Built Ford Tough

I hate them. I need my beauty sleep. But yeah, I just woke up so not much to say. Bosh seems to be scoring the ball well, but also seems to be having troubles with the stiffling defense that Boston plays. Have his 4 turnovers been forced as a result of doubles and intense pressure, or has he just made some mental mistakes? I can live with the first one, but you can't live with the 2nd one when playing a team like the Celtics.

Is this game even worth waking up at 10AM for? Sunday is the only day that I actually get to sleep in. Hmm... <_<

I try. On the move by Bosh at the end though, it was definitely a nice move on Bosh's behalf, but even though I am a Raptors fan and it could very well have been the difference in the game, he got a very generous continuation call on that play. When I was watching the play happen, obviously I was excited at first but after seeing the replay, it definitely looked to me that the foul had occured on the floor and Bosh was not in the act. I'll take it though, as like I said above, it basically sealed the Raptors victory. If it would've been a 1 point lead only, I definitely think that Iverson would've hit a game winning shot with how effective he was at backing his man off and pulling up from mid range all game long. I was very pleased to see Bosh not settle for a jumper on that play though. Dalembert is a pretty good defender, but there are only a select few players in the NBA who can stop Bosh from driving to the hoop when he sets his mind to it, and Samuel Dalembert is not one of those players. It was a very nice move and a very impressive finish with his off-hand.

Well the Raptors usually always have one game against the Celtics were they give them all that they can handle, and that game is usually at home, so going off of recent history, the Raptors are bound to have a very good game against the Celtics. Maybe that game will be on Sunday? The Raptors are also 4-4 at home against teams that are above .500 this season, so that is another decent sign.

Rocky doesn't make the count, and those damn Europeans win! Wow, I just read my posts and this Rocky analogy makes me sound really stupid.

But wait, Drago (Bosh this time) gets up at the last second and throws a huge haymaker right in the face of Rocky (Dalembert) and gets continuation on the play!

And Rocky (Sammy D) with a huge putback slam. Down goes Drago (Raptors)! Down goes Drago!

Raps are going to find a way to blow this game in the final minut. Ivereson is going to go vintage AI on their asses. Oh its over now. Rocky theme song playing = Raptors going down like Ivan Drago in Rocky 4! :glasses:

They will fall apart soon enough and blow a very winnable game in the 2nd half. They are, after all, the TORONTO RAPTORS. EDIT: NVM, just turned back to the game and noticed the score. I thought you were serious and the Raptors made a run or something, lol.

I think that I am going to stop giving the Raptors any sort of praise. It seems that every time I say something good about the Raptors, they always lay an egg and disapoint me. From now on, I am going to be a constanst pessimist.

Wow, why does Dalembert continue to believe that he is not a complete srub offensively? If I was a Sixers fan I would go absolutely nuts having to watch this bonehead night in and night out. Just stick to playing defense, you big dummy. Terrible start for the Raptors. Pathetic play offensively and a disinterested effort defensively. Raptors better go after Dalembert next possession. He is a very foul prone player so there is no excuse not getting that 3rd foul on him here.

Bargnani gets shafted on the offensive end of the floor and gets an absolute joke of a foul call on him on the defensive end of the floor. Good god, he always seems to get shafted by the refs. It is really getting old. Good to see him showing some emotion and getting T'd up. Hopefully this will get him some calls down the road.

^^^ What exactly does Stuckey playing tomorrow have to do with todays game between the Raptors and Sixers? lol Iverson is playing tonight as well. I hate watching the Raptors and Sixers games. Watching Iguodala play against Toronto makes me get flash backs of the Babcock era and makes me wonder what should've been.

I think a lot of it has to do with the team getting more accustomed to playing with each other. The team underwent a complete overhaul in the summer and only had 3 players returning from last season (well, 3 people who actually play a role on the team other than cheerleader) and there was bound to be some chemistry issues, especially with the fact that the Raptors played their first 30 games in like 53 days or something, leaving little time for practice. They didn't communicate very well defensively from what I could see (hard to get a real accurate judgement watching games on TV though) and the team didn't really know what to expect from each other. After playing together for a while they seem to finally get each others tendancies on the defensive end of the floor which is making their help defense better. Confidence is probably the most substantial reason though. The Raptors have went on a nice streak as of late and you can see them playing with more intensity and passion defensively. They are getting wins which is making everybody give more of an effort to do the little things on defense that are required to win games. With them winning games they seem to be more confident in each other and are playing with more passion as a result. Obviously the stretch of games where they played weaker teams has helped boost their defensive stats as well, but considering these same weaker teams have torched the Raptors earlier in the season, any improvement is more than welcome.

