ve gone back to the basics of mastering techniques like “defensive slides and close-outs”. I like this, our perimeter, close-out and rotational defense was so bad last year that in order to fix something so flawed you first have to completely tear it down. Hopefully there’s enough time before the season for Jamario Moon to learn how to force a guy baseline.

Speaking of overhauls our man Roko Ukic needs one, apparently he can’t shoot and his mechanics require a complete overhaul. The technician is Gord Herbert who’ll be trying to replace the great, great Dave Hopla (who did wonders for the 2006-07 team) in trying to teach the Raptors how to shoot. Says Roko:

“Basically, I never worked on my shot. In Europe I came too young with the first team when I was 15. I wound up skipping parts of my development. In Europe you work on your development until you come into the professional ranks. Once you are with the first team you are just working on the team stuff, the technical stuff. They don’t work so much on individual stuff so I’m missing some of the fundamentals, especially on my shot.”

I hope we actually help this kid and hot f*ck him up completely.

Kris Humphries and Andrea Bargnani were the two best players on the court in the inter-squad scrimmage in Ottawa. Humphries is getting a lot of attention and is delivering in the playing time that he’s getting. He’s a resource that wasn’t tapped properly last year and this year it’ll be even harder for Mitchell to give him proper, consistent minutes. With Andrea Bargnani likely to play the 4 or 5 when Bosh or O’Neal are resting, Humphries’ role diminishes. There’s 96 minutes to be had at the PF and C positions. If Bosh, O’Neal and Bargnani play say 30 minutes each, that leaves 6 minutes for Humphries. You’d think the Raptors would want to feature the Bosh/O’Neal combo so if Humphries were to get any more minutes they’d be at the expense of Bargnani. Either way he’ll be the second guy off the bench at the big positions unless Sampson or Jawai (still injured) usurps him.

Those sniveling little rotten c*nts at The Bleacher Report have shit out another article and this one’s a doozy. Here’s how they analyze the Raptors in their season preview:

Toronto is very interesting, because it has a very strong backcourt and are good at every position, but don’t have any strong players who can really take over a game. Anthony Parker had a very nice rookie season last year and should do even better, although he likely won’t get as many touches with such a strong presence in the post.

You know, every time I think I’m doing a poor job of running this blog I just browse over to that site and instantly feel better.

There are some clips from the scrimmage here and here. Can’t really tell much except that we’ll need to wait till the first game of the pre-season against Cleveland on Tuesday to know anything worthwhile about the team. Training camp in Ottawa is over and everyone’s giving their thoughts on how it went including Sam Mitchell who says that “the main goal of the pre-season is to come out healthy”. I think he misspoke there, surely there’s got to be more than just that. There’s tons of video on the official site.

Grab the feed for this blog. Trust me you’ll need it with the change I’ll be making soon

Tim Chisholsm is one of the most objective writers in Toronto and he’s put out a piece that makes a lot of sense and echoes a lot of things I said yesterday in my post. Mainly that we’ve got some talent up-front and Calderon’s dependable but after that depth becomes a question mark and the replacements hired for next season might not measure up. Check out the article, its a good read no matter which end of the realism spectrum you’re on.

Jack Armstrong has moved to TSN and will call the games with Matt Devlin. Leo Rautins gets to call games on The Score and CBC. Hopefully TSN gets 60 games this year so we can hear Jack yell out Hello! every time a cheerleader doing a split is shown on TV. He remains the only analyst who can get away with a reaction like that.

Now that our summer signings are done, all thats left to do is wait for training camp to start and see which one of our scrubbies gets to start. If you saw any of Hassan Adams in the summer league you’re probably thinking that Jamario Moon’s got the step on him. That leaves us with Joey G who will only have to fight off Adams to be second in the pecking order at the SF spot. If anything this summer’s been good for Graham, he got some run in Vegas and will get to have more playing time simply because of the Delfino exit.

The man from Hoops Addict is having a tournament of scrubs, I nominated Kris Humphries for the Raptors. I figured he’s the only guy that plays hard enough to warrant a ‘garbage man’ role. Plus, don’t you just love it when he goes into MJ mode and starts shooting 15-footers that hit all glass and no rim? It would almost be fun to see that if it weren’t for the fact that it’s the fourth quarter and we’re down two.

Those deranged quacks over at The Bleacher Report have an article about the Jermaine O’Neal trade, a bit late, no? I guess they realized this and remedied the situation by piling up another heap of trash, this one annoints us possible EC champs.

That’s it for today.

