Forgive me loyal reader for taking a week long break. I regret to inform my Gooner brethren that I will not be providing highlights for this week’s Premier League fixtures at Portsmouth and Everton but I am sure The Arsenal will prevail. Footy Tube does end up having them eventually but of course they’re simply not as quick as mine. For shame. You can always watch Almunia’s save on that scummy Robbie Keane over and over again.

Meanwhile the Raptors road swing continues in the wild west with the Texas Two-Step of San Antonio and Houston coming up. I’ll be missing both games. There, there, I’ll be back in time for the New Orleans one and hopefully we’ll talk about finishing the roadtrip off at 3-4. You can always relive the Phoenix game if you want but you’d be crazy to. If you’re really bored maybe you can come up with some plays for Sam Mitchell and email them to Chuck Swirsky (cswirsky@torontoraptors.com). He’ll gladly pass them along.

Merry “whatever you’re celebrating”. Later.

I can deal with this loss because I wasn’t expecting us to win, if we can’t beat Seattle we definitely won’t be able to beat Phoenix the day after. That would be like finishing Drake’s Fortune on the Hard level right after you got your ass handed to you on Easy. But believe it or not there are multiple things to cheer about, yup, multiple. We’ll get to Chris Bosh and and Andrea Bargnani in a bit but let me put my reporter hat on and outline just a couple points mentioned by Bryan Colangelo during his first quarter interview with Leosky:

Jose Calderon isn’t going anywhere: Raptors are going to do everything to resign him. This of course translates to matching any ridiculous offer that a team throws at him. My only issue is that we’ll end up paying the PG position around 17M a season which might be a bit high. But if the Raptors can afford it, why not? Nice to see Colangelo give credit to the villainous Rob Babcock for picking up Calderon.

Andrea Bargnani: Obviously Colangelo’s not going to come out and say that he should’ve taken Roy or Gay but he does appear to have a roadmap for Bargnani and feels that he IS the right player for this team. BC is all about spoon feeding Bargnani and wants to make him “comfortable” in every way and feels that it’s the only way you’ll realize Bargnani’s potential. OK, sounds good, I guess we’ll just have to be patient with him and suffer through the growing pains. I’m fine with that, really I am but in the meanwhile we do need to find a legitimate second scorer if we want to taste the second round again.

Let’s get to the game now. We have clear proof that Joey Graham is not dead. He was seen wearing a Raptors uniform although his play was unbecoming of a player who wants to stay in the NBA. After Jamario “Happy Feet” Moon was quick to pick up three fouls within minutes Sam called on the rarely used Graham to inject some defensive purpose and slashing. Graham didn’t look very good and shied away from contact which is the last thing you want to see from a player who’s supposed to be our physical presence. But in all fairness to Joey I can’t even remember the last time he played significant minutes, it’s tough to ask a player to just step in and have an impact - especially against the Suns who put the fear of God in you on defense.

If there’s one negative that I’d have to pick about Sam’s coaching style (ignoring that he only has one play for a minute) I’d say it has to be the lack of a set rotation, this cannot be healthy for the players. You can’t have no idea when you’re going to play next and just be “ready” when you’re called upon. I know that sounds like an ideal team where everybody’s happy and doing each other’s laundry but in reality a player needs direction and goals to strive towards and on this squad people like Joey Graham, Maceo Baston and Juan Dixon have zero idea what’s next. This is probably a good place to mention that we should make Darrick Martin a full-time assistant coach (why, I don’t know) and free up that roster spot for a power forward or guard from the D-League.

Let’s get to the two bright spots of this game and they are….drumroll…Chris Bosh and…and…and…Andrea Bargnani. Bosh had 42/13 and went 22/24 FT from the line. A manly performance by CB4 who came ready to play and attack the rim like every single Raptors fan wants him to. After keeping the game close till the half, Phoenix simply pulled away in the third quarter and there was nothing the Raptors and their tired and porous defense could do to stop them. And when Phoenix did happen to rarely miss a shot, they got the offensive rebound and stuck it back in. On the bright side, Marion, Stoudamire and Skinner all took turns getting abused by Bosh, it made me feel a little better about this game.

Now Andrea Bargnani’s line of 6-13FG for 13 points isn’t exactly impressive but considering that he’s having trouble throwing a rock in the ocean, it’s a vast improvement. More important than the stats are some of the plays he made and the confidence he showed on the court. His three dump-offs to Bosh after driving past his man was a welcome sign and something that’ll help me sleep better during this six-day break. Sam gave him the start which translated to instant confidence. The starting center position is his for good and today he responded well, let’s just hope it continues and he can help carry the scoring and rebounding load.

