The Raptors are in Milwaukee for the second time this season, and for the second time, it’s the second night of a back-to-back. In neither instance did the Bucks play the day before. How, exactly is that fair? Sometimes I wonder about these schedule makers.

Anyway, with O’Neal and Calderon back in the T-Dot, this’ll be a tough one for the Raps to win. Yes, they beat the Magic without them, but can they do it two games in a row?

If Andrew Bogut doesn’t play for Milwaukee, that should help - he’s got a hamstring problem or somesuch. I’ve blogged about it before, Bogut generally kills us early and then the rest of the Bucks decide it’s time to get their own and stop giving him the ball.

Of course, last time out, they did give it to him down the stretch and he single-handedly kept the Bucks in the game… but Toronto pulled it out when he didn’t touch the ball in the final two minutes.

Somehow, five other Bucks have attempted more shots than Bogut - Jefferson, Redd, Charlie, Sessions and even Luke Ridnour - even though Bogut shoots it at 56% and plays the third-most minutes on the team. Oh well, what do I know. Maybe he only ever looks that good against Toronto!

I believe Ramon Sessions is also hurt; he’s having a great season but the Bucks still have Redd, Jefferson and Mbah a Moute, not to mention our old friend Charlie V, who are all capable of scoring in bunches and are the types of players the Raps have trouble defending against.

To be honest, I think the Bucks are better than their record and if Toronto plays like it’s played most of this year - as opposed to the way they’ve played the past two - it’ll be a Bucks win.

But I’d like to believe these past two games have finally instilled some much-needed confidence in this Raptors team. Beating up on a good Western team and then beating the team that crushed you in the playoffs, at home? That has to make them feel good about themselves, right?

Can it translate to on-court success? I hope so. The Raps need this one, and the next two (at Washington Wednesday, home for Memphis Friday). I said it last week, they need a winning streak of at least five to get back into it - and this is as good a chance as they’re likely to have. That’d put them at 17-20 heading into Sunday’s brutal home-at-home with Boston; we have to assume that’s two losses so it’s imperative to get some wins before then.

(Again, what is with this schedule? Two straight games against the champs on back to back nights? No other team in the NBA gets this “honor.” Why us? Sigh.)

Anyway, let’s not get ahead. Raptors gotta come out tonight and execute like they did yesterday. Hit the glass, force turnovers, don’t settle, and the offense will come, I really believe that.

I think they can do it. Raptors by 13.

Imagine that - two quality wins in a row! First time that’s happened all year. I’m serious, that’s the first time they’ve won two in a row against +.500 teams. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Yesterday was an interesting game. The Raps didn’t play great defense - the Magic shot 46 percent, had 36 in the paint and Dwight Howard scored 39. They were 15-34 from downtown, even better than their 2nd-best in the east 38 per cent. Yet the Raps won. How?

The Raptors on offense were much better than what we’ve seen recently (outside of first quarters anyway). What’s key here is that they shot only 12 threes - and hit only three of them - meaning on their two-point field goals they were 38-64. They had 42 points in the paint themselves! And they went to the line 24 times. For a team that almost always settles for jumpers (a lot of them fadeaways), there was a lot more movement towards the basket last night, including several back-door cuts and point guard penetration. All this against the league’s leading shot blocker, who despite two early fouls, still played 37 minutes.

Meanwhile, in addition to the PiP win, the Raps won the rebounding battle (39-31), the turnover battle (12-9) and the fast-break battle (8-4).

Finally, the Raps were 23-24 from the line while the Magic were 17-24.

Add it all up, and what does it tell you - that for once, the Raptors actually executed in a close basketball game against a quality opponent. They rebounded. They didn’t make boneheaded turnovers. They scored going to the hoop. They made their free throws.

That’s a recipe for a win.

Think this’ll help the Raps realize that good things happen when you go the rack? That penetration, that defenders playing off to prevent cutters, leads to more open looks on the perimeter? God, I hope so.

