SITE HAS MOVED

Hello all. I've moved my site to it's own address, it is now

http://timeintact.com

and I've joined forces with some good friends for an all new Raptors blog:

http://mediocreforever.blogspot.com/


See you there :)

Pride & Glory

Raptors 93, Nuggets 132

No matter how skilled you may or may not be, you're supposed to compete. That should be a given. I was about to head out last night when I thought I'd put on the Raptors game to amuse myself and see how much we were down by. It was the second quarter and I think the deficit was 16. No surprise. By the time I actually left, it was the third quarter and Bosh went on a mini-run (while the rest of the Raptors were just standing around as usual) and the lead was cut down to ten and I asked myself "Should I cancel my plans and stay in to watch this instead? We actually might have a game here." I ended up going with my better judgment that the Raptors going to lose one way or another and I'd regret staying. Boy, did I make the right decision. 132-93. I knew we were gonna lose, and I figured it could be a blow-out. But THIRTY-NINE points!!!??? Do we not have any pride? Where's the glory in competing? Jermaine O'Neal at least felt the same:

"We're going to address it as a team tomorrow. It's embarrassing not only for us but for those who support the Toronto Raptors, the organization, the city and the country. That should never happen. This is a business. We get paid a heck of a lot of money to play a certain way and if we think we can turn it on and off like that then we are fooling ourselves."

We've been lackluster on defense pretty much all season so far, but it looks like things deteriorated FAST and this was the killing strike.

• I thought the Nets game would be the dagger for Mitchell's coaching tenure, but this takes the cake. I almost felt sorry for Smith in the post-game interview where he looked dazed and confused.
• I wasn't initially worried about all the Bosh talks for 2010, but now there's good reason to be. Colangelo's made it clear he's working out everything he can to keep CB4, which is good to hear, but things are going bad fast in Raptorland. That picture up there says it all doesn't it?
• As much as I hate to admit it, it's true. Jose Calderon this season never looks to drive the ball anymore like he doesn't have a freakin' G1 license or something. And God damn our offense is so predictable it's pathetic. Calderon pick and roll with Bosh, pass the ball to Bosh and pray that he scores.
  
• How much do you miss Jorge Garbajosa and Carlos Delfino right now? I know I sure as hell miss'em a lot, always vouched for them even before this season's roster trimming for what was explained as being "built for the playoffs." More like built for the WNBA right now.
  
• Trades are gonna be made (if any team falls for Kapono/Graham/Parker). Coaches are gonna be fired (read:Mitchell).
  

Raptors 99, Lakers 112

No surprise in this game, Lakers were the sure bet to win. I really liked the way Bargnani started the game, he was aggressive and played good defense in addition to his scoring. His transition defense with that block on Odom in the fast break was exemplary of what he's been able to do this season. I personally think the Lakers will take the title this year, and I want it to be against the Celtics - it'd be one hell of a rematch. The Lakers have the deepest bench, and Phil Jackson said it's the deepest bench he's ever had.

• Leo Rautins made a good point - he said even though it feels like the Raptors are knocking on the door, this game isn't near them because the Lakers can get whatever they want whenever they want. And this is Kobe on the bench.
• The Lakers reached the 100 point mark with a bit over 7 minutes left in the 4th.
• Sam Mitchell subbed off Bosh and Calderon with 5:31 left in the game and the Raptors down 107-90. I hate when Smitch does this. He gives up on the game so fast. Yeah even if we cut it close Kobe comes in and the game's over one way or another but it's just shameful. To contrast this, it reminds me of the Nets fighting being down by 7 with a minute left and coming back to win of course.
• Jermaine O'Neal misses another game. Good - better come back full strength than risk it just for the sake of playing, it's all or nothing with him.
• The Calderon-Fisher scuffle was interesting. I've gotta say, Jose, as nice as he is (possibly the nicest guy in the league), he's not soft when actually playing. And Fisher was smart trying to further aggravate Jose. Too bad Joey Crawford put an end to it quickly with the double technical.
  
