Toronto Raptors Ramblings: Let's Go Raptors...VC Sucks: We Want Seven

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Let's Go Raptors...VC Sucks: We Want Seven

Game 5
"3...Carter drives....2.....kicked out to a wide open Nutbar....1....it's up for the win!.....CLANK. The buzzer sounds and a collective sigh, a deep breath and the pandemonium erupts happily, at least for one more night. 'We want 7', and for now we've got six. It was a game of 'stepping up' and out of the gates it was the Nani, hitting from everywhere. Nani-esque play of the game was a long up 3-fake on RJ who soared past the fake and opened the door to a silky smooth triplet. And then came MJ...er, AP, who made sure he was ready and he would come through, as the stick of Uhu he is. That and Calzone took our offense into the second half on a dominating swing.

(Our Best Five?: Nani, AP, Calzone, Joey, MoPete)

Act 2
The second half was of course treacherous, you can't keep a 15 point lead all night but Jose sure tried. With T.J. Ford down and out to some form of injury the crowd decided the "oh le, oh le oh le oh eh" chant would turn into "Josee, jose, jose jose....jose..oh joseeee"....and he responded. Moral of the story, don't go under the screen. When he wasn't scoring you might find Jose dishing out to Mo Pete who was having the best game he's had in 40. What this meant was that Bosh, who again was in huge foul trouble (which incidentally was ridiculous and would not stand up in court, two of those fouls were total jokes) had to only keep us alive in the fourth. To a very small degree he did, if you count hitting 3 of 4 clutch free throws (but not the last one) and playing some solid d at the end, but by in large Bosh is still MIA. We won this game despite Bosh playing like '07 playoff Bosh. And that might be our light at the end of the tunnel. If Bosh shows up for game 6....well who knows.

Joey is Nutbar
Nutbar was 0-7 from long range tonight. That won't happen again so we can just say thank you. Joey Graham played great D and pulled back 10 boards. When he fouled he crushed people. Stand up and take note, this kid might not be in the NBA next year but at least he knows what a hard foul means. Hats off to Joey for picking up this relatively straight forward concept, which seemingly obvious is missed by most. Side note: During halftime, KG (that's Kev Groh) mentioned that bad Joey should go by reverse name: Yeoj. Consider that done. Can I get a ruling, is that pronounced "Yee-Ohge"? I guess it's just me, so the ruling stands.

Let's Chant
While the "Jose" chant to the soccer anthem was fantastic, it wasn't even number 1. A natural merger between fan chants of "Let's Go Raptors...Let's Go" and "VC Sucks" turned into one half "Let's go Raptors" while the other half of the crowd finished off with "VC Sucks".

"Let's go Raptors...VC SUCKS!, Let's go Raptors...VC SUCKS!"

Below: unfortunately not the chant, but watching Vince ride it always makes me happy.

X-Factor: Fans of the ACC. Pretty much everybody (minus the fans in 308, row 2,3,4 who were dead beat losers). Great effort. Some great cheering, overpowering the brutal ACC commercial music with chanting and sticking with it....that's how you do it. That's how you be home fans.

Y-Factor: The Nets shooting. The Raps will have to play better and Chris Bosh amazing to get us back to Game 7. But let's face it: We Want Se-ven.

Z-Factor (Notes): Ford is down with an injury (neck...yikes)....Calzone got taken to the hospital after rolling his ankle (does that mean what i think it does), leaving us with....yes, D-Martin and Juan Dixon to play the point....Jose had a career high 25 and was pestering Kidd all night long from half court on....Rasho barely played a minute as part of our new quicker and more offense strategy....we relied on the Nets missing shots to win that one....

Go Raps Go...VC Sucks.