Even more impressive is that the Raptors did all this without Jermaine O’Neal and Jose Calderon. Missing two starters is tough against any team, especially a team that’s 12-4 on the road. But Bargnani played well against Howard - especially on offense, taking him away from the hoop - and Bosh, Voskuhl and even Joey “The Incredible Hulk” Graham did their best on the big man. Yes, he scored 39, but what was more important to me was that he wasn’t allowed to dominate the glass - “only” 8 boards. Considering he averaged 18 against us in the playoffs, I’ll take that any day.

Story of the day was clearly Anthony Parker - 13-16 for 26 points, including some easy ones off the aforementioned backdoor cuts. Unfortunately, this only makes the Raptors one glaring weakness that much more obvious - if they could get 20+ points consistently from the wing, they’d be winning a lot more games. Much as I love Parker, he’s just been too inconsistent this year. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 2-9 game from him tonight.

Second biggest story, Mr. Roko Ukic. Played the entire fourth quarter, with only one turnover in the frame. That is HUGE for a rookie point guard. Had five assists in the frame, and most impressive of all, the TSN Turning Point - the runner to give the Raps the three-point lead with a minute to go.

He mentioned after the game that he’s been working on that shot because so many of his drives were getting blocked. I would LOVE to see him develop that shot - so many point guards use it to such great effect, it’s a great shot for smaller players. Tony Parker is the master currently, though the all-time great has to be one-time Raptor Mark Jackson. But Chris Paul and Deron Williams use it, Jason Kidd uses it, Steve Blake nailed it against us earlier this year… it’s a really effective way for smaller players to score, to get the ball up before they hit the tall trees in the paint.

Moon had a decent day, including a key block on a Hedo Turkoglu three after Roko’s Runner. Of course, if Hedo had simply up-faked he’d be shooting three free throws and I’d have thrown a temper tantrum, but hey. The guy jumps at everything, law of averages says he’ll eventually block a jump shot, right?

Most observers are calling this the biggest win of the season, and while at first I thought “That’s more than a little hyperbole,” after I thought about it… I have to agree. The Magic are a great team that had won eight of nine and were only two games behind Boston going in to this one. And you also have to factor in that they haven’t had very many wins, and even fewer against good opponents (and I don’t think the Houston game even counts, they rolled over so easily). So yeah… that was the biggest win of the year.

Of course, the real question is, is it the start of something good, or just an aberration? Let’s hope it’s the former!

Back from the west coast, but still playing western teams, Toronto hosts the Denver tonight, a chance for the Raptors to avenge that embarrassing loss the Nuggets handed them almost a month ago. You may remember that one… it cost Sam Mitchell his job.

With most teams, especially pro basketball teams where pride and respect is valued very highly, you can count on them to come out fired up and intense and well-prepared to avenge such a loss. Unfortunately, the Raptors are the most mentally weak team I’ve ever seen - they’ve responded incredibly poorly in every “pride” game they’ve played this year. (Examples - after The Worst Loss in Raptors History to Vince and the Nets, they didn’t bother to show up against Boston in the next game and got booed off the home court. After getting Mitchell fired in Denver, they didn’t bother to show up in Utah (even with Carlos Boozer sidelined). After losing to a stunning Steve Blake 3, the got blown out in Cleveland. And on and on…)

Aside from that aspect of it, Denver clearly proved that they are a tough matchup for the Raptors. Like the Warriors, the like to push and shoot - but they’ve got more muscle and an experienced point guard to guide them when in the halfcourt. They’re aggressive and intimidating, things the Raptors don’t respond well too - especially if Jermaine O’Neal doesn’t play (he’s still suffering from the flu and an apparent knee bruise he suffered the other night).

I just don’t see how the Raptors can compete with the Nuggets, short of several Nuggets having bad games. It’ll be another Raptors loss, though hopefully, not a blowout… let’s say Denver by 10.

Meanwhile, it seems the protest went down at Rogers yesterday, about 10 Raps fans strong. Disappointing turnout, but not surprising considering that it was very cold, and it was a workday for most. Still, they got some coverage in the Globe and Mail and that can only be a good thing.

I still don’t fully understand why they’re protesting Rogers and not MLSE, but hopefully they’ll get around to the real villains.

