A lot of Raptor fans were certainly not expecting a win against Dallas last night. Sure, Dirk wasn’t playing for Dallas, but the Raptors leading scorer, starting PG and sometimes starting SF were out with injuries. And arguably the team’s most productive player, Amir Johnson, was nursing a back that made him walk like a 70 year old former professional wrestler.

Although the Raptors frontline hasn’t played well without Bargnani in the 3 previous games he’s missed this season, those games were against Chicago, the Lakers and Memphis- three teams with very big and very strong front lines. A frontline rotation of Amir Johnson, Joey Dorsey and Ed Davis have the ability to play very good team defense, but are too undersized (height and weight-wise) to be able to bang with the big boys. Amir and Davis weigh barely more than I do, despite being a foot taller, and while Dorsey has bulk, he’s woefully short to defend against 7 footers.

Yes, Dallas has Tyson Chandler and Brendan Haywood, but Chandler is like a taller Ed Davis and Haywood has been mostly a non-factor this year. And outside of them, they don’t really have a true PF without Dirk. With Dallas not having a Carlos Boozer, Pau Gasol or Zach Randolph-type guy who can bully the Raptors “big” men, Toronto’s frontline dominated. They outrebounded Dallas 42-35 and Amir and Davis protected the paint with Davis getting credited for 3 blocks, but altering at least twice that.

Speaking of Davis, this was by far the best game of his young career. He got career highs in scoring (17), rebounding (12), blocks (3) and steals (3), as well as free throws attemtped (8) and made (5). While his struggles against the bigger, stronger players shows how much he needs to add bulk and strength, a game like this shows how good he can be and what kind of impact he can have on the game.

A quick look at Amir’s stats won’t impress, but if anyone who has had back spasms can tell you, going out and playing the way he did, and playing a game and season high 42 minutes, is truly impressive. The guy hustled, defended and did everything he needed to do for the Raptors to win. It’s games like this that highlight why I believe that Amir is the most important player on the Raptors, and the only player on the roster, currently, who I can see starting on a Championship team. More on that in a future post.

DeMar DeRozan has gotten a lot of criticism lately, with a lot of people questioning his future, but in the the last ten games he’s averaged 14.5 ppg on 47% shooting, while getting to the line 5 times a game. Not spectacular, but numbers more in line with what was expected of him at the beginning of the year. And best of all, his jumper actually is starting to fall with some consistency. Against Dallas, he hit 6-10 from outside 10 feet, including a 23 foot jumper with about a minute left that pretty much sealed the game for the Raptors. It seems as though he’s starting to turn the corner, which is nice to see. He still needs to improve his defense, but he’s shown flashes of ability in that area which makes me think he’s still got the potential to be a good defender.

Jerryd Bayless had a much better game against Dallas than he did in his last start against Chicago, even though he scored 16 fewer points and shot 2-10 from the field. Why? Because he actually did his job as a PG against Dallas. Against Chicago, he might have scored well and played good defense against Derrick Rose, but his inability to run the offense killed the Raptors’ chances. In Dallas, Bayless still played excellent defense, but dished out 8 assists while helping the Raptors offense run much more smoothly. When he went out, I thought the Raptors would be in trouble.

On a side note, I can’t tell you how much I related to what happened with Bayless. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I turned my ankle badly during a pickup game, but stayed on the court against my better judgement (and those of the other players) only to land on someone’s foot several minutes later after a jumpshot and rolling the same ankle. This time, though, I had to be helped off the floor and was out for nearly a month. Playing hurt while risking further injury in completely meaningless games has been a theme in my basketball life. One of these days I’m going to list the number of injuries of had playing a sport my body wishes I never took up. And this is exactly why, when people ask whether my daughters will ever take up the sport, I laugh and shake my head. Not in a million years. Not after seeing how their father comes home on some nights.

Anyway, I really hope Bayless isn’t out for too long, but he strikes me as the type of player who is not going to be kept down for long, whether he’s hurting or not. I’m not convinced Bayless will ever be a starting PG in the NBA, but the more I see how competitive and driven he is, the more I like the guy and think he’s the type of guy I’d want on my team.