Enough with the positives, we did get blown out by 19 points and one of the reasons was - and you can take a good guess here - lack of defense. Jamario Moon seems to be regressing and showing his true colors, a player that relies solely on his athleticism instead of his brain. Moon’s defense on Grant Hill was simply bad, if you can’t guard the guy one-on-one at least have the courtesy to come back down the court in time to avoid him getting a layup. It’s the least you can do. The Raptors had a problem filling the starting 3 spot at the start of the season and that issue is still there. Phoenix’s offensive rebounding killed us and sealed any hopes of an outside shot at a win in this one. It’s hard to stop Phoenix and when you do, defensive rebounding is a must. No one person to blame here but as a team we did a poor job of boxing out, even Kris Humphries who’s usually stellar cleaning up the glass was caught out of position and was over-athleticised (new word I just created) by Amare, one of the most gifted athletes I’ve ever seen.

Let me try to end this one by explaining the title of the post. We’re often compared to Phoenix because of our style of play and the fact that Bryan Colangelo helped build both teams. I never agreed with this comparison because if you look at Phoenix what sets them completely apart from any other NBA team is that they run the break and look to get easy points almost every time down the floor. The Raptors never do this. Calderon is notorious for pulling the offense back on semi-transition opportunities which is exactly where Phoenix exploits its opponents - by running the break and having their big men establish inside position early. So although we try to use a formula similar to Phoenix, by no means is our style of play similar to theirs. They run back-door cuts, curls, corner-screens, UCLA cuts while all we do is run the pick ‘n bloody roll.

One-Liners:

* I thought the Nash sucking up was only restricted to games in Toronto. I was wrong. If it were up to Leosky they’d put him in the Hall of Fame before Jordan.

* Where the hell is “The Truck” during road games?

* Chuck Swirsky openly calling for Bosh to break Vince’s 51 point Raptors record in a blowout game was disgraceful. Please Chuck, please. Plus, it shows his hate for Vince.

* Juan Dixon is playing well and deserves more minutes.

* The refs put us in a bad situation early by calling everything on us. All of Parker’s first three fouls were highly questionable and ended up sending him to the bench for a looooong time.

* The defense in the first half was good enough to keep us in the game but in the second half it was evident that fatigue had taken it’s toll.

* We’re 1-3 on the roadtrip and well on our way to 1-4. I’d be ecstatic if we finish 3-4 on the trip by beating Houston and New Orleans. It’s my Christmas wish.

I’m out for a week. Thanks for reading. Grab the feed.

Big it up for The ‘Munia. Keane, eat that shit and Berbatov, you can just go back to sleeping with teenage boys just like you were. The scum think they can get points on us, eh Chimbonda? The fucker was actually “confident” before the game, doesn’t he know what the history here is? Doesn’t he watch TV?

Anyway, this game was on Canadian TV so no need to watch it on a 4 inch screen on Sopcast, but I’ve searched long and hard on the internets (yes, all of them) and have found something:

Match Report.

Arsene Wenger Post-Match Interview

Adebayor ‘48

Berbatov ‘64

Bendtner ‘75

Manuel Almunia Penalty Save on Robby Keane

We lose the one fucking game that everybody thought we could win on this roadtrip. The Sonics who are 12 games under .500 and one of the worst teams in the NBA look like the ‘85-86 Boston Celtics and punish the Raptors for a 123-115 win. Yeah, that’s right, they scored 123 points on us in regulation. We were torn to shreds by their passing in the paint and were lazy and disinterested in playing defense especially in transition. Maybe we thought this game belonged to us and Seattle would just lie down and hand over the W but that didn’t happen, just ask Carlos Delfino who doesn’t check whether he’s inbounds or not before taking a critical wide open jumper late in the game.

But it should never come to a fourth quarter comeback when you’re playing a team like Seattle and you profess to be one of the better teams in the NBA. The Sonics were up by 18 points in the fourth quarter and this almost turned into a laugher. If it weren’t for their youth and inexperience they’d win by 25 but they were nice enough to let us back in the game. When it actually counted and we had a chance to really come back, Bosh bobbled the ball and Delfino stepped out. Rookie mistakes from veteran players.