I really don’t see what Rogers has done wrong here. I think it’s because people just don’t like Rogers as a company; after all, they’ve had a bad rep for years thanks to gouging people for cable fees, forcing people to take “packages” of 27 channels just to get the one they want, exorbitant cell phone plans and fees, long-term contracts, Internet bandwidth throttling, and so on… not to mention terrible customer service and incredibly annoying and pervasive ads… so it’s easy to hate them. I get that.

But how are they to blame for this mess? What obligation are they under to carry EVERY channel, especially ANOTHER all-around sports channel when they already carry three (plus about a dozen other specialized sports channels)? It wasn’t their decision to air the games on this station!

That decision belongs to TSN and they’re to blame for that. If they are The Sports Network and they want to bring sports, especially sports with a Canadian angle, to Canadians, then they should be showing Canada’s one and only NBA team on its main network.

But still, they paid their money, probably a lot, for the rights to air them on whatever channel they wanted - that’s their right for the money they paid. That’s the way such a transaction is supposed to work.

The folks really to blame are the ones that enabled it in the first place, the greedy bloodsuckers at MLSE. It’s pretty clear now that what happened is TSN said “we’llback up the money truck and you let us put the games on the channels we want,” and MLSE, seeing only the dollar signs, decided it didn’t matter that Raptors fans wouldn’t be able to watch. I mean, fans don’t matter, only the bottom line, right? So what if TSN only paid that cash to try and force Rogers to pick up their ridiculously excessive and unnecessary channel? What do we care where the games air, we got paid!

At the very least MLSE should have included some clause in the contract that said “If Rogers doesn’t have TSN2 by X date then the games get moved to TSN, or we can air the games on RapsTV,” or something to that effect. Since they did nothing like that, and are allowing this to happen, means they just didn’t care enough about the fans, and only cared about the money.

So at this point, honestly, I don’t want Rogers to pick up TSN2. Yes, I want to see the games - and of course I’ll be happy if they do end up picking it up (and even happier if they issue a press release that says “we’re sorry it took so long, but it’s clear The Raptors don’t care about their fans, so someone had to take the bullet”) - but I really feel like Rogers is being unfairly blamed here for something they had no part in. They are the ones being bullied here, and that’s not right, is it? OK, maybe turnaround is fair play - after all, they’ve been bullying customers with their cable monopoly for over 20 years - but two wrongs don’t make a right. They shouldn’t have to be forced into paying for something they don’t want.

And quite frankly, I don’t want another sports channel! I’ve got enough sports channels and besides, you know TSN isn’t asking for chump change from Rogers here (otherwise the deal would already be done) - so how do you think Rogers is gonna pay for it? By raising cable fees! No thanks, I pay them enough.

Finally, I particularly don’t want to have Raptors games on yet another channel. I mean, 82 games spread across five channels… are you kidding me? Ideally every single game should be on one channel, shouldn’t it? I know that won’t happen, but I don’t think two is unreasonable - majority on The Score (being the only network that cares about ball) with the Sunday afternoon games on CBC (maybe try and start a tradition there, and CBC is in the most homes and lots of people sitting around on Sunday afternoons might stop in to check it out).

But five is too much. Enough is enough. The madness must end. I think we can all agree this season is lost regardless, so you know what, TSN2, you can have your games and I hope at the next meeting Rogers extends a big middle Raptor claw at you and says “you paid for nothing, ‘cause you ain’t gettin’ on Rogers.”

And maybe by the time next season’s negotiations roll around, MLSE will have smartened up enough to not let something like this happen again and will get the games on a smaller number of channels.

In the meantime, enjoy your dwindling viewership and ad revenue, you greedy motherfuckers. You deserve it.

Another tough loss last night. How many times have I written that this year? Probably a lot more to come, too. As usual, I didn’t expect a victory, but at least the Raptors stayed in it. Had a chance at the end, too!

But man… Kapono had two great looks from downtown when the Raptors were down two with a minute left. You just can’t ask for more than that. Well, you can ask for them to go down, but they didn’t and the Raps were forced to foul and couldn’t climb out of the two-possession hole.