My puke bucket was full midway through the first quarter. After suffering through a few more minutes of watching the Raptors get their ass absolutely spanked by the Nuggets, Jack Armstrong dropped a gem, and I’m pseudo-quoting:

If your plan is to outscore teams and you start playing the better ones, you’re not going to win.

If you stuck around to watch the fourth quarter (which is my duty as a blogger), you would’ve heard him drop another one:

If the Raptors matchup against Washington, Cleveland, Orlando or whoever, do they have what it takes to win 4 games? I’d say ‘no’. Can they stop a team by playing “down and dirty”? I don’t know.

O wise Jack, you see right through the facade of this team. We can beat the bad teams but once you stick us against an opponent of half-decent quality, we’re in deep trouble. The flaws of this squad were apparent and out in the open for everybody to see. We knew Bryan Colangelo’s experiment had holes but that they were this big, we didn’t know. And even if we did know, didn’t want to believe. This West coast trip is showcasing just how misconstrued the idea that the Raptors have any sort of depth really is. Take Bosh out and we’ll struggle in the D-League, that’s not even hyperbole, we lack the strength, ability and desire to compete at a consistent level against above average opposition. If you stick this team in the West, we’ll be bottom three every time. Colangelo has a lot of work to do and it’s got to start in the upcoming draft and off-season. If there’s one good thing that comes out of a loss like this it’s that you get an indication of who the people you want to weed out are and who’s still competing in the face of adversity.

This insufferable display of deplorable defense was a sight to behold and remember. I have not seen a Raptors team play this bad in a long, long time, I remember this Clipper game from ages ago (forget which year, maybe even 10 years ago) where the Raptors got embarrassed and blown out of the building. I thought I’d never see that day again but today matched that. We gave up 79 points in the first half, we couldn’t prevent a single Nugget from penetrating the lane. We couldn’t rotate out to any of their shooters, not even the first one out of the pass. We never covered the guy leaking out, we never provided help when a teammate was beaten (hell, we didn’t even bother calling screens out), we couldn’t take away the drive or the shot, we just laid down and waited Denver to pummel us in every which way. And they did, they killed us like we haven’t been killed before. Utter embarrassment and humiliation. Total degradation.

There’s nothing much to say, if you saw the game you know how bad it was. But I’d like to touch on how unmotivated, unprepared and lacking a plan this team came out tonight. There wasn’t an emphasis on doing a singular thing, we couldn’t contain Iverson, ‘Melo, Camby or anybody else on the Nuggets. We allowed every single player to have a great game and didn’t have an idea of just how we were going to try to win this game. Double Iverson? Front ‘Melo? Get Camby in foul trouble? Force Anthony Carter to create? Force perimeter jumpshots? Collapse on ‘Melo? These are just some of the strategies that we could’ve used but we did nothing. We played man-defense for most of the game and got burned every single time the Nuggets put the ball on the floor. We never stood a chance because we didn’t have a damn clue on how to even approach this game. Typical freestyling, only this time even the effort wasn’t there.

Calderon and Ford both stunk and TJ played as disinterested as ever. They combined for 9 points and Bargnani had 6 in 13 minutes. Rasho and Parker carried the load, the latter’s 15 points coming almost entirely in the first quarter. That’s when this was still sort of a game, by the time it ended the score was 44-23 and garbage time had officially begun. The rest of the game was a display of Denver athleticism, creativity, desire and skill. The Raptors ended up looking like clowns with careless turnovers, forced passes, lazy defense and not to mention body language that would’ve made Zack Randolph blush.

Sure, Bosh is out but how hard and how long can you ride that excuse? I don’t care if you’re dressing 8 players and 3 of them are gimps, you still have to come out and compete. Nobody has a problem that you get blown out by 30, it’s the way you get blown that says a lot too. Speaking in intangibles, this team lacks toughness, grit, desire and emotion. Speaking in basketball terms, they lack the lateral quicks to stay with opposing guards, they lack the agility to play interior defense, they lack the physicality of playing a gritty hard-nosed contest and finally, they lack the instruction to do any of the above. Chris Bosh is injured but that doesn’t mean you get a free pass to lay an egg every time.

Sacramento is our only shot of winning a game on this trip, they’ll be playing a back-to-back (Phoenix) and we’ll have a days rest. No excuses.