How about that Chris Wilcox demanding the ball pregame and then delivering with power and style over every Raptor forward, for a while there I thought he was Dwight Howard. Or Wally Szczerbiak getting wide open look after wide open look. We might want to cover this fucking guy after his fourth three, no? Carlos Delfino doesn’t think so. Let’s get to Jose Calderon and his stellar OFFENSIVE game of 15 points and 16 rebounds. Why is the offensive in uppercase, it’s because his opposition of Luke Ridnour and Earl Watson had 10/6 and 10/7 which takes their tally to 20 points and 13 assists, pretty much offsetting Calderon. There’s bad defense and then there’s lazy defense, the Raptors perimeter is by nature bad, but when you add the laziness that’s when the shit hits the fan. To finish with Calderon, I absolutely cringe every time we have a 4 on 3 or a 3 on 2 and Calderon pulls the ball back and sets the offense - run the break man!

Let’s talk about transition defense. Did we not have a day off yesterday? Did we fucking run here from Portland instead of flying because that sure is how we played. Kapono, Parker, Bosh, hell everybody was just late getting back on defense despite knowing that Seattle’s obviously trying to speed up the game and make this an up and down affair. The basic rule of defense is that you stay between your man and the basket at all times unless you’re fronting them. That rule just didn’t apply today for the Raptors, how they allowed Nick Collison, Wally Szczerbiak, Jeff Green and everybody else to just beat them down the floor was a thing of beauty if you’re a Seattle fan. However, if you’re a Raptors one (and there were many who wasted their money making the trip from Vancouver), you can only shake your head in disgust and lament why you even tuned into this one.

Kevin Durant’s going to be a great player in this league some day but he’s not great just yet. Doesn’t matter though, the Raptors made sure he got some nice and clean looks to start off the third quarter and get himself into the groove and the Sonics back into the game. Fight through the fucking screens and shove a hand in his face!!! It was damn comical to watch the Sonics make 7 foot passes in the paint to carve open poor Humphries and Bosh who were both oh so quick to crowd the initial receiver that they left the other guy wide open right under the rim. I wanted to pull my hair out and eat it after the fourth time the Sonics did that. The initial penetration by Ridnour and Watson happened so easily that it forced help from the likes of Parker, Delfino and Kapono and they were always late to recover which set the wheels of the Sonics layup drill in motion.

Let me sum this shit up: Bad, no, non-existent transition defense, lazy perimeter defense, lack of a legitimate #2 option, stagnant offensive sets where the only guys who’re ever going to get points in the paint are Bosh/Hump and that to on rare occasion, Jamario Moon getting smoked by everybody on defense, ineffective Bargnani/Rasho and jumper after jumper cost us this game. I remember when Jamario Moon wanted to lock down his man and was focused on just that, now he’s just leaving his man wide open to help on the ball-handler every time which ends up throwing the matchups off, and since the Raptors aren’t good at rotational defense as it is, it makes things a bit of a mess. I just thank God that his stupid block streak came to and end, Swirsky must be devastated.

Coming up on the road we have Phoenix (ouch), San Antonio (oh, no), Houston (revenge mission) and New Orleans (Chris Paul, ‘nuf said) which amounts to a 1-6 roadtrip (this just in, Las Vegas just gave 1-1 odds on this). The Raptors miss an opportunity in Portland and completely blow one in Seattle, suck ass to be a fan right now. I didn’t even mention Bargnani, he had a great game, well, great by his standards: 4 points, 2 rebounds on 2-7FG (28%). Great to see him coming out of his funk. #1 pick indeed. Oh, I’m sorry Bryan, I’m supposed to judge him after 14 years, sorry, my bad.

I’m out.

One-Liners:

* Do you blame the coach if the team is just playing lazy defense?

* What happened to the defense we saw in the second half against the LA Clippers, was that a one-time thing?

* I forgot what Maceo Baston looks like.

* We need to decide if we’re going to help on the opposing point guard or not. Right now we’re helping sometimes and not helping other times resulting in very confused defensive sequences.

* I don’t think Chris Bosh can finish around the rim, I pray for him to get fouled because I know the shot’s not going in.

* Where do you go from here?

We mustered a draw away to Slavia Prague and dropped all three points against Sevilla in Spain. We needed to be punished for those indiscretions and the sentence was handed out today. Instead of facing the likes of Fenerbahce, Schalke 04 and Celtic we were drawn up against European giants like AC Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid with the only silver-lining being a chance to draw FC Porto.

So it’s current Champions League holders AC Milan that we’ll have to tackle first and Arsenal are fully capable of beating the Italian side that is currently struggling in Serie A with the balance of power in Milan being shifted from red to blue. AC Milan’s domestic form has been very poor and they’ve become a mid-table club with an 11th place league standing. However, their dominance in Europe has continued from last year as they collected 13 points with a 4-1-1 record in Group D.