I’m glad they fought back from the 13-point hole they were in, at least, although the Warriors are of course infamous for letting teams back in the game. For once, the Raptors’ rebounding wasn’t awful (although they did give up a couple of late offensive boards that hurt) but once again, the perimeter defense was atrocious. Way too many open looks for the Warriors from downtown. I know the Raps under Triano like the “pack the paint” and all that, but don’t you have to adjust your defense a little for the opposition? When the Warriors bust out a lineup of Ronny Turiaf and four shooting guards, chances are, they ain’t pounding it inside, and honestly, having Ronny Turiaf go one on one against Chris Bosh from 8 feet is better in my mind than a wide open Steven Jackson or Marco Belinelli three ball. But, what the hell do I know.

I do know that not having Jermaine O’Neal for most of the game hurt. Even when he was in there you could tell the flu was affecting him - he was moving in slow-motion and shot 1-4 before sitting for good in the second quarter. But with a healthy O’Neal, there’s no way the Warriors can run that 4-guard lineup. Well, actually, they probably still would, but O’Neal and Bosh would have been able to dominate it on the other end. Andrea “Colangelo’s Bane” Bargnani wasn’t terrible in replacing O’Neal (7 points and 6 boards) but he’s just not the inside presence JO is. Alas, the Warriors used a 32-point second quarter to take the lead and the Raps would never take it back.

So, it’s 12-19 and with a likely home loss to Denver tomorrow night, we’re looking at 12-20 heading into 2009. That’s not good folks. I really don’t see the Raps climbing out of it any time soon; yes there have been good signs, but that’s not enough any more. The good signs need to start translating into wins.

Do you realize that in the 2008 calendar year, including playoffs, the Raptors have gone 37-49? 12 games under .500. Wow. That’s brutal for a team that was supposed to be improving (they were 53-36, including playoffs, in the 2007 calendar year). I mean they need to go 29-22 just to get back to .500 by the end of the season. That means a couple winning streaks and no more stretches of three losses in a row. And what signs have pointed to the Raptors being able to do that?

Even with a trade or two, then you’ve got your adjustment period, and chemistry realigning, and by the time that’s done, well… eventually it all just becomes too little, too late, you know?

Anything is possible - after all, no one expected the 06-07 team to go 34-17 once the calendar turned - but the chances of such a run seem less and less likely every day, regardless of any sort of trade or change. Yeah, the schedule eases up a bit; there are no more Pacific trips (although there’s still two Texas road games to come) and the Raps have 28 home games left against 23 road games, but the Raptors haven’t exactly been stellar at home (5-8), have they? No, it’s still a very tough road to travel if the Raps want to make the playoffs, and all the signs so far indicate they won’t be able to do it.

You know, it’s hard to get too upset about a loss to a good team like the Trail Blazers. They’re stacked, and in fact, I feel like they’re better than their record - even though it’s pretty good at 19-12 after beating the Raptors.

Unfortunately, it is frustrating, because once again, the Raps had a big lead - 11 points before a miracle three a the halftime buzzer by Travis Outlaw cut it to eight. It’s also frustrating to think that, heading into the season, our expectations were set high enough to make us think we were in the same class as the Blazers.

But, in the past two months reality has set in and we’ve come to expect that the Raptors don’t have much of a chance against good teams, because, well, they’re not a good team themselves. And although you can clearly say there’ve been improvements - three weeks ago the Raptors were getting blown out of games completely, now at least they’re in them in the first half - it’s not enough to get them back into the race.

So we’re stuck with another middling team in another mediocre season. In other words, it’s hard to get excited or upset about anything at all - they only beat teams worse than them and never beat teams better than them, so where’s the drama?

Of course, we all know the most frustrating thing about the loss was seeing Brandon Roy dominate the fourth quarter like that. 18 points, and most of them very difficult jump shots, the kind of “give me the ball and let me create something from nothing” mindset that none of the Raptors have. And he could have been a Raptor. Sigh. That one play, where he drove left, stumbled, lost the ball, got on his feet, recovered it, and hit a fade-away? No one on the Raptors even has the balls to take that shot. Sigh. That one mistake is haunting us every time we play the Blazers.

(A bit of a tradition for me is watching Lord of the Rings; you know how Boromir and the men of Gondor call the one ring “Isildur’s Bane?” I think I’m going to start calling Bargnani “Colangelo’s Bane.”)

Actually Andrea had his best game in recent memory last night. Slump buster? I’m not holding my breath, but at least he hit some jump shots.