Now, Linus Kleiza should definitely be ashamed of being thrown out of a game his scoring was so desperately needed in, but while he was on the court, he was the Raptor’s best scorer. And I do love his toughness and willingness to piss people off, something the Raptors have not had much of lately. While Reggie Evans and Joey Dorsey are certainly physically more impressive, Kleiza is the Raptor I’d probably want to piss off the least. He’s had more altercations with opposing players than any other Raptor this season, and seems like he’d think nothing of clocking his opponent if he could get away with it. I don’t know how much he’d play on a better team, but I like him for right now.

Lastly, Julian Wright missed both of his field goal attempts and didn’t score a point in 26 points, but that goes to show you how little stats can matter (except for the final score). He played his ass off, defended as well as anyone on the court and was the second best passer on the Raptors. Him launching himself after that loose ball he had no real hope of getting should earn him more minutes, if nothing else. If I were Sonny Weems, I’d be incredibly worried seeing what Kleiza and Wright have done with more playing time.

Raptor fans had better savour this win because it might be the last in a while.

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I didn’t actually watch the Spurs-Lakers game, but a quick look at the box score highlighted something that I will discuss in a later post. Tim Duncan scored just 2 points (shooting 1-7), grabbed just 4 rebounds and blocked 0 shots in 27 minutes last night. What’s more important is that the Spurs won by 15, the Lakers shot just 35% and Duncan had the best +/- number on the floor (+18). Again, more on that in another post.

There’s a line of thought among some Raptor fans that Chris Bosh is not worth the maximum contract, and that the Raptors should let him go (either via trade or sign-and-trade) and build around Bargnani and the rest of the Raptors. To put it mildly, these people are morons who have no business watching an NBA game let alone sharing their opinions on one. Okay, maybe that’s not putting it mildly.

When Turkoglu got an elbow to the face, two thoughts came to mind. The first is that I really feel for Turkoglu because I know how it feels. I once got a shoulder hit just below my eye that felt like it completely collapsed my face. I’ve been hit (and hurt) many times and kept playing, but this was different and knew it. I first checked to see if all my teeth were intact (I’ve lost a tooth playing ball before), and then checked my nose to make sure it was still where it was supposed to be. Stupidly, I did go back in when I discovered my face still intact, despite the fact I was seeing double (slightly). The most shocking thing was when I finally looked in the mirror and saw that my face looked, for the most part, normal. I had expected a look similar to Rocky after fighting Apollo Creed the first time. There was a little swelling, but no bruising at all.

It turned out I had fractured my orbit bone and it was more than six months before I got most of the feeling back in my face and to this day, I don’t have all of it back (it’s been nearly two years). The worst part about having no feeling in part of your face is showering. Since you can’t actually feel the water on you, you can’t tell if you haven’t washed the soap off. It was very odd and not the least bit pleasant.

But I digress.

The second thing I thought about was how the Raptors won’t necessarily miss Turkoglu if he doesn’t come back in the game. The great thing about this Raptors team, as I’ve mentioned before, is the bench. Unlike last season, when an injury to any of the key players was devastating, this year there’s only one player who is irreplaceable. And that’s Chris Bosh. When Turkoglu went out, I knew that between Wright, Weems and Belinelli, the Raptors would be able to absorb his loss. Obviously those same players make DeRozan’s absence not even missed, and Jack and Calderon can both start, which makes an injury to one of them a non-issue, especially when Banks played so well during Calderon’s missed games, and Belinelli is a capable enough ball handler and passer that he can play the point in a pinch. Even Bargnani can be replaced by Nesterovic and Johnson. They don’t have Bargnani’s scoring touch, but are better rebounders and play well alongside Bosh.