Going into the draw it was obvious that the team you wanted to play to advance to the quarter finals was FC Porto but if such wasn’t the case, I’d rather the Gunners faced Barcelona and end up going head-to-head with Henry with the chance of paying back the Frenchman for his off-season indiscretion. But that’s not the case and we have to arguably play the greatest European club of all-time. Get pumped.

Here’s the video of the Champions League Draw:

Arsenal Managing Director Keith Edelman summed up the Arsenal reaction:

“We’ve only played them once in a competitive tie. We drew at Highbury in 1994 and lost 2-0 at San Siro. Hopefully we can turn it around this time. We would probably have preferred an easier one at this stage but this is a great match, everyone will look forward to it tremendously. Arsene has built a great squad and we are confident. We’re playing good football. We’re doing well off the pitch as well as on it and we’re looking forward to a very exciting end to the season.”

Here are some predictions for the first knockout stage of the Champions League:

Arsenal v AC Milan: This is Arsenal’s year to return the Champions League final and AC Milan’s European competition hasn’t been terribly challenging with Celtic being the only “good” team they’ve faced. Expect their poor domestic form to show up in the group stages. Arsenal 3-1 on aggregate.

Celtic v Barcelona: Celtic’s nice run in the group stage is bound to come to a screeching halt at the first opportunity against a stacked Barcelona team. Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry are simply too much to handle for the Celtic back-four and don’t look for them to be scoring much against Marques and Co. Barcelona 5-1 on aggregate.

Lyon v Manchester United: Lyon’s resurgence in the latter stages of the group stages was impressive and the win against Rangers at Ibrox was impressive at all levels. The French champions will battle Manchester United but unless they score a goal or two at Old Trafford, it’ll be hard for to progress. Manchester United 4-2 on aggregate.

Liverpool v Inter Milan: Liverpool is read to implode. Inter Milan is in super-form and there’s no reason to believe Hyppia and Carragher can contain Crespo and Ibrahimovic. Getting any goals in Italy is out of the question and unless a highly unlikely dominant home performance surfaces for Liverpool, Inter will progress. Inter Milan 3-1 on aggregate.

Roma v Real Madrid: This might be the tightest matchup of them all. Madrid is leading La Liga but has issues from the left-back position all the way to the top and Roma have shown that their a fiesty club, after last year’s embarrassment at the hands of United, they’ll be ready and will know how to play. Roma on away goals: 2-2.

Fenerbahce v FC Sevilla: Sevilla looked good in winning the group but so did Fenerbahce in mustering up 11 points against a group which had Inter Milan, PSV Eindhoven and CSKA Moscow. Fenerbahce plays with grit while Sevilla plays with style and although as a Gunners fan I think the edge will always go to style, I’ll pick Fenerbahce to display a tight performance in Spain and eek this one out. Fenerbahce 3-1 on aggregate.

Olympiacos v Chelsea: I haven’t seen Olympiacos play much. At least I’m being honest. Olympiacos did finish tied in points with Real Madrid Group C so there’s something to be said there. Chelsea bulled it’s way through in Group B and by all accounts this should be a tight one but one must favor Chelsea and their experience: Chelsea 2-1 on aggregate.

Schalke 04 v FC Porto: I did not watch a single game of either team in the group stages and cannot comment but you’d think FC Porto would move on.

This one hurt real bad. It hurt bad because we had a chance to win it and should have won it. We shot ourselves in the foot by playing bad fourth quarter defense and not putting our best players on the court at the right time. The momentum of this game completely shifted at the start of the fourth when the Raptors led by Darrick Martin scored 4 points for the first 7 1/2 minutes of the quarter. Two ill-advised shots by Martin and some very poor spacing and execution during this stretch turned a 7 point Raptors lead into a 3 point deficit. This was where the game was lost: not having Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon on the floor early enough in the fourth and completely ignoring Rasho Nesterovic.

It makes my stomach turn every time I see Darrick Martin on the floor and watching him run the Raptors into the ground in the final quarter was exasperating. Leo threw a stat out saying that when Portland was trailing at home to start the fourth, they’d won more than they’d lost. Did Sam Mitchell expect the lineup of Murray/Kapono/Bargnani/Delfino/Humphries to withstand a Portland run? You need at least one guy on the floor who can create his own shot otherwise you’re just begging to get run on, and that’s what happened, they made a run and we stood silent. By the time Bosh and Calderon were injected Portland had the momentum and despite us trying to shoot ourselves back in the game it was too little too late as a bad foul by Jamario Moon and a Travis Outlaw offensive rebound put Portland further ahead and the Calderon turnover on the break iced the game. Throw a couple phantom foul calls on us in there and you have a 1-1 road trip when it should’ve been 2-0.