Oh well. The Raps roll into San Fran tonight to take on the Warriors and they’ve got a chance to finish up 3-3 on the trip. That’d be nice since I expected a 1-5 trip. Of course, I expected that “1″ to be against the “Thunder” and losing to them still hurts. A lot. They could have already guaranteed a 3-3 trip by beating the worst team in the league. Alas.

However, I don’t really think 3-3 is going to happen. I’m sure you’ve all noticed, Golden State is virtually impossible to defend - they just run up and shoot. Given the Raptors are one of the worst transition defensive teams I’ve every actually seen play professional basketball, that can be trouble. I mean on most nights you can be assured the Warriors won’t hit a high enough percentage to win, but they’ll get enough layups and open looks tonight to outscore the Raptors.

And even if they don’t shoot that well, the Raptors’ offense isn’t good enough to keep up. I know Golden State is a terrible defensive team but if you’ve seen the Raptors struggle to even get open shots, let alone hit them, then you have to fear that that will continue tonight.

Of course, it is completely possible the Warriors will stink. You never know with this Golden State team. But I don’t believe the Raps have it in them to really step up, and play aggressively enough to take the Warriors out of what they want to do. I just think Golden State will simply run them off the floor and will take it by 19.

Now, one last thing, it’s been brought to my attention in the comments that there will be a protest at Rogers headquarters regarding the TSN2 issue tomorrow, December 30. Now, it’s planned to last all day, which seems a little extreme in this weather, but if you can make it down there and support the guys who’ve put it together, that would be great. Anything to bring some sort of attention to this ridiculous impasse.

I do hope that there is a future protest planned for those morons at MLSE since this is more their fault than anyone else’s (what team signs a television contract where the games are shown on a station that’s not available on cable in their home market?).

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow goes well for these guys, they get some support and maybe some attention. It’s probably a good time to do it, you know this is usually a pretty slow news week so a station like CityTV would likely be able to send a camera crew over. Anything to get some attention and pressure on the parties involved can only help.

Here’s the details:
Tuesday December 30th, 2008
Rogers Building
333 Bloor St. East, Toronto
8 am to 5 pm

There’s a dedicated Facebook group and if you need any more info, you can email Drew at spuddaz@yahoo.com. Good luck to everyone heading down there.

Sorry for missing a couple days, it’s the holidays, time is tight. Besides, what can you say after the Raptors lose to the “Thunder?” One of the biggest embarrassments in the history of this franchise (and, um, there’s been more than a few). Everyone who even remotely follows the NBA knows what an embarrassment that is, so there’s not much point discussing it. And since it wasn’t on TV, well, I don’t have any analysis to offer anyway.

As for the Spurs game, even though it was actually televised I was away all weekend and knew I wouldn’t have time to catch it on the PVR. Looks like the Raps played a little bit better than the previous night, and of course you don’t expect to beat the Spurs in San Antonio, but a loss is still a loss, and when it’s your fifth in a row, well…

But, finally, mercifully, the Raps snapped the skid last night in LA. Thank God for the Clippers! But when you think about it, it makes the “Thunder” game that much more important. How much better would the Raps have felt, going into Christmas, having won 2 of 3 on the road, with the only loss being in San Antonio, a game that they kept close the whole way? This team’s confidence is so shaky, even something like two wins against two of the league’s worst teams would have helped. But I don’t think beating the Clippers can erase the embarrassment of that loss to the “Thunder.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re happy to get the win, but what a wasted opportunity that “Thunder” game was.

As for last night, well, hard to put too much stock into it. I didn’t see it since it wasn’t on TV, but the Clippers were without Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman - two guys who have given the Raps trouble in the past - and Zach Randolph missed the fourth quarter with an injury. Naturally Bosh and O’Neal are gonna have good games - or at least, they damn well better - when those guys are out.

Al Thornton struggled after killing the Raps last year. Don’t know if he had a bad game, or the Raps D was responsible, but either way, a bonus for us. Of course, he’s on my fantasy team, but still… I’ll gladly take the hit for a Raps win.