Liners:

• Jason Kapono was put in to guard Carmelo Anthony.
• What is Kleiza’s problem? He was jawing at Jay Triano for a good 10 minutes and got T’d up for it.
• Chuck/Jack much more enjoyable to listen to than Chuck/Leo.
• Denver leaked out on every possession but the Raptors never adjusted.
• Aside from a couple blocks, Anthony owned Moon and penetrated at will. Iverson got into the paint at will, almost embarrassingly easily leaving Ford and Calderon a glimpse of what true talent looks like.
• Wasn’t there talk of a VC for Iverson swap years back? Should’ve probably made that if it was on the table.
• Another Friday, another loss. This is the 6th straight time we’ve lost on a Friday night, the last victory was at home against Milwaukee on January 25th.
• If there’s one thing i expect to see from a Sam Mitchell coached team it’s a consistent effort. Screw the X’s and O’s but the effort should always be there because he’s supposed to be a motivator before a basketball coach.
• Circle March 23rd on your calendars. That’s when we play Denver at home. How the Raptors come out in that game after tonight’s humiliation will speak even greater volumes about this team.
• Nights like these test your Raptors fanhood.

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If you’re going to be a big enough coward to hit a man on the head while he’s got his back towards you, the least you could do is not feign your innocence and openly acknowledge conflict. Instead Anthony Johnson pretended he had nothing to do with Jose Calderon being knocked down to the floor and was set to get away with it hadn’t the officials caught the violent act. Nobody was short in pointing out that this is the same team that knocked TJ out and now came close to taking out our other point guard. But unlike Horford’s take down of TJ, this one was malicious and intentional and warranted a response from the Raptors. I’m not calling for a brouhaha but somebody should at least go up to him, stare him down and give him a little bump, it’s warranted. But credit the Raptors for responding to the increased physicality in the second half and coming away with another hard-fought win in a close game. Suspension to follow. Co-incidentally, the Raptors toughness is alluded in Podcast #3 which was recorded before the Hawks game:

#3 – A Time to Kill Download it! (4.3 MB, 12′ 22”) Subscribe in iTunes

The second half’s better, topics include: Bryan Colangelo, Oakley, Davis, Celtics, 3rd Seed, RealGM, Jim Rome, rebounding, missing NBA on NBC, soft schedule etc.

Josh Smith’s defense and Joe Johnson’s offense kept the Hawks in this game as much as the Raptors’ tendency to walk through offensive possessions as soon as they got a 5 point lead. The Raptors pull a Jekyll and Hyde on offense every other possession, you literally see them move the ball extremely well off a double team leading up to an open shot and on the very next possession, you’ll see Delfino jacking up a shot or nobody moving for the first 18 seconds resulting in a forced low-percentage shot. What this tells me is that we tend to lose focus fairly quickly, something we can get away with against the likes of the Hawks but will end up paying for against better competition. Give Sam credit for recognizing the athleticism of the Hawks team and their lack of PG play; he put out a lineup of Parker/Calderon/Bosh/Moon for the majority of the game and we one-upped their length and size on every matchup.

Chris Bosh’s performance was impressive again (35 points on 12-18 FG says it all), his game is starting to become inside-out rather than the other way round and I’m sure we’ll all agree that’s what the order of attack should be. CB4 challenged Josh Smith on every opportunity and came out the winner most of the time proving yet again that if his mindset is aggressive, even the better one-on-one defenders in the league will have trouble with him. Bosh will always have trouble against Kevin Garnett but that’s because Garnett is a freak and can afford to lay off Bosh and take away his drive while at the same time contesting his jumper. He can also stay with Bosh in the post making CB4′s life difficult, but that’s not what stopping me from calling the Boston game next week in our favor (see podcast). Chris Bosh summed up his offensive groove nicely:

“Everything is just opening up for me. I’m finally at 100 percent. It’s been a tough stretch for me but I just kept playing and kept pushing through it. I don’t feel I’m taking many bad shots. I’m getting off the double team really fast and I’m finding a lot of my teammates and putting them in good positions.”

The bolded part tells me he knows the difference. I can sleep better.

Today’s Andrea Bargnani paragraph has a mix of Rasho Nesterovic in it. It’s mainly because Rasho’s reduced playing time has completely taken him out of his rhythm and he’s struggling to do the few things he used to be good at: finding space for the open jumper, hitting the glass, putbacks etc. Now given Rasho’s struggles and the need for Bargnani to pick up his game, this observer says we may as well let Bargnani play through fouls until he fouls out and not use Rasho unless necessary as per matchup. Bargnani played 14 minutes and scored two points, a fry cry from what me and David Moro were predicting after the Kings game. He didn’t screw up too badly, yeah he allowed an offensive rebound, passed up shots he should’ve taken and picked up cheap fouls but in my opinion he didn’t even stick around long enough to actually have a slim chance at having a decent game. I don’t blame Sam Mitchell, his concern is with winning the game and he tried to match the Hawks’ athleticism with Delfino, Parker and Moon which got the job done. It comes back to Andrea earning his minutes, except that he’s just not interested. I’ll even go ahead and buy Bryan Colangelo’s 5-year plan theory but he’s talking about player development taking that long, right? Or does he mean we have to wait 5 years before Bargnani plays a game with the same level of intensity and effort as Kris Humphries?