• Sasha Vujajic needs to cut his hair. He looks like a schoolgirl running around with his hair flopping from his headband. Doesn't exactly come off as his self coined nickname "The Machine", you know what I'm saying?
  
• Hassan Adams got playing time. Not only that, he scored on a fast break dunk! Yes Hassan!!!
• Roko Ukic had a couple of nice drives, he's coming along slowly but steadily. Work on that jumper Roko, work on that jumper.
  
• Jack Nicholson walked up and said something to Sam Mitchell and Alex English on his way to leaving the game, I'd love to know what he said. Maybe something like "I shoulda left much earlier."
  
• Will Solomon comes in the game in garbage time on the floor with Ukic. With the shot clock running down, he actually passes the ball to Joey Graham - with one second left of course - and so the turnover is officially on Joey but what a bad pass. At least it wasn't as bad as this one.
• Do you think Sam Mitchell will last the season?
• Andrew Bynum is 275 pounds. Wow, did not know that.
  
• Anthony Parker is aging. Or is it just me?
  
• Devin Harris rocked the Suns - IN Phoenix - for 47 points and the Nets won the game. Just had to mention that. Speaking of which, the Nets - yes the NEW JERSEY Nets - are 9-7. And we're now 8-8. How does that work?
• Derrick Rose is amazing. I didn't realize how athletic he is - did you see his alley-oop throw down (yeah, he was on the receiving end!) and his block on Andre Miller on the fast break?
  

Oh the humanity

Nets 129, Raptors 127 (OT)

Where to even start. Vince Carter is an asshole. An unbelievably talented, heartless asshole. But the Raptors were bigger assholes last night - assholes for letting an 18 point lead get away (surprise!) to a basically two man team of Vince Carter and Devin Harris in their own building in front of their die-hard fans. If there's one person the good people of Toronto hates to see beat them, it's Vince Carter, yet public enemy number one stuck not one but two daggers and broke our hearts all over again.

I'm not going to lie, the game was wildly entertaining, easily the best Raptors game (suspense wise) so far, but the point is it shouldn't have been. It shouldn't have been even CLOSE. It should've been a rout. I've always supported Sam Mitchell until now, but last night was the breaking point. I've never seen such abominable coaching in crunch time - how hard is it to get the ball inbounded? That's all we had to do to win the game as long as we hit the foul shots. Worst of all, we had a seven point lead with a bit over a minute to go - SEVEN POINT LEAD. How do you end up losing?

Then there's the players too. Wow. What happened to Anthony Parker? Is this the same guy from last year? Even last year I never thought he was a great defender, but a solid one for sure. This season he's getting rocked night in and night out. It's probably unfair of me to criticize him, but really I'm just mad at him for missing that free throw that let Vince tie the game with a 3. I just KNEW, KNEW he was gonna miss that free throw because that's what Anthony Parker does in the clutch - miss free throws. Me and my friend Rachel have joked about that since last season - seriously - anytime it's 5 minutes or less in the fourth quarter and AP's at the line I know I'm getting a text message from Rachel about his brick-to-come from the stripe. And the way it played out was almost a mirror image of last season's game winning three from Vince where a Raptor misses one of two free throws (last year it was Jose), and VC shoots it from the the top of the arc in almost the exact same spot in the exact same blue jersey.

The Vince Carter 3-point bomb was one thing, but the reverse alley-oop dunk to seal the game on an inbound play? Incomprehensible. Does not compute. I knew, you knew, everybody in the damn city knew who the Nets would try to get the ball to - number 15. Who did the Raptors think it was going to, Yi Jianlian? So HOW in the world did Carter get so wide open, for an ALLEY-OOP nonetheless!!!?? And why was it Jose Calderon that was underneath him as Vince was hanging onto the rim after the heart-breaking jam, for his athleticism? Because he was guarding Devin Harris so well?

The other thing that's really been pissing me off about Sam Mitchell is his accountability, or lack thereof. He never takes blame for any losses or key plays, EVER. It's always the same excuse - "guys just weren't hittin' they SHATS!" Holy crap dude, if just players missing and hitting shots why the hell are you even here??