If worst came to worst, I think that I would possibly consider accepting a trade with Calderon involved, but the Rockets would have to include more in the deal than what I had originally stated. If they threw in another pick or two, I would possibly consider that deal. If it was me though, I would definitely try and make any possible deal for Bosh include Turkoglu because his contract is the worst one on the team, if they were to go ahead and try and rebuild. I think that Calderon could be shipped off by himself for a team that is looking for a point guard down the stretch as he still has some value despite his relatively poor play this season. I would try to keep Calderon simply because I see the Raptors having a much greater chance of moving him than Turkoglu, despite the fact that Turk is definitely the better player of the two but if the Rockets sweetened the post a little bit, not sure how exactly, I would consider making a move if Calderon is involved, although I can't say for sure if I would actually pull the trigger or not. Like I said above though, unless the Raptors get absolutely blown away by an offer, I don't think that Bosh is going anywhere until the summer, and if he does leave it will be via a sign and trade.

Well then it would be an automatic no from the Raptors as well, if I was in charge. That package is hardly appealing if you ask me. If the Raptors are trading Bosh I'm not doing it unless you get legit young talent in return or if the other team is willing to take on Hedo's contract. Since neither scenario is happening, I see no reason why the Raptors should trade Bosh to Houston. McGrady's expiring deal is nice, but it hardly means anything as it would only put the raptors $10M or so under the cap and they would still have absolutely no options heading forward as their hands would be tied with the contracts of Turkoglu, Calderon and Bargnani.

As a Raptors fan I don't consider this deal for a second unless the Rockets are including McGrady's expiring deal AND take Hedo Turkoglu with Bosh. If the Raptors are trading Bosh they are going to enter into a rebuilding phase and that means that if I were the GM, I would not even consider a trade that doesn't include McGrady's expiring contract. I would also push for the Rockets to have to take on Hedo Turkoglu as well, because his contract is going to be a killer on a team that is looking to rebuild. Something like this would have to be the base of the trade: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yzq4l7p To Houston Chris Bosh Hedo Turkoglu To Toronto Tracy McGrady Carl Landry/Luis Scola (doesn't matter which one really) Aaron Brooks Draft picks This trade gives the Rockets a star big man and a very good role player in Turkoglu, while the Raptors get the cap relief that they would want, as well as a solid point guard in Aaron Brooks and some late draft picks. To be perfectly honest though, I wouldn't even consider trading Bosh at this point in time. I wouldn't make any move before the deadline, and even then, I don't think that I would trade Bosh at all. Worst comes to worst, the Raptors trade Bosh in a sign and trade in the offseason. That way Bosh gets the extra year and higher increases on his contract and the Raptors get something of value to compensate for the loss of Bosh.

He doesn't have a sprained foot, like they originally diagnosed. It turns out that he actually tore the Lisfranc ligament in his foot, which is the space between the bones of the forefoot and the midfoot and keeps all of bones in the foot in the proper place (or something along those lines). Here is a diagram of it that I found posted on another message board: http://xnet.kp.org/permanentejournal/winter09/winter09images/footFig3Big.jpg This is the reason why it is taking so long, because the injury is more severe than they originally diagnosed. I remember hearing about it on Raptors TV a couple of days ago and I also read about it on another message board.