Don’t quite understand why Solomon got the backup minutes over Roko last night. Guess maybe Roko’s struggled in the games I’ve missed? But I’d still rather let him play through his mistakes then have Solomon out there. I’m probably sounding like a broken record saying that. On the surface, at least, he seemed to play OK last night.

Then there’s the two dark spots amongst the brightness. Or, um, more dark spots among the darkness. Whatever. First up, Jason Kapono. Stats in the past six:

21-61 FG (34.4%); 9-23 3FG (39.1%); 1.5 R; 2.1 A; 8.8 PPG

Now, we all know Kapono has some defensive issues, and lots of people love to rip him for it, but I don’t care about that. All I want from Kapono is offense - take shots and make 48%, preferably with about half of those attempts from downtown. Previously, when Sam Mitchell was running the show, we all complained that he wasn’t getting enough shots. Well, now he’s averaging more than 10 a game since the coaching change, which is pretty good for a fourth option on the floor. But his percentages have plummeted in the past six. So what is to blame? Is it just a slump? Well, Mr. J-Killah, time to break out of it because when you’re a shooter, and your shot’s not falling, you’re not bringing much else to the table, my friend.

And finally, we come to the perpetrator of the most heinous Raptor-related crimes recently, Andrea Bargnani. Something has come to the surface recently regarding Andrea.

He stinks.

Like, bad. Really bad. He’s terrible. From all reports - again, not having seen most of the games - he looks like he’s never even played basketball before. I’m not even going to write down the stats.

It’s over. I’ve officially given up on him. It seems everyone else has too, after he got booed at home last week. Shades of Hoffa, anyone?

I think he needs to get buried on the bench. I think Voskuhl and Humphries deserve the backup minutes.

And I think Colangelo needs to trade him, like, right now, because his value is going down every day. Cut the cord, Bryan. Just do it.

As for the rest of the team, I hope last night broke Bosh out of his slump. O’Neal’s really been coming around and if both he and Bosh can get it going at the same time, well, that can only mean more success is coming, right?

Jose has been average, I suppose. I’ve said this a dozen times now, I really wish he’d be a little more aggressive on offense. Overall, I’d have to say he’s been a slight disappointment this year. He hasn’t done anything wrong or bad, but hasn’t done anything exceptionally well, either.

Moon has been a little better lately, although the stats indicate there are still too many threes being launched. Joey Graham threw up a goose-egg last night but overall has played well off the bench.

Anthony Parker continues to struggle, and that’s really disappointing because he’s still one of my favourite players on the team. But it’s not just his shooting, he seems to be making more mistakes with the ball - dribbles out of bounds, bad passes - than I’ve seen from him since he’s been here. He was always the guy who never made mistakes, now he’s just making too many. I hope he turns his season around.

Anyway, it’s Christmas, and I’m happy with last night’s win, regardless of the opponent. I’d love to see them go 2-2 or better to close out the year, and I think it’s possible. And Let’s be honest, if they don’t turn it around now, it’s never gonna happen - being eight or nine games under .500 in January is too deep a hole to climb out of. I hope they get that, and I hope they respond.

Happy Holidays!

So, the Raptors make their first trip ever to The Place That Isn’t Seattle tonight. Thankfully, it’s their only trip there this season. Unfortunately, they have to go back next year, and every other year from now on. Sigh.

There’s only one good thing about this team’s move from Seattle to The Place That Isn’t Seattle; the time zone. That means instead of watching a Raptors game at 10:00, we get to watch it at 8:00.

Or rather, we could… IF THE GAME WAS TELEVISED IN TORONTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dammit.

You may have noticed my question in Doug Smith’s blog mailbag today, about the playoffs and TSN2; if the Raps make it, the games could very well be aired on TSN2. Is that a joke or what?

At this point I have obvious doubts about the Raptors making the playoffs, but if they do, I’d really like to be able to see them. If only those greedy bastards at TSN and Rogers would kiss and make up or those fucking morons at MLSE would step in and fix this… but the fact that it hasn’t happened by now leads me to believe it won’t be fixed, ever. I can’t even believe we’re still talking about this… how could MLSE have allowed this to happen? It blows my mind.

As for the game, well, The “Thunder” isn’t (aren’t? What a ridiculous name) very good. They’re 2-24 and have lost 8 in a row. Yikes.