Sadly this whole rant has been about the incompetence of the Raptors to close out an inferior opponent, I haven't even touched on the hulk like performance of Chris Bosh - 42 pts, 9 rebs, 4 ast., and my boy Andrea Bargnani with a career high of 29 points and GULP!!...TEN boards - yes, a double double folks. Bargs has been just awesome so far this year as the games have gone on, and it's not even just the scoring - he's just so much more aware of things and is bothering players, playing smart position defense, and of course rebouding (slowly yet steadily). I always knew he was gonna come to fruition - not that it's happened fully yet but you're seeing it in front of your eyes. And Chris Bosh..sigh..I mean what more can you say about him? The things this guy does every night leaves me in awe, especially with the effort he puts in whether it's a close game (like last night) or a blowout loss (like at Orlando). I still think a lot of Raptors fans don't appreciate him to the fullest.

The biggest loss from last night is probably the status of Jermaine O'Neal. Who knows how he is, and as soon as he was grabbing his left leg in pain, we were all holding our breath for the 2008-2009 season of Raptors basketball. Sean Williams wasn't trying to hurt him - he made a play for the ball and it just ended up like it did.

By the way, you know what was particularly frustrating about the game? That the Nets made their comeback run with Vince Carter ON THE BENCH mostly. So it was basically Devin Harris and a bunch of scrubs. But that's nothing compared to our joke of a bench I guess. Speaking of Devin Harris, I knew he was good, but I had no idea he was that good. He did whatever he wanted with Jose and made it look elementary.

• Does Jamario Moon realize he's in a contract year? He comes off the bench looking all cocky, plays a couple of minutes, gets the hook and looks like he doesn't even care. Would you really be surprise if he pulls a Duhon soon; skips practice and says "oh well, it's not like I get to play anyway."
  
• I vouch for Kris Humphries. I do..but as soon as he takes a jumpshot I grit my teeth.
  
• Seeing VC's mannerisms during most of the game (when we were winning by double digits) reminded me again why we hate him so much - with his team losing, he's jus tsmiling and joking around with opposing players. But I guess that doesn't matter since, you know..he kinda won the game and all.
• Lawrence Frank is one hell of a coach. Where Sam Mitchell seems to be the weakest, Frank looks the strongest - drawing out of timeout plays.
• Why do the Raptors (so far) always lose a big lead, who do they think they are? Is it because of our new-found confidence with O'Neal we think we can just coast once we have the lead. Are the players conceded? Or is it just that our bench is that atrocious.
• So that's where Keyon Dooling is now, New Jersey. Remember him from last season? About one of the 5 Magic players that were knocking down open threes on us in last year's playoffs.
• Everyone's got their views on this, my take - it's absolutely OK to boo Vince Carter. Every time. From what I've read on message boards, some Raptors fans are saying it makes us look "classless" and "uneducated." Really? Classless? No, classless is how VC himself left, not giving a fuck that people are paying their hard-earned money to come watch his team play and he openly wasn't giving a full-effort and exaggerating injuries whenever he could. And for uneducated? On the contrary again, fans are booing because they know what VC did here (or rather, didn't do) near the end of his tenure with the Raps. So, does it get Vince riled up to perform against us? Probably. And that's okay, we want a game anyway, and it's your money you're paying to come watch the game, so why shouldn't you boo him or any other player? It makes it much more fun and exciting. I think, if we're scared to boo a player because he might go off - that's pathethic. It's on the Raptors players on the floor to stop an opposing player, not the people in the stands.
  

Raps at Miami

Let's try and forget about last night. We all saw how much we need Jose and Chris Bosh is a monster. He competed to the end and if he had any, ANY sort of help we might have won.

• ANDREA BARGNANI!!!! Opens the game with a 3-pointer, swats a shot at the other end, and gets an and-1 on a jumper.
• Its good to see Dwyane Wade back in form - he's been through a lot the last couple of years. Damn this guy is great.
  
