Toronto Raptors Ramblings

Darrick Martin

D-Mart. How about the happiest guy in Toronto for about 20 minutes last night. I'm not sure what you saw on t.v. but Mr. Martin was so jacked about hitting threes it was almost comical to watch. Check that...it was pure comedy to watch.

You know those old school Fred Astaire types who pull the jump and click your heels move? Well Martin had them on the ropes. His first few threes were met with some arm waving like a bird action-i'm awesome type of move. But his biggest three was met with a pure Fred Astaire. He even tried to hug a fellow Raptor who was trying to get down court to play D.

And that was really the story at the ACC (and in Raptorland) last night. Everyone was just happy to be there. Nobody seemed to care that we mismanaged our timeouts, Mitchell was let off with a 'hey, he kept us in it' nod. Nobody seemed to care that was rode Martin for 23 minutes, including every crunch minute. Nobody seemed to care (too much) that Bosh fouled Steve Nash for the go-ahead 3, even though he's a 91% free throw shooter but a 40-something% three point shooter. Okay, i admit he woud have hit that three. Nash had it down the stretch.

But that's where we are at. Hanging around the central cause we have moments and games of top quality play. And yet well under .500 still because Calzone can have games like that, and without Ford those are killers. Certainly his worst decision making game of the year. And yet we were still in it to the end.

A nice try for the Raps, and effort like that will keep us around in a lot of games. But just being happy to be there will keep us on the outside looking in.

Other notes....Garbo and Ford were missed....when Nani gets hot just feed him the freaking ball, enough dicking around already. This guy loves his streaks, and he's not afraid to shoot.....Mitchell actually did a great job keeping us in the game and benching Calzone and boldly riding Darrick Martin, but ending the game with no time outs and then letting D-Mart dribble head down up the court without even thinking pass...well that wasn't genius. Still top marks......The Inflatable Raptor is by far the most popular version of the Raptor, kids / girlfriends would rather watch that Raptor than the game, and really who cares.....It's hard to post to a blog on a consitent basis and I'll be looking at 2 posts a week for the next while, while propertyfind gets finished.

Happy New Years. Let's see if we can't make a run at the Atlantic in 2007.

posted by WG @ 9:03 PM