But, you may recall, this team is basically the same one that beat us - and scored 123 points on us - last season. And their strong points - Sophomores Kevin Durant and Jeff Green - play the swingman spots that we can’t defend to save our lives. And we’re not exactly coming on strong, having lost 8 of 10 ourselves!

Still, you gotta believe that if the Raps can beat anyone, it’s the “Thunder.” Right? I mean, we can beat them, right? Hoo boy.

What I’d most like to see is a good game from Chris Bosh. He needs it, and we need to see it from him. I don’t necessarily need to see a 39 point, 16 rebound night. Just a solid 24 on 8-13 shooting - no three-pointers - and 8-10 from the free throw line, with 11 boards would be nice. Something to remind us that he’s an all-star level player. Because he hasn’t been playing like it lately. Come on, Chris, we know you have it in you. Bring it tonight, my friend.

I’d also like to see Kapono get back on track. He was rock solid his first two games as a starter, and disappointing the past three. He didn’t even take a triple last game, and I thought we’d worked through that phase where he thought he was allergic to the three-point line. I’d like to see him get back on track.

As for the other struggling Raptor… well, I don’t really know what to say about Andrea Bargnani. Hey, I remember he had a four-point play against the Sonics two seasons ago. Maybe he can get something like that today and that’ll be the slump buster. He’s missing three-quarters of his shots these days, and most aren’t even close… he really needs to get something going on offense. I still like his defense and shot-blocking, but his rebounding isn’t good enough for us to play 4 on 5 with him on offense.

Well, I believe that, even with their struggles, the Raptors can take this one. I’d like it to be a blowout like last Friday’s game in Jersey, but I suspect it won’t be. Raptors by 8.

Well, what can you say about that one? How about the same thing we said about the one before? It’s like a script, early double-digit lead, give it all back, trail in the fourth, give up key offensive rebounds on stops, and never give yourself a chance to close the gap.

I don’t know what else to say. It’s all going downhill, fast, and now they’re going on a 6-game west coast trip? When they’re 1-6 against the west… and 0-3 on the road. And then we get Denver here at the ACC on December 31. Can you say 10-game losing streak?

If there is any silver lining, it’s that four of these road games feature teams with worse records than ours (the Clippers, Kings, and Warriors each have 7 wins, while the “Thunder” have 2), and the Raps are 9-2 against teams that are currently .500 or worse.

(Yes, sadly, that means we are 1-13 against winning teams. Is that an unbelievable stat or what?)

Given those numbers, 3-3 or even 4-2 on the trip isn’t out of the realm of possibility. But given the way the team has actually played in the past two - according to reports, since the games weren’t televised!!! - doesn’t give me much confidence that they’ll be able to beat even bad teams. Especially on the west coast, where the Raps have not had much success in the past. 0-6 seems like a definite possibility.

It’s shocking to me how easily the Raps have given up these leads. One minute it’s 10; less than 3 minutes later, it’s -2. I mean it’s one thing if a team grinds you down, maybe you miss a couple shots but you make a few, they just make a few more, and gradually, over the course of a quarter, they whittle it down and put themselves in a position to win. No, these Raps give it all back at once and before you know it, we’re the ones who need to grind it out and, well, this team doesn’t have the mental make-up (not to mention the physical players) to do that.

I don’t even know what to think. I mean, it can’t be all bad, right? They must be doing something right if they are getting these double-digit leads in the first place? The rebounding remains a key issue, no surprise there, and although the defense has been better under Triano, we know it can be better yet. I think the most perplexing question of the past few games has to be, why can’t they score in the second half? 41 points against the Nets, 37 against the Mavs. Other teams buckle down in the second half, why don’t we?

As for the other issues from last night… I can’t figure out what the heck is going on with Bosh, the guy is settling for jumpers and when they’re not dropping, he’s not adjusting. Just two foul shots? On a 6-20 night? Geez, even Carter took four free throws on his 0-13 night, and that game was over at halftime - last night’s game was still 71-69 with 10 minutes to go! That’s the time great players start going to the hoop. And for the love of God, Chris… please, let Jose, Jason and AP take the threes, will you? It’s just not working for you, brother.