• Leo Rautins mentioned that looking at Jermaine O'Neal, he gives you the look that he feels that he owns the paint. Good observation.
• Chris Bosh is tired, understandably so; he played 45 minutes in Orlando last night with no help from his teammates.
• I was curious to see Michael Beasley play and am kind of disappointed so far - he's just hit some jumpshots, and gotten his drives altered and/or blocked by O'Neal and Bosh.
• Raptors were leading by 17, so the second unit was put on, and Dwyane just went on a scoring streak. This guy can do anything he wants.
• I thought last night's was just a random mistake, but Will Solomon has a tendency to jump in the air and then turnover the ball trying to make a desperate, horrible pass.
• Joel Anthony is a shot-blocker after all.
• Start of 4th quarter: Dwyane Wade dunks, and then gives an alley to Marion on a fast break. 6 point game, crowd is ignited.
• Wow, Bosh is 6th in the league in 4th quarter points. Wade is 3rd. No surprise there.
• Will Solomon just bricked an open jumper, came back and fouled Wade, then drew a technical for arguing the call. I'll say it again, I don't like him. At all. Leo Rautins makes a good point of saying Solomon hasn't been in the league long enough to look to the refs for respect.
• Will Solomon just turned the ball over on a bad cross-court pass. Mitchell calls time-out and is going to put in Jose. Should've done this two possessions ago.
• OMG Dwyane Wade just had a SICK dunk, just drove straight down the middle. That's about his what - third or fourth dunk - just making our perimeter players look dumb.
• Parker hits a big 3 from the corner to put us up again after Wade has been completely tearing us up.
• Parker just hit a HARD fadeaway on D-Wade, who looked back at him in surprise.
  
• JOSE!!!!! Caldy just stole it off Quinn, then made a determined drive with his tweaked ankle and put it in with the opposite hand off glass. We missed you bud. Hope his ankle isn't something too serious though :ss
• PARKER FOR THREE!! What a clutch bucket, but Wade keeps coming back and scoring. 4-point game.
  
• Bargnani interviews are entertaining because he's so blunt and simple and that's not a bad thing. Rautins asks him about his great start tonight, and Bargnani replies (I'm paraphrasing here): "Yeah. Yesterday I shot bad, today I was shooting well so it was a good day."
  
• Good victory over all, should'n't have been this hard, but our 2nd unit sucks and when you have Dwyane Wade on the other side he can take over the game like that.
  

Bargnani for starter

Sam Mitchell gave Bargnani a chance to start and he performed well with 12 points, 4 boards, 3 assists and a steal against the Heat. That illusive frontline of Bosh, O'Neal and Bargnani us Raptors fans drool about might be more frequent than we thought.

• Funny how Jamario Moon had 8 points, 4 boards, 2 blocks and a steal after being relegated to coming off the bench. He hustled, and didn't settle for (his ugly) jumpshots.
• It's good to Kris Humphries on the court again, I feel for the guy..kind of. He's always been productive when given the playing time, and I think Jack Armstrong is dead on when he said Humphries is good for the Raps in that he's more of a physical, hustling player and it's good for the team for the Raptors tend to 'get cute and start settling for jumpshots' (I'm paraphrasing here).
• Who was that guy who started in place of Jose Calderon? OMG...it's true, it was Will Solomon. Played great with 15 points, 11 assists, 4 rebounds and a steal despite the 4 turnovers. Maybe this guy can work out after all, who knows.
• Sam Mitchell was wearing glasses again. Worth mentioning, no?
• Jermaine O'Neal with 18 rebounds..EIGHTEEN. WOW. He's been getting better and better as the season started.
  
• Nathan Jawai might never play in the NBA. It seemed too good to be true from the start (you know, getting him so late in the draft while apparently other teams wanted him really badly because of his potential).
• 
  

The writing's on the wall: Hawks expose Raps' wings

The Hawks routed the Raptors 110-92 in another frustrating game. What makes it really frustrating is that if we can climb back from a 16-point deficit against the mighty Pistons, we should be able to hang in there with the Hawks..right? ATL showed our most glaring weakness: the wing positions. You knew it, I knew it, and it only took the fifth game to be utterly exposed for lack of depth at the SG and SF spots. Anthony Parker is a wonderful and player, but realistically he can't guard the opponent's star players every night with success. Then there's Moon, who's got the tools but is a liability on offense (why does he take jumpers? Why?). In a league full of athletic, star wingmen, that's the one spot that will just KILL us night in and night out.