Best Offensive Weapon: Chris Bosh Best Defensive Weapon:Jarrett Jack Biggest Disappointment: Jose Calderon Biggest Surprise: Jarrett Jack Grade: B Read the entire article here: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=14901 Jarrett Jack is definitely not the biggest surprise of the season for the team, that would have to be Amir Johnson. Jack was given the majority of the MLE, and when you give a player the MLE obviously you are expecting him to be a fairly significant contributor to the team, and I know that Jack was expected to have a fairly substantial role this season. On the other hand, Johnson was expected to be a bench warmer for the Raptors this season and only see minutes in garbage time, but instead, he has been the best Raptor off of the bench all season long for the Raptors, and arguably their best defensive player as well, which leads me to my next complaint about this article. Jarrett Jack has not been the best defensive player for the Raptors this season either. His defense has been mediocore at best all season long, and it only looks somewhat decent because he replaced Calderon, who is arguably the worst defensive player in the league. Just because the Raptors have played better defense over the last little while doesn't mean that Jack was the cause of it. The Raptors entire team as a whole have played improved defense over the last little while. Amir Johnson has been the Raptors best defensive player so far this season, but even if you want to give it to a player who has a more promminent role on the team, Bosh deserves it more than Jack does. I agree with the other two catagories, but those are basically a given.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add something to that last post of mine. After the next two games, both of which are against divisional opponents, the Raptors will have played 5 games against Atlantic Division teams, 3 of those games will have been against the Boston Celtics. So that means that over the next 44 games, the Raptors will play the New Jersey Nets 3 more times (2 road, 1 home), the Philadelphia 76'ers 3 more times(1 road, 2 home), the New York Knicks 4 times (2 road, 2 home) and the Boston Celtics 1 more time (home) for a total of 11 games against Atlantic Division teams. So that means 25% of the Raptors next 44 games will come against Atlantic Division teams, who have a combined winning percentage of 38.6% including Boston and 26.4% excluding Boston. This is definitely something to look forward to if you are a Raptor fan, if you ask me.

Raptors are now only half a game back of the Heat for 5th place in the East and 3 of their next 4 games are against teams under .500 (Philly, Indy, New York). Like I said earlier in this thread though, if they can keep pace with the Heat until the end of January, they can really make a move during Feburary where they play Indiana, NJ twice, Philly, Washington, Sacramento, Memphis, Portland, Cleveland and OKC. 7 of these 10 games are also home games, where the Raptors play much better basketball, and 2 of those 3 road games come against Indiana and New Jersey (OKC being the other one). If the Raptors can continue to stay around the .500 mark for the rest of this month, they could really make a move in Feburary. Who knows, with the way the Hawks have been playing of late, combined with a relatively easy schedule for the majority of the season, the Raptors may be able to make a push for the 4th seed and homecourt advantage in the first round of the playoffs, although I wouldn't hold my breath for that one, lol. Winning 2 out of 3 against the Celtics, Spurs and Magic were huge though. Being .500 right now probably wasn't a realistic possibility in most Raptors fans. To be honest, this is probably the first time since the 2nd week of the season or so that I am actually optimistic about this team. I still think that they are going to be a quick exit in the playoffs, but no longer do I think that they are going to be fighting tooth and nail to just get into the playoffs.

Miami lost to the Celtics tonight as well, which means that the Raptors are only a half game back of the 5th seed, at least I think. It is only a game or so at the most. Even though this game shouldn't have been this close, I'm almost glad that the Magic got back into the game as the Raptors did a good job of not breaking despite the refs seemingly being on the Magic's side, having the home crowd against them and all of the other cliches that you can throw out there. This win might give them more confidence than a blow out win would've because they were able to shut the door down the stretch. Or, I could be simply grasping for straws here and looking for a positive in what should've been a fairly routine win, lol. One thing that I definitely liked was the scoring balance tonight for the Raptors. Turkogu had 17, Bosh and Bargnani both had 18, DeRozan had 12, Jack had 15 or so and Belinelli had 10. Raptors are definitely a more dangerous team when people other than Bosh are scoring, and tonight highlighted that in both the good way, and the bad way.

It kills me to say this, but glad Boston won. Raptors are now a half game back (I think) of Miami for the 5th seed. :glasses:

Lmao. "Dwyane Wade did it. He makes the impossible, probable." As he drains a fairly wide open three pointer. Gotta love the enthusiasim of the Heat announcers.

Holy [expletive], what a play by the Celtics. Amazing execution and great finish by Rondo. What an amazing last 3 seconds of play.