The third quarter has undone so many times that I feared for us after Atlanta opened it on a 13-2 run while our offense was playing Mr. Hyde. Jamario Moon’s propensity to jump in the passing lanes is meeting success over the last two games and he’s picking off passes in transition, guarding the post and getting deflections aplenty (something that should’ve long been a stat in NBA box scores). Moon was the key in triggering our third quarter run punctuated by two Anthony Parker threes which created a 7 point cushion and hopefully silenced those who think that Parker has been a major problem with the Raptors this year. Another solid game by Parker who’s been coming on strong as the season’s getting older, it’s called hitting mid-season form which is where veteran’s start getting in their stride and rookies start tailing off. AP’s been solid for most of the year, unfortunately for him he’s had a few zero point games which result in fans calling for his head. If you check his per-48 minute statis, they’re the same as last year. Yes, we need to upgrade the 2 spot, but not now.

Joey Graham is making it really hard for us to trade him and Juan Dixon isn’t helping either. The two players most likely to be traded if one is going to materialize scored a combined 4 points while having 2 turnovers. Graham is so far behind Moon and Delfino in the depth chart that the only way he gets into the game is when BC winks to Smitch from the tunnel. And when he does manage to get in, things aren’t pretty (how’s Danny Granger doing?). He looks about as comfortable as Bargnani on the low-post and you only have to watch a couple minutes before an ungodly turnover follows. He was supposed to be our tough hard-nosed slasher who could D up the opposition’s best player, instead he’s researching D-League accommodation with Maceo Baston. Imagine my shock when I heard that Maceo Baston was dressed up for this game, it almost looked like this was the game he might get some run. Sam is so mean, getting Baston’s hopes all high for nothing.

So far the 4 in 5 stretch has been going exactly as predicted with Philly being the decisive game in determining whether we stay .500 or improve our record by two games in this easier January stretch. Philly was blown out in Boston tonight with Iguodala playing 40 minutes, they’re 2-8 in their last 10 and the Raptors will be going for the kill in this one. We’ll do a mini celebration only if the Raptors win tomorrow because if we lose that, it’s like we didn’t gain any ground at all.

One-Liners:

* Kapono. Shot. Slowly. Coming. Back.

* Jose Calderon made up for his early bad pass intercepted by Josh Smith for a dunk by dishing 9 dimes.

* I don’t have a single complaint of Bosh today.

* Johnson should be suspended by the league for more than one game. There’s no doubt about his malicious intent.

* The Raptors and Hawks is turning into a rivalry, something which is good because right now aside from the Knicks and Nets, we really got nothing.

* Tonight’s win will mean little if we don’t win tomorrow.

* What is the point of having Maceo Baston on this team if he doesn’t play a single minute for months on end? Maybe we should fee free up the roster spot for a D-League rebounder or scorer? Just a thought.

* Sam deserves a lot of credit for sticking with his big guns instead of playing Kapono, Dixon and Bargnani for extended minutes. Kapono played well hitting both his shots but this isn’t the matchup for him.

* Jack Armstrong makes these telecasts so much better.

* What do people see in Tyron Lue? Every time I see him, I just remember Iverson stepping over him in the finals.

* The Hawks became more physical in the second half and the intensity of the game picked and the Raptors and more specifically Bosh, Moon, and Parker were equal to the task.

* Here’s the game in six minutes, thanks to monuow.

* Please make a constructive criticism about this blog, it really helps sometime.

Thanks for reading (and listening). Feed.

Technically this wasn’t a must-win game but if we would’ve lost tonight, massive alarm bells would’ve gone off, after all you can’t allow the Pacers to snap their five game losing streak on your home floor. So the Raps dug deep, did enough good things on the floor to ensure that they won a game that they’re supposed to win. There’s no reason to celebrate too much after a win against a team you’re expected to beat but there were some encouraging signs that might make all Raptors fans feel a little better about the next few games. For a change, Chris Bosh stayed aggressive for all four quarters and anytime he attempted a shot outside of 15 feet he missed so bad (thank God) that he resorted right back to driving to the rim. With Bosh supplying the inside presence needed on both ends, the game opened up for the snipers and Calderon, Kapono, Delfino and Parker nailed enough jumpers to take away a deserved win. Our PGs made good decisions and when given space, nailed the shots the defense conceded. 30 points and 17 assists for Forderon and we’re 5-0 when we score a 100 points which means if our offense isn’t stuck in a rut we have a good chance of winning.

