Toronto Raptors Ramblings

My mind is in a frenzy

I'm not sure if it's the insanity of the ACC, the Vinsanity sucking or the Nutbar being left wide open all night but I'm losing it, and it's only game 2.

With 2 minutes to go Cappe turns to me and says "IT'S 80-80 IN A MUST WIN GAME RIGHT NOW!". This was certainly not the Raptors finest hour. It was MOST Definitely not the NBA Coach of the year's finest moment. But that's the kind of game you have to win.

Let's start with the Good. The player of the game was our last remaining glue man Anthony Parker. Sure sure, watch the highlight reels and you may tell me different, but AP (a.k.a. Michael Jordan) kept us in the game. Plain and simple. The runner up? Rasho. Yup. You can look at Rasho's stats all you want, but go back and count the keep alive tips. Count those two early baskets in the second half where he clearly looked at his teamates and thought "are you kidding me? This is all you are bringing?" He then did what he does (when he scores) and got aggressive. That fueled people, don't mistake it, that's what "they" mean when they talk about playoff experience.

Another nugget of gold was T.J. Ford down the stretch playing some sweet string music on absolutely CLUTCH free throws...well hats off, good work T.J. Bosh hit some shots down the stretch but we really needed them but he was not Bosh. He was awful for lots of the game (despite his numbers) because he couldn't assert himself or take advantage of momentum we (yes, we the fans) created. But I'll give him credit because he stepped up when it counted and i'm thinking we'll see a lot more of him real real soon.

Now...Sam Mitchell. Coach of the year. Which i'm fully in support of for taking 9 new guys and integrating them. One simple word. Nutbar. Bostjan Nachbar. The ONLY Net who was hitting the long ball. One of their best ALL YEAR. What do we do REPEATEDLY down the stretch? We leave Bosh covering him, and dare him to shoot the long ball. The Nets needed three's, we came out of timeouts and we STILL had Bosh sloughing on him. This happened THREE times down the stretch. I wanted an answer right then and there. Why aren't we telling Bosh to get up on him and give him the deuce? Please someone tell me your inane theory. Why is a guy who at the time is 4-5 being given WIDE OPEN three's? Why? We'll never know but we really need to ask the coaches. They made a big mistake and just got lucky. Then again, as Cappe was happy to point out they benched "Bad Joey" which is what you have to do when he comes out. 1:26 into the 3rd he got the yank, and that was that. Mo Pete didn't step up but he was solid on defence and we'll take it, especially when we gave him no love or PT down the stretch of the year. That's what Jack called "Playing with big onions".

All in all, it was a must game win and we won. But if that's what we've got, we are in serious trouble. If that's all we can do to resemble Raptors basketball we are screwed. It's simple. In the playoffs if you can't play your game you are in trouble. You have to do all those playoff things of course (rebound and play D). But we aren't playing our game we are only showing glimpses of it.
My head feels like Siler (of Heroes) has ripped my forehead open with his little finger nail. That's not how you should feel after a win. But I guess it happens.

I haven't talked about Nani, because there is little to say. He hasn't come back yet, he hasn't done much of anything and he doesn't feel good shooting.

VC SUCKS. VC SUCKS. VC SUCKS. VC SUCKS.
I take it back, player of the game was the crowd who stayed with it and Taunted the crap out of VC.

Quote of the night: I can't remember it word for word but Vince was Happy with his shots, and felt good because even though they weren't going in they were all long. I'm serious. That's what he said. Vince is happy that he's not tired yet. Amazing. Oh yeah....did I mention that Vince has totally choked? He was 8-24 and was just the brickman tonight (giving him a 30% FG so far). It was awesome. He got stripped, he got forced, he got scared, he couldn't get to the line. The crowd was all over him from tip and never let off the gas. God Bless you fans at the ACC. Even when you can't cheer...you can always Boo. At least, you can always Boo him.

The good news...After our two worst games i've seen in ages...we are still in it!!

Let's Go Raptors!

posted by WG @ 10:19 PM