First things first: join me in wishing RapsFan a speedy recovery. He’s going through a heck of a bad streak on the health side of the ledger and I’m betting some good vibes his way will be well received. In the meantime, enjoy the sponge baths dude.
The “who said hard work doesn’t pay off” edition
Bargnani – had one of those nights where you audibly moan since some of his shots were, well, stinkers. Still, he hit a few that ranked up there with “man, we needed that”s and 3 or 4 times actually put up a defensive stand.
Bosh – should he even be going to Phoenix or should he be hanging back and continuing treatment?
Calderon – another game where he was due to go head to head with an (actual) allstar and, lo and behold, he wasn’t fit enough to play. Guess the turnstile needed some oil. Same time, turns out we were better without him. Microcosm for the season?
Graham – played a few minutes and then pulled up lame. Amazing how things have changed in that an injury report with respect to Joey a) makes it as an in-game news item and b) some actually probably went “ah, man…he isn’t coming back?” and meant it.
Humphries – telling that he is the fifth name in roll call and only 1 so far has played the whole game.
Jawai – now we are at six. Almost daily now I see another player in the NBA being sent to the D-League and I have to wonder why Nathan isn’t on his way. If we are desperate for big men but he can’t get into any of the past few games even for Jake-type minutes, why not send him down to get his heart pumping?
Kapono – think the green light he has been given is responsible for his hot play of late or is he just in his yearly cycle? Still love that cutter into the paint he breaks out every few games. It obviously catches opponents off guard and it’s a shame that Jose, especially, seems to look him off when he runs it.
Moon – close to a double double and the kind of game we like to see from him, save a couple of his bonehead quick jumpers early. I long for the fantasy of having Oakley on this team and just seeing him grab Moon by the collar and shaking him like a straw-filled doll.
O’Neal – Couple of nice passes, but in the grand scheme of this game, was about as important in this victory as, say, Doug Smith. Tired? Come on, really? You can’t play good minutes in a back-to-back? Suck it up. Thought you were 100% coming into the year? Hmm?
Parker – called into last minute action when Jose felt his balls in his throat. Personally kind of surprised he didn’t perform better. I truly thought he would see Parker in his sights and just lock in. He didn’t, but he did a fair job in spreading minutes between what is quickly becoming a full-time multi-position gig.
Solomon – if Nathan is a minnow on the depth chart of this team, I’m thinking Will is seaweed.
Ukic – beautiful game from Horseface Killah. Won’t call it a break out game as I don’t think it is, but he certainly was the X-Factor that gave us the victory and deserves most of the credit. Still was TJ-Ford-type-frustrating at times where you could tell he was looking for his own shot. Today it was falling, though and he deserved to call his own number.
Voskuhl – not often you can go 0 for 2 and have all zeroes in your box score and still be +5 against a team like the Spurs, especially playing for 7 minutes. A Voskuhl/Bonner one-on-one would have been sweet to see.
Driving The Bus: Roko Ukic
Under The Bus: Jermaine O’Neal (although nobody really deserved to be)
Game Theme: don’t want to piss off big brother, so if you want to see the theme, feel free to head over to AltRaps.