Bosh, however, cannot be lost for long without the team going into a tailspin. You see, Bosh is the only consistent scorer and rebounder the Raptors have. Bargnani can have great scoring bursts and is the second leading scorer on the team, but he’s too inconsistent to be relied on as the team’s first option. He relies too much on people creating for him and doesn’t get to the line enough. And he’s the second best scorer. Nine times he has not scored more than 12 points in a game. Compare that with Bosh’s 2.  And one of those two, Bosh only played 15 minutes.

And it can’t be written off to Bosh taking more shots than Bargnani because Bosh only takes two more shots a game. Besides, a lot of times, good players make their own shots. Bosh gets two more shots than Bargnani because he gets himself the shot. Bargnani, for all his talent, doesn’t do that, which is why he goes through so many scoring droughts.

And, needless to say, Bargnani is not going to be able to cover Bosh’s rebounding. The only two player on the roster who can consistently rebound at a rate similar to Bosh (Evans and Johnson) are both foul prone and don’t bring the scoring the Raptors would need if they lost Bosh.

The Raptors can go small to score more, with Turkoglu shifting to PF, but they’d suffer on the boards. If they insert Johnson or Evans into the PF slot, they suffer in the scoring department.

Let’s hope Bosh re-signs, because if he leaves, the Raptors will be in trouble.

SOARING RAPTORS

In ESPN’s recent Power Rankings, the Raptors are ranked #7. Okay, Mark Stein is one of the few American sports writers who is actually unbiased when it comes to things north of the border, but it’s still a great indication of how far the Raptors have come since their slow start in November.

Can I point out something I probably shouldn’t? The Raptors are only 4 1/2 games behind a struggling Celtics team that has gone 6-11 since winning against Orlando on Christmas day.  And speaking of the Celtics, I’ve been suspicious of Garnet’s knee injury from day one. I didn’t like how little the Celtics said, even as the Celtics went into the second round. I didn’t like that little was revealed over the summer about exactly what was wrong with his knee, and I didn’t like how he looked at the start of the season. Sure, he’s had a few big games, but when a player limps, it’s a bad, bad thing. It means two things. One is that he’s not fully healed, and the other is that he’ll probably have problems due to favouring the other leg. Well, it’s already past the halfway point and he’s still having problems with the knee. I think they may be in trouble.

DIVISIONAL RACES

While the race in the east is for the 2nd spot among the contenders (as long as Cleveland doesn’t falter without Mo Williams), and the 5th spot among the pretenders (of which the Raptors are included), in the West, the big race is to see who’s going to make it to the big dance. Currently, there are 6 teams within 2 games of one another, and only 3 of them are going to make the playoffs. Right now, Oklahoma City, Memphis, and Houston are on the outside looking in, but no one would be surprised if all three make the playoffs. Portland is in danger of not making the playoffs, and New Orleans will certainly drop without Chris Paul for a month or two (due to knee surgery).  I’m going to guess that at least a couple of those six teams are going to try and make a deal to better their chance.

TRADES

What on earth is this nonsense about Philly thinking of trading Igoudala. Is he really the problem on this team? And trading him for McGrady? What good would that do? Think they regret letting Andre Miller go? Okay, maybe they don’t, but they should. Personally, Igoudala should be one of the last players they should trade.

If they are intent on trading Igoudala, something crossed my mind. Now as regular readers know, I’m not for trading Calderon, but if Philadelphia offered Igoudala for Calderon, DeRozan and Wright, I’d think long and hard. DeRozan has a lot of potential, but realistically, you’ve got to hope that he’ll be as good as Igoudala. Calderon’s playmaking will be missed, but as I stated above, he’s not indispensable. The addition of Igoudala would give the Raptors an incredible starting five, a top defender, another playmaker and a very good scorer in Igoudala. He’d also immediately become the Raptors second leading rebounder.

The Sixers would get their point guard, and DeRozan would be a prospect that could eventually replace Igoudala.

“For an unathletic white guy, these are the best shoes to wear”

Am I the only one that thinks this is the perfect marketing slogan?

Am I the only one who now wants to rush out and buy these shoes, and I don’t buy basketball shoes for any other reason than they are on sale and will hold up to my periodic jogging up and down the court a couple of times a week.