I know players, and collectively, teams have off-nights but that was just embarrassing. Watching the Hawks run practice drills up and down the court and nail 3's was gasping. Gotta give it to the Hawks; they look GOOD. After last year's run at almost knocking out the champs, things looked hopeful but then their summer moves, or lack of - like letting Josh Childress flee to Greece - and playing the waiting game until finally giving Josh Smith a contract - made the Hawks look like their old-self: laughing stock. The Raps are familiar with this. Anyways, Atlanta looks...dangerous. When you take a moment and look at their squad, you feel like "Holy shit, they're stacked. Why haven't they been winning the past couple of years?" Well because they're management has been shit, and when you're consistently in the lottery you're bound to come out with top picks. By the way Joe Johnson, where where ya all these years? Oh yeah that's right, rotting right where you are, in ATL except now it looks like it could work out. Still can't believe he left Steve Nash and Phoenix to be 'the guy' and it cost him a good number of years being a bottom feeder. But the guy is highly skilled and showed it last night - that crossover dribble with the stepback 3 on Moon was ridiculous. He had just a decent 17 points, but if you watched the game it seemed like much more as he was getting just anything he wanted.

The one positive - although I'm not much for moral victories - was that Jermaine O'Neal was awesome offensively. He admitted before last night's game that he's been frustrated and is puzzled why he hasn't been hitting his shots. Many believe that he wasn't that good of a shooter+scorer to begin with, but he still has potent offense left and he displayed that last night with 17 points himself until he was subbed as the game was out of hand pretty much.

The one thing that I'll never be able to figure out is how Sam Mitchell picks his lineups. Why did Will Solomon play before Roko Ukic, and when Ukic finally was on the court, why with Jose? I mean I get Smitch was desperate and just looking for anything at that point, but did he really think it was gonna be any better with Ukic guarding a bigger guy when Joe Johnson was already posting up Jose and doing whatever he wanted? I remember reading Hollinger commenting on new players in the NBA this year and about Will Solomon he said he's gonna be a bust and isn't NBA worthy. I thought that was kinda harsh at the time, but now I wish Solomon wasn't well, not in the NBA, but just not on the Raptors. I think I'd almost rather have Derek Martin instead. Almost.

I loved Chris Bosh's technical foul. Loved it. I say even just one year ago he doesn't do that; last year, there's no way he gets pissed about non-calls while making his move to the basket and even when gets the shot in he still jaws at the ref, gets the technical and then walks up to him to let him know what the deal is. That was great to see. That's what the Olympics has done to him, and also the addition of Jermaine O'Neal I think. O'Neal has, what, at least two techs already and we're only 5 games into the season? Great. Seriously. The Raptors hold the record with the least technical fouls per season or something like that, so this is good to see.

• Bargnani is coming along nicely. I really think so. As soon as he was on the court, he had those back to back possessions where he got the ball down low and just made strong, assertive moves. Here's hoping he's starting to 'get it. '
• Mike Bibby is on the Hawks, remember him?
• Marvin Williams needs to shave that mustache, it looks just awful.
• Good to see Mike Woodson still with the head coaching job for the Hawks, dude had it BAD these past few years; not his fault he didn't have the talent to show if he could actually coach. Looks weird with a shaved head though.
  
• Kapono, if he misses more than two shots, is really annoying to watch. And where did those floaters come from!?
  
• That fast-break play where Moon passed it up to a trailing Jose just summed up the frustration I have with him. You're the most athletic guy on the team (maybe Joey who knows), you have crazy hops, you're on the fast break with just one guy in front of you, and you ...pass it up to a guy who's behind you? How could he not try to destroy the rim with a dunk and most likely end up at the free throw line? I guess passing it to Jose was still better than him stopping and popping that nasty looking shot he has.