Jorge Garbajosa unexpectedly came out of the doghouse to play 24 minutes and had a couple threes along with six rebounds. It’s good to see Garbo play well the same day Dave Feschuk (who’s actually readable this year) suggested that the Garbo situation couldn’t possibly end happily here in Toronto. What’s inexplicable is figuring out what the difference between today’s game and the Jazz game was that Garbo deserved time today but not on Wednesday. Ideas? I sure have none. Despite starting off the third quarter hitting everything and racking up assists, Sam took out TJ Ford and put in Jose Calderon until the end. I’ll commend Sam for actually sticking with Calderon the entire fourth quarter and not screwing this up by putting back an ice-cold TJ Ford like the Magic game. But if I’m TJ Ford, I’m really confused on why I didn’t play a single meaningful minute after the third quarter. But he’s a team player and he’s saying all the right things in the post-game interview. However, the beauty of winning is that nobody remembers these minor details. These minor details are even easier to forget when the bench has 48 points and the team has 26 assists on 38 made shots, a sure sign of a clicking offense where possessions are being converted in stride.

Raps again had early woes mostly thanks to some insane Indiana offensive rebounding, Jermaine O’Neal playing like an All-Star and some great shooting by Troy Murphy and Travis Diener (diminutive white man who can’t help but remind you of Luke Ridnour). The Raps did enough doubling in the second to make things uncomfortable for O’Neal and make sure that he doesn’t beat them. O’Neal is extremely though in one-on-one situations and there was enough help for Bosh that enabled him to not get in foul trouble and actually play good defense on O’Neal. Despite Bosh’s offensive struggles of late, he has been phenomenal on defense. The defense on Murphy was tightened enough so he had to work harder for his shots and this put the burden on Jamaal Tinsley who did everything he could humanly do to keep Indiana in the game but in the end when the Raps start hitting their jumpers, they’re very hard to beat. Even Jim O’Brien in the post-game tipped his hat to our shooters:

“They made some unbelievable shots…They’re very difficult to guard”

But there is one pretty dark stat on the scoreboard, it’s Andrea Bargnani. He is not a stiff and will end up being a pretty good player but right now he sure looks like a stiff. Less than five minutes played, no rebounds and three fouls. Not a very flattering line for Bargnani who was taken out in the first quarter and never saw the light of day again. So much for Chuck Swirsky predicting he would have a big game tonight. Hopefully getting his only shot embarrassingly blocked and picking up incredibly silly fouls doesn’t turns this two-game slump into a mental thing that might take weeks to cure. I don’t know how but somehow he’s got to get his confidence back to the level of where he can take a confident jumper and even if it doesn’t go in, he’ll continue working hard on the other end.

Excellent point guard play, strong inside presence courtesy of Bosh, very good spacing and good outside shooting pull the Raps through. Bosh isn’t close to being his best offensively but he’s on the right path. He’s shooting 93% from the FT line and that’ll keep him motivated to attack the rim, the jump shot will come sooner or later. Maceo Baston and Jamario Moon had nice enough games where neither was spectacular but did enough little things on the defensive end to help out on a night where their offense was definitely not needed. Anthony Parker’s 3rd quarter 3/4 court buzzer beater reminded me of…………………..yup, Mo Pete. Even though he’s not on this team and we’re probably better off for it, I still miss him. Something about him had Toronto Raptors written all over him and it’ll always be that way.

Some one-liners from the game:

• Kris Humphries does not give up on any possession, the contract has breathed new life into him.
• Jamario Moon has recoverability in his defense.
• Maceo Baston looks like he can’t bend his knees without them making a cracking sound.
• Jorge Garbajosa has extreme confidence in his 3pt shooting ability.
• When Carlos Delfino starts nailing threes, the chances of us winning go up by 250%
• Jose Calderon really doesn’t care who starts.
• If it’s OK to for Jose and TJ to play at the same time in late game situations like tonight, how come it wasn’t against the Jazz, Magic and Celtics?
• There’s a newer Mop Girl out there who might be hotter than the older one.
• Jack Armstrong and Minerva from the Raptors Dance Pak are an item
• Juan Dixon didn’t play for two games in a row now. If he just shows himself on the bench more Sam will remember him and put him in the game.

We’re 1-1 on this home-stand and got Golden State coming here on Sunday, that’s another game we should win. Thanks for reading, grab the feed.