Toronto Raptors Ramblings

Glue

Here's the thing. "Glue" guys win you championships. "Glue" guys make the right passes to the right guys, cheat at the right time on defense and do the 'smart things' that enable them to play better than their talent alone would. A Glue guy by definition has a high basketball IQ and knows when to hustle, if you are lucky he's Charlie Hustle.

So when Garbo goes down everyone will tell you about his intangibles. He can cover all kinds of player (range of defence, brought on by high IQ and ability to cheat a bit to make up for speed, size or whatever the case may be). He can shoot the three, or he can go 1 for 9. He can play with his elbows high, draw the smart charge and realize any pass to Humpty is a green light to 'shoot' so if you make the pass you effectively ordered a shot from Humpers.

He's classic Glue, one might say Uhu (note: while Elmers clearly sticks better Uhu is the superior looking bottle and much cooler to say...much like Garbo). But these Raptors were built by a man who understands a team needs a lot of glue to be able to battle hard every night, play above their collective talent levels, play through an 82 game season and give the fans hope and faith.

So the fall of Garbo, while significant, unfortunate and down right depressing is not the end of these Raptors. We are still battling for THIRD FREAKING PLACE. We dismantled the Heat with a combination of precision shooting and 'give up' mentality the Heat seem to display when they get down and can't hit shots.

Let's rally around what we do have, and when Nani is back, I'd say we are still a formidable "team you don't want to face" in round one kind of team.

Tickets to the playoffs
Go on sale April 14th, unless you happen to be a 'corporate client' or know somebody. I'm in between those two (i.e. somehow my old university counts as a corporate client) so I ended up with Balcony's (purples) for $54 a pop and Red's at $114! a pop for the first two games of the playoffs. Did i need to drop $114 to see a game, clearly no, but it's been a while, so for just one game i'll sit down low. And let's be perfectly clear....the ACC is going to be INSANE. Raptor fans are hungry so make sure you are on your computer April 14th at 9:00 a.m. so you don't miss out on the fun.

The run for 3rd continues, with all kinds of glue to get us there.

posted by WG @ 9:29 AM