I’ve mentioned Chris Bosh’s infatuation with the jumper in almost every post but I have to mention it again. He was far too passive for the better part of the game and the frustrating part about it was that just about every time he drove to the rim he had success. It’s a very simple formula: go with what’s been working and don’t settle. Now a line of 18/11, 6-13FG, 6-6FT isn’t that bad but if you saw the game you know it should’ve been 26/11, 6-13FG, 14-16FT. That’s the difference between winning and losing; But it’s not fair to dwell on Bosh’s performance because even though he could’ve done more he did enough for the rest of his team and coaching staff to carry us through.

Do you think Brandon Roy made this shot?

We’re getting nothing from Bargnani, nothing at all. How does 2 points and 2 fouls sound for a #1 pick? He was supposed to be a big part of this offense and a big part of this team this year but when you’re getting Mamadou Njdiaye like performances from Bargnani it’s left up to the likes of Kris Humphries to carry the offensive load, and no matter how well he plays (13pts/5rebs) it’s evident that we’re being stretched. Watching Brandon Roy tear it up on offense as he climbs the ladder to super-stardom gives me a slight respiratory problem, I would have to not be human to not wonder what could’ve been if David Stern had called out his name instead of the Italian Stallion’s Pony’s. Even Bargnani’s defense deserted him in this game as he looked clueless when boxing out his man or even switching on the pick ‘n roll. On one pick ‘n roll he ended up guarding Humphries’ man for no reason other than laziness during that crucial stretch in the fourth. It’s nobody but his fault that he’s struggling. I’m a Sam Mitchell critic but he has given him a more than fair shot of getting significant playing time, Bargnani was awful on defense today and just as bad on the other end. You can’t just stand behind the 3pt line and “demand” the ball, defenses have shown that all they need to do is crowd him and that’ll be the end of his perimeter game. He needs to find other ways to score like fight for good post-position, run the break, roll instead of pop on the screen, try to take advantage of his height by sealing his man etc. Right now he’s just waiting for something to happen that’ll get him open shots but that’s not how the NBA works, not once teams have gotten a chance to see you for a year. Completely unrelated but here’s what Rudy Gay did tonight.

I have to question the playing time of Rasho Nesterovic. Rasho was playing very well early on grabbing offensive rebounds, scoring on putbacks and jumpers. In other words, Portland had trouble dealing with the weight he was throwing around the rim. However he was taken out in the first quarter and returned in the third to play a few meaningless minutes and that was it. No sign of Rasho in the crucial fourth period where Portland got a couple huge offensive rebounds that put this game away, I can’t help but think Rasho could’ve helped. It was sad to see Anthony Parker’s solid all-around game completely wasted because of some bad substitutions and bone-headed plays down the stretch.

From the positive of Rasho Nesterovic let’s celebrate the end of Jamario Moon’s honeymoon which happened precisely at 2:27 of the fourth quarter when he fouled Travis Outlaw who was attempting a Jordanesque fadeaway from the edge of the three point line, a shot that you want him to take. But it’s not just this indiscretion that’s inexcusable, it’s his shot selection which varies between painful and gruesome. A pull-up jumper from 19 feet? Are you kidding me man, how can you not get pulled for that? Sam Mitchell’s been showing a little too much faith in Jamario Moon of late and it’s highly questionable when you have Joey Graham sitting right there begging for playing time. What happened to competition between players driving the Raptors? Moon’s unneeded aggressive help defense early in the shot clock has allowed his man to score on more than a few occasions and this isn’t a case of blaming the rotations either.

I’ve failed to mention our perimeter defense which led us down yet again. It’s fair to say that Calderon’s defense on Steve Blake was very poor to start the game and never got much better. On a night where defense would win the game the Raptors failed to play any and let their guard down in the fourth quarter by conceding open layups and critical offensive rebounds. This was a great game to watch with some end-to-end action for the first three quarters and the Raptors were right there till the end. They needed their big guns to play more in the fourth quarter, Thursday is an off day and there would’ve been plenty of time to rest.

One-Liners:

* Krish Humphries is a warrior. The work ethic, the competitiveness and the desire to get better are all there. I love the guy.

