It’s too bloody painful to think about this game, let alone recap it, but since I’ve undertaken the task of keeping a Raptor blog, duty calls.
Nowitzki willed Mavs through The problem with the Raptors isn’t that they can’t play defense, the problem is they can’t do it for more than 25 minutes a game. Plus, they have a nasty habit of not playing the full 48 minutes. A sense of complacency just sets in and they assume the other team to just fold when their down. In the last three games against Milwaukee, Boston and Dallas, the Raptors expected to win the game early on either because the opponent was decimated by injury or down early. So when the biggest goof-up between Bosh and Morris Peterson led Josh Howard a wide-open layup with 0.9 seconds left, I can truly say that I wasn’t surprised.
Getting to the technicalities of the game, being a -10 on the offensive glass did the Raptors in. Allowing Dallas 14 extra shots at the rim is never a good sign, especially when it’s Dirk Nowtizki (38, 11, 5) taking the shots. Chris Bosh should be praised for coming down with 15 rebounds but it must be said that he bailed the Dallas defense out too many times by settling for jumpers. It’s a disease that has no cure and you must show self-restraint, something Bosh is still learning.
I want to say a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to Rasho Nesterovic for putting up 2 defensive rebounds in a game where he was needed the most. Saying he was ineffective against Dampier would be too kind, if anything, he may as well be sitting next to me watching the game. How an able-bodied 7-footer have such a minimal impact on a game is beyond my comprehension. The Raptors should hire a prison warden to teach Rasho toughness because if we have any chance of going anywhere this season, he needs to play better. Dirk Nowitzki also showed Andrea Bargnani that he has a loooooong way to go before he comes close to the German and I hope this performance quiets their comparison for a while. The rookie’s falling in love with the three and not at all using his post-up game, even when smaller guards are on him.
If you allow Jason Terry and Jerry Stackhouse to remain unmolested on open jumpers, you deserve to lose the way you do. Let’s attribute the Dallas comeback to poor defense, complacency, bad shot-selection and failing to recognize that a team is down and hammering them while they’re kneeling. But why are the players completely confused on the final play of the game? Did Avery Johnson draw up such a magnificent play that it fooled two seemingly mentally able people like Mo Pete and Chris Bosh? Or maybe a better explanation is that Sam Mitchell’s defensive plan had such a big hole that Josh Howard could fit in it. Why two of his players ended up leaving Josh Howard for a wide open game-winning layup can only be explained by Mitchell. Maybe he called “no-switch” in the huddle before the play and then changed it to “switch” midway through. Maybe it was just Mo Pete who got really confused. Either way, this stuff shouldn’t happen in the NBA. This is schoolyard stuff and Mitchell/Mo Pete got schooled.
So after riding the deep end of the bench for a season, David Beckham has left European football in favor of cold hard cash. It’s a wise decision on part of Beckham who would be a retarded monkey to turn down that kind of money just to watch European games from the dugout. He’s not a bad player by a lengthy stretch of the imagination but he’s also not one that automatically deserves a start in a semi-decent club, so in other words he’s a mediocre enough player who can’t possibly match what he does on the pitch to the hype that surrounds him. Although that may be a problem in the European leagues, here at MLS, they don’t need him to score on every free-kick or setup a goal each game. Even though he’s making more money than the square of every other player in the league combined, the pressure to produce isn’t there.
Let me elaborate. As you might have guessed, he’s not here to score goals but to sell jerseys and more importantly soccer. North American 18-24 year olds haven’t accepted soccer as a mainstream sport and this move will be great publicity for the team and league and will help market to the target demographic. David Beckham instantly joins the top-tier sports celebrities in the country and can be mentioned with the same, perhaps even greater, gravitational pull as Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods. You could even argue that he is the most recognizable athlete in the world. How great is that for soccer in North America? Having Posh Spice as your wife and living in Los Angeles won’t hurt either and the media circus surrounding him will make sure he’s getting enough airtime so the stay-at-home mom’s know all about him. I can already picture the losers at Entertainment Tonight airing a 1-hour special on how Victoria Beckham dissed Lindsay Lohan at a bar. Speaking of the Spice Girls in the United States, this clip from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart still cracks me up.
Now I don’t know much at all about the LA Galaxy or the MLS but I’ve seen some games and you can safely conclude that Beckham will stand out in terms of talent and fame. So the average person who would never dare to see an MLS game will perhaps even buy a ticket just to see David Beckham so he can say that he saw David Beckham. A more serious fan who follows the European leagues will go and buy a ticket to see how bad David Beckham really is. Some of us might even go to get a glimpse of Posh. What I’m trying to say is that it’s a win-win situation for everybody involved. Take myself for example, I’ll do anything to get my hands on a ticket for the LA Galaxy vs. Toronto FC. It’s the closest I’ll get to seeing a Champions League game in Canada.
From Beckham’s perspective on the pitch, I can’t wait to see the shock he has when he finds out that he can’t just rely on a back like Roberto Carlos to cover for but some guy he’s never heard of who’s likely to ask him for his autograph after the game. What will Beckham’s frustration be when his well-placed free-kicks into the area aren’t driven home by the likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy and Raul? There’s no doubt that there will be frustration for him on the pitch since football is the ultimate team game and no matter who you are or how good you are, you need to fit together as a team to produce any kind of a positive result. Answers to these questions are more will be revealed this MLS season, one that I’ll actually pay some attention to. As far as the LA Galaxy and MLS are concerned, Beckham has already delivered.