And with the booing, well, I don’t personally believe in booing the home team except in extreme circumstances, and I don’t think last night qualified as extreme. Yeah, they blew another lead and that’s disappointing, but I don’t think anyone is saying they didn’t show up to play. By all accounts, they played hard, just missed a lot of shots and didn’t execute particularly well on offense. I don’t think it justified a booing, but again, I didn’t see it, so it’s hard to judge.

So what does all that mean? Does it mean they’re simply not good enough, that there’s just not enough talent on the roster? If so, then Colangelo has got to stop sitting on his hands and make something happen. Or is the talent so thin that he can’t even make a deal?

I don’t know anymore. All I know is these are tough times for my team, but as always, I’ll support them through thick and thin. I’ll be realistic about it - as in, I don’t think they’re gonna make the playoffs - but I’ll still support them! Go Raps!

Tonight, the Raptors welcome the Dallas Mavericks to town. You may note the Mavs have won 7 of their last 10; meanwhile the Raps have lost 7 of their last 10, and they boast a stellar 1-5 record against Western Conference teams.

Oh, wait, one more stat: Mavs are second in the league in rebounding. Raptors are second last.

Let’s just say: I’d take the road team tonight if I were you.

I’m curious to see this Mavericks team. Nowitzki has apparently been playing great of late, they’ve got a promising youngster in Jose Barea, Jason Terry’s playing solid, and I really want to see if Kidd looks more comfortable than he did last season.

Oh, wait, I don’t get to watch this game? It’s not on TV? Right, I forgot, the Toronto Raptors don’t show all their games IN TORONTO. Have I mentioned what kind of morons they have working at MLSE? That’s right, fucking morons. That’s the kind.

Anyway, I’m not going to waste too much time on this one. If one thing is clear this season, it’s that the Raptors can’t beat teams that are “better” than them, and I don’t think anyone is disputing the Mavs are better. In fact, the Raps don’t even usually show up against teams that are better than them. So it’ll be a Raptors loss, probably by about 23 points or so.

On much more interesting topics, how about those trade rumours? Good times, huh? As if Shawn Marion is the answer this team needs… give me a break. Oh, how about the Antoine Walker rumour? The guy lost his game about three years ago, for God’s sake! And he wasn’t that great to begin with! How, in what conceivable way, would Antoine Walker help this team!?

Marion, you could at least make an argument for. He rebounds, which we need, he defends, and he runs the floor, which we’re trying to do. I just don’t know if he fits in, or if he’ll ever get back to the level he was in Phoenix - Nash makes a lot of guys look better than they are. Still, what do the Raps have that the Heat want? I don’t think I’m ready to give up on Jermaine O’Neal, and outside of him, the Raps would have to give up half their roster (which I’m not opposed to, by the way, but our roster is pretty thin as it is) to match salaries with Marion. I don’t see that one happening.

I anticipated a trade would happen this week, and I’m a little disappointed it hasn’t. I guess it still could, but I assumed it would happen on the 15th or 16th. As I said before, I didn’t think anything major was going down, but I thought SOMETHING was gonna happen. Oh well. As long as it isn’t signing Antoine Walker…!

Quick correction to my last post about Vince Carter. I somehow neglected to include Game 6 of the 2007 Playoffs, which was, until the November 21st game, the best game between these two teams since the trade. Perhaps the end was too painful and I blocked it out. Carter had another average game, 6-19 for 21 points in the Nets’ one-point win.

Anyway, I’ve updated my spreadsheet and here are Carter’s stats against Toronto, including Game 6 and this past weekend’s games:

44.6% FG, 36% 3FG, 68.5% FT, 6.5 R, 4.5 A, 23.7 PTS in 23 total games. New Jersey with a 13-10 record.

And his total stats as a Net, through Monday’s game:
45% FG, 36.9% 3FG, 80.4% FT, 5.9 R, 4.7 A, 24.2 PTS. 317 games played.

So, again, virtually identical. I think I’ve made my point here, though I’m sure I’ll be forced to bring it up again when the Nets come to town in January… but Carter’s no different against the Raps than he is against anyone else.

Of course, in the one stat that really matters, he’s got 3 more wins against the Raps than we have against him - and I hope that we can get one more this year.