* Jose Calderon should’ve been more selfish and exploited his matchup against Blake and Rodriguez.

* Delfino was a complete non-factor, I think he should be playing more point instead of Darrick Martin (even typing his name is painful). Or how about Dixon running the point, a weird DNPCD for him tonight.

* The communication on defense in the fourth quarter wasn’t there at all, before or after Bosh and Calderon came in.

* Kapono is playing very well especially considering nobody runs any plays for him.

* I could write a long paragraph just tearing Bargnani to shreds but it’s not going to help anything. He simply needs to get his confidence back, figure out how to drive to the rim so that his game opens up for him. It’s painful to watch him and it hurts me.

* Provided Portland can keep Roy and Aldridge together and add a couple veterans, their window for a run at the WC finals isn’t far away.

It’s bed time. Check the feed.

I love these West coast games, no better way to spend a late night watching the Raptors, drinking tea and eating almonds until blisters start popping on the roof of your mouth. Who cares if it’s 1:30AM and that you have a FT job to go to, I might even have to kill off another uncle and sleep this one out. But enough about that, we have a real problem on our hands: Chris Kaman is on suicide watch after being annoyed to extreme levels by the defensive wall that is Rasho Nesterovic. Yes, Rasho the much-maligned soft-Euro that begs to be judged by the “little things he does on the floor” frustrated the petulant Chris Kaman into a total of two second half points as the Raptors started off their 7-game West coast swing off with a must-win win against a depleted Clippers side that put up a fight that most of us didn’t see coming.

The story of the game was the Raptors second half defense which looked similar to the one deployed in Indiana - crowed the paint and scramble back to the perimeter players if the pass out of the double-team is made (a weak zone almost). It wasn’t until the second half that the Raptors realized that save Richie Frahm the Clippers don’t have a single player that can be counted on to knock down an open jumper. Once you get Corey Maggette and Al Thornton taking perimeter shots (contested or not), the game is half won. Now you might look at the scoreboard and say, “Hey Arsenalist, we only won by 3 points so stop ripping on the Clips” and I’d say that even though this was a three point game, this game was ours to be had midway through the third when said defensive adjustments were made. If it weren’t for our reeking offense and Anthony Parker trying to do everything wrong and succeeding we’d end up winning this game by 15-20 points. The luxury of PVR is that you can rewind and investigate just exactly how that shooter was left so wide open. Turns out Anthony Parker’s often late getting back to his man and gets caught up in screens way too easily (Aaah! Ray Allen flashback!).

Aside to Chris Bosh: You can blow by Kaman anytime you want. You can post-up and lean into Tim Thomas at will. There is no reason for you to be taking jumpers let alone fadeaways and bailing the Clippers out. Thank the lucky star Procyon that Bosh drove to the rim just enough times to get himself 16 FT attempts of which he converted 12 and thus bailed out the 37.5% shooting Raptors. Against a better team we lose this game because they’d convert more offensive opportunities, the paper clips scored 28 points in the entire second half and all the credit can’t go to our defense, they are decimated by injuries.

No Raptor fan wants Andrea Bargnani to succeed more than me so I almost choked on an almond when he hit his first three, I took it as a sign of him coming out of the pitiable slump that he’s in. But the only highlights that followed after that was a nice pass to a cutting Humphries and a block on the 48-year old Tim Thomas. Sandwiched in there were about 5 ill-advised shots and a rejection at the hands of CK35 (fragrance for white men with thinning hair). At least he hit a shot and wasn’t a complete embarrassment, it’s a step up and I’ll gladly take it. Hopefully tomorrow he can make say three shots and not get rejected. Fingers crossed. Aside to Bargnani: The pump fake doesn’t work if the man is already in your face, he’s not going to bite because he wants you to take that contested shot from 22ft. You pump fake when you want the defender to come closer to you or you want him to jump in the air so you can drive by him. In your case the defender is challenging you to drive thus your pump fake redundant.

I can’t blame Chuck Swirsky

What do you guys think of this? I agree with Chuck Swirsky and his wish of something like that popping down my chimney. But Leo Rautins couldn’t just let a joke be a joke and kept harping on it for the rest of the broadcast. Leo, we know you’d tap that ass in a heartbeat so stop giving the Swirsk a hard time about a harmless comment you abrasive prick. But don’t say this blog is all about bile because Leo did call it early that if Bosh went to the line 15 times we’d win this game, he was right. Not a tough call to make by any means but at least he made it.

