What do you do when you are missing 3 of your top 7 players? You ride Bosh and Ford for big minutes. It was great to see the two come back from two weak games and carry the undermanned Raptors against an underachieving Magic team. When I heard Bargnani had an appendectomy, I did a double take until I realized he is only 21, and still going through puberty. It is easy to forget most of these guys are still kids, and will be prone to these sorts of things. Swirsky mentioned Bargnani likes Boston Pizza, which was also troubling for me, lol. How can you come from Italy, and eat at that place? It is probably the worst food in history. I have been there once too many (literally have been there once) and boycotted that joint, but I digress…
I must say that Mitchell did a stand up job tonight from the sidelines. Every decision, from my perspective, was the right one:
- Playing Bosh and TJ most of the game
- Resting Bosh in the 4th right before the TV timeout
- The rotation was nice and tight (Darrick Martin didn’t see a lot of time on the court)
- Pape Sow even got some seconds
Humphries and Graham had pretty decent games. Humphries tried to do a little too much on offense a couple possessions, and Graham floats too much on defense. Coach mentioned in an article that Graham is suffering from recurring timidy, but I think it is the opposite: he is always timid, and has bouts of balling. Peterson is still suffering from samplayme, and it seems that condition will worsen.
That run at the start of the 4th coupled with the Magic’s horrible free throw shooting was the game. If I was a Magic fan, I would have been pulling out my hair. They missed 13 free throws, and lost by 7…you do the math. Absolutely unacceptable. You hit half those missed free throws, and it is a totally different game.
I am starting to get a little sick of the high pick and roll, and the Raptors didn’t play well against the zone defense, but the Magic stopped playing it, which was confusing. I personally needed this game because I am still pissed off over that Knicks loss - that one is going to sting me for a couple more days.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:55 pm
A good game, but not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. This is what good teams do. Great teams do this more often… hopefully we get there one day. The bargnani incident was scary …. the guy just seems like one of those kids who wouldn’t hurt a fly, as such I wish him all the best. From a raptors perspective i’m a little concerned about the extended layoff, it’s gonna be tough to adjust when he does come back around playoff time. Ala sundin injured but coming back in the conference finals against carolina to see the leafs lose…. Lets hope it doesn’t work out that way for us.
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:00 am
I will take winning ugly to losing pretty anyday. I can’t see Bargnani coming back and being the same guy for the first round of the playoffs. That kind of surgery is kinda serious, and because of where it is, movement will be tough for him. I wouldn’t even risk it at this point personally.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
First off…I love Boston Pizza, secondly I loved last nights game against Orlando. An Ugly win is still a win and if the Raps want to be contenders they are going to need to step up and win those ugly games. I agree with Raps Fan about Mitchell’s coaching tonight. he utilized his timeouts and the tv timeouts and he rode Bosh and Ford the entire game. i like what Humphrises did aswell, he played hard D on Howard and ran the floor. (did you guys know he was a scorer in college? he was the #1 option on the Golden Gophers) With a depleted lineup the raps will need their bench to be HUGE. Friday against the Nuggets will be a tough game, but i dont see Nene, Camby or Mello stopping Bosh downlow, but what a match up between Ford and AI…those are two of the fastest G’s I’ve ever seen.
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Friday will be tough. Denver is big up front, so we will see how the guys do. Humphries and Garbajosa will have to play big, Nesterovic is fairly consistant, and Bosh…we all know what Bosh should do. Humphries forced his offence a couple times, and that made me pull out some hair. His buckets should only come on put back, and transition layups. Not force to the key for tough jumpers. College stats don’t mean jack, Araujo did something like 18pts and 10reb during his senior year at BYU, lol, but there is no doubt Humphries is leagues better than that guy.
March 22nd, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Boston pizza sucks you need to get out more.
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
thanks for your advice. i’ll try to correct the blank sites.
the game vs. the nuggets shd. be a great one. much challenging that the magic game. i see the raps losing if they don’t play extra well . denver is on a 5 game winning streak before being beaten by the bulls last night on a last sec tip in by thomas .
March 23rd, 2007 at 5:25 pm
hopefully they will be tired on the tail end of a back-to-back. the Raptors will need to get out and running early. bosh and ford will probably have to log 40+ minutes for this game, or get some serious help from the rest of the guys.