Last night’s game had me wondering, for the first time in my life, if a franchise can be revoked from an owner. For the good of the National Basketball Association, it should at least be considered.
I mean, they can’t even hire a competent athletic trainer, for fuck’s sake. Did you see Jamal Crawford’s padding on his sprained left shoulder? A piece of gauze held down by four errant band-aids? Jesus H. Christ, Gump. Did he have it done by a field medic in the foggy jungles of Vietnam?
During the first quarter, I found it hard to believe, in total seriousness, that this was an NBA team. And not just any NBA team. The New York Knicks. The Knicks!?! I mean, I don’t even think they tied their laces until the third TV timeout. It’s a true travesty for the people of New York. Normally I’d feel bad for y’all, but at the end of the day, you’re still from NYC…
Eventually they woke up a bit and guys like Balkman, Robinson, and Crawford showed some pride and passion. But you need more than three players paying attention to win a game.
That’s right boy, you hide.
So we have it straight: Randoph fighting with Thomas, Lee arguing with Robinson, and Balkman screaming at Crawford for missing him W I D E O P E N under the net…and all this and more* happened in the same quarter? Goddamn. Curry and Randolph pulled some David Blaine shit, successfully making themselves invisible, which is noteworthy for two guys with a combined weight of 975lbs. We’re talking groundbreaking levels of dysfunction, on a daily basis, in the Basketball Mecca.
*I’m pretty sure Eddie Curry is pregnant. Either that, or he ate Nate Robinson.
They can’t even dribble without spontaneously flying out of bounds!
And Isiah spends the whole game just sitting on the bench with a “I can’t believe it’s come to this” look on his face. Unless he’s standing near the scorer’s table with a “If I don’t think about it, it’s not happening” look on his face. Remember when he was Mr. HOF, all-time 50 greatest, NBA Champ? Now he’s a publicized pervert boss, a failure that must convince himself daily that life is all lollipops and rainbows…so he doesn’t have a complete and total breakdown. Can you blame him for living in denial?
You can see it on their faces…enough’s enough.
But this is a Raptors blog, gosh darn it, and hey, we out-rebounded someone! 43-33. And Bosh, well he straight torched the joint. 40-11? Seems Isiah’s strategy of NOT covering Bosh kinda backfired. But before we get too gushy about this, remember that we’re celebrating a ‘big win’ over the worst team in the NBA (we should have won by 15 not nine, and that’s without even mentioning the completely unacceptable fact that we let them shoot 50%).
No matter how hard they tried didn’t try at all, they couldn’t stop the rain.
Forget Bosh, forget the boards, I think the biggest source for hope is the fact that we shot 21-25 from the free throw line. Not only did we get to the stripe 25 times, that’s a damn good 84%, and while the other ‘high points’ (Bosh, boards) can be attributed to the fact that we were playing a shit team, this one is all us. Whether it’s an improvement or an anomaly, we’ll soon see.
A two game win streak? Don’t get too excited – Portland tomorrow will be a test. As Arsenalist mentioned, they’ve won 46 of their last 47 games.
I’ll leave you with this:
Word got out after the game that Mr. Moon is going to New Orleans.