Jamario Moon won his matchup with Corey Maggette and got a block for the Xth game in a row (the only thing more impressive than this stat is DiMaggio’s hitting streak). After playing Maggette tight early and realizing that it wouldn’t work since Maggette is more attracted to the rim that I am to almonds, Moon backed off later on in the game and went under the screens thus conceding the jumper resulting in success. Scouting report stuff really, nothing more. Jose Calderon’s quiet 12/6/9 were punctuated with the game-icing drive on Dan Dickau who I was shocked to see on defense with the game on the line.

There’s a fine line between being a chucker and having confidence and Carlos Delfino crosses over that one about 3 times a game. CD should realize that making a jump shot does not give you a green light to shoot a 24 footer on the next possession. But one can’t criticize him too much because he’s the second hardest working Raptor (Hump43 wins that award - another solid game BTW with an in-traffic rebound that would put Moses Malone to shame) and deserves some leeway when it comes to shot selection. He is the heart of the bench. Surprisingly enough he’s been playing PG and has been very good of late, he can easily spell Calderon about 5-7 minutes.

One-Liners

* We need a better performance against Portland, 37.5% will get us blown out of the Rose Garden.

* I don’t make many predictions but here’s one: Bargnani will have 15+ points tomorrow. He is simply due.

* Without Chris Bosh we are doomed, despite his springers the man is providing key scoring during important stretches in the game.

* Can we do a Quinton Ross for Juan Dixon trade?

* Props to the “Let’s go Clippers, let’s go!” fan.

* I know exactly when D-Mart is about to launch a 20 footer, it’s almost like a sixth sense. He had a nice block and a score on Dickau but as I said I’d rather have Delfino playing the point than him.

* Didn’t see a single celebrity.

* I SWEAR THERE WILL BE A PODCAST COMING OUT SOON. LOOK FOR IT.

Till tomorrow. Get the feed.

We’re getting used to playing a good first half followed by a very mediocre one. Abou Diaby who according to some might be out of his way from Arsenal put us ahead with a left-footed strike. Soon after Eduardo provided a clinical finish on a through ball to put us up 2-0 prompting me to believe that this might be one of those Slavia Prague type games. But then we regressed and our youth got caught up trying to do things that were a little too intricate, in other words we lost focus and Blackburn capitalized albeit on a clearly offside goal. Things got from bad to worse when Santa Cruz latched on to a freekick from outside the area conceded by the too eager Mark Randall and equalized for the Rovers.

And that’s when the match turned into a feisty affair where the play of Alexandre Song, Philippe Senderos and Armand Traore kept the attacking Rovers at bay. Wave after wave of Blackburn raids were turned back by the young Arsenal backs and once we got possession we looked threatening with Eduardo and Bendtner unable to find that last bit of space needed to put this one away. Denilson was given a harsh straight-red on his attempted tackle on 90 minutes which meant that the Gunners would be a man down for extra time. But fear not, we are the Gunners. It was only a matter of time before 10-man Arsenal unlocked the Blackburn back four and it was a forward run by Song that found Eduardo who applied a finish typical of the Croatian striker - precise, clinical and accurate. Game Over.

Any team that thinks they can play a physical game against the Gunners in hopes of intimidating us and throwing us of our rhythm needs to check themselves again. Maybe this was true last year but definitely not anymore. It doesn’t matter who’s playing, 17 year olds or 28 year olds, we simply don’t back down and unrelentingly adhere to what makes us successful: a patient approach when we have possession that is bound to unlock the most miserly of defenses. The young backs have a lot to learn but today they showed that they’re up to the task by turning away McCarthy and Santa Cruz’s runs in the second half and extra time. Job well done.

Embedded Vids:

About Diaby 1-0

Eduardo 3-2

Eduardo Winner

Grab the feed and check out the Arsenal.com match report. Check out the first half highlights, I’ve cut it off at the exact point where you can see the offside on the Blackburn goal.

First Half Highlights including all three goals Download or Alternate Link, Diaby Goal HQ, Eduardo’s first goal HQ

Santa Cruz 2-2 + Foul which led to the freekick which led to the Blackburn equalizer: Download or Alternate Link

Fran Merida takes forever to get dressed! Download or Alternate Link

Eduardo Goal 3-2!!! Download HQ

That was hard to watch and don’t let the score fool you, this game wasn’t even close. The Celtics come into our building missing one of their big guns and blow us out of the water while we play like stiffs in awe of our opponents rather than go for the kill in a statement game at home. We didn’t match Boston’s fire or energy and ended up getting beat by Boston role players such as Rondo and Posey. We couldn’t adapt to Garnett who whenever pressured by a double team always managed to find a shooter who was left wide open because of a late defensive rotation. The Raptors achilles heel. Holes this big in your defense can only be compensated for by having a great offense which wasn’t there today, instead we had the same perimeter oriented approach towards scoring that only works on occasion (see second half of Indiana game) and can’t be relied upon to score against a good defense on a consistent basis. Did the Raptors honestly think they’d be able to mount an Indiana-like comeback against Boston? That shit happens once or twice a year if you’re lucky.

The bottom line is that Boston is just better than us. They have more star power, better fitting role players, a coach that understands the strengths and weaknesses of the team and does a good job of exploiting the former and hiding the latter. Doc Rivers is by no means a great coach but over the years he’s learned how to deploy the resources he’s given to good use. James Posey, Eddie House and Rajon Rondo are all great fits in a Boston team where everybody seems to know how to approach the game and know what their role is. Contrast this to our style where the first offensive possession of the game is a Jamario Moon fadeaway and where despite all our coaching staff’s efforts we can’t get our #1 pick a clean look to save his life. The disparity between the two clubs is evident in our 0-3 record against them. This is no fluke, they are better than us both player and coaching wise. We are a good team, they are a contender. They have Eastern Conference champions written all over them, we can at best hope for a second round birth.

Let’s talk about Bargnani. If it looks like a bust, plays like a bust, acts like a bust, it’s probably a _____. You fill in the blank. He looks awful but I’ve decided to analyze him in an entirely different post coming in the next week hopefully. Suffice to say every time he touches the ball he embarrasses himself and the GM who drafted him. To put it bluntly it looks like Kris Humphries might have a better career than Bargnani. The Italian can’t seem to grasp simple basketball concepts and is repeating the same defensive and offensive mistakes over and over again, his confidence is so low that I wouldn’t trust him in a jumpball against Rondo. Besides the occasional three point shooting he hasn’t lived up to the expectations and hype that the media and the Raptors franchise has shoved down our throats. Right now it’s turning out to be a disaster pick and I can’t even blame the coaching staff for not “bringing him along” because its clear that the problems that plague him have much more to do with mental makeup, confidence and ability more than incorrect utilization by the coach.

In this paragraph I’ll try my best to summarize what we did wrong. Forgive me if the grammar and sentence structure is a little of. Anthony Parker either missing open shots or taking bad shots. Chris Bosh taking too many jumpers when guarded by the likes of Kentrick Perkins and Glen Davis, didn’t end up having an impact on the game. Jose Calderon doing nothing to take away Rajon Rondo’s penetration. Non-existent rotational defense when double teaming Kevin Garnett - Rondo was left wide open, somebody should cover for Calderon when he’s doubling. Andrea Bargnani. Jamario Moon being too block-happy when guarding Pierce. Token man-defense on Eddie House and Tony Allen despite their hot shooting. Not getting Jason Kapono involved in the offense instead having him worry about how to get himself involved in the offense (you know, coaching stuff). Too perimeter oriented - complete points in the paint domination by Boston. When the pick ‘n roll failed (i.e.: Boston switched or fought through) we had no clue what to do next. No energy, hustle or desire.

Despite all that we could’ve cut the lead to 7 if Kapono had drained that three in the fourth quarter but we all know it wouldn’t have mattered. We couldn’t stop Boston from scoring and had trouble putting two good possessions together so it’s only deserving that we lose. The blame doesn’t go on any one person but the entire team as a whole including the coaching staff who is impotent when faced with the prospect of having to come up with a plan when the jumper isn’t falling. This blog is getting boring because after every loss the same issues come up and I write pretty much the same shit every time. The Indiana win was a fluke, this right here is reality. I concede the Atlantic Division to the Boston Celtics and am on the verge of labeling Andrea Bargnani a bust. It’s this close.

The mini-streak we had going doesn’t amount to a thing when you lose the most meaningful game of the month to your divisional rivals. For the third straight time. At home. In a blowout.

One-Liners:

* andreabargnani.com is available.

* I was wrong in thinking that the Celtics were a three-man team when the season started.

* Sam just needs to add a couple plays to his thin playbook where a shooter like Kapono can get a clean look.

* One-on-one moves and Joey Graham don’t go together.

* At the risk of sounding like a broken record I’ll say that our rotational defense is terrible. The most guilty parties today were Delfino, Calderon and Graham. To a lesser degree Kapono.

* We go through too many offensive droughts that bury us early and we just don’t have a run-killer on our team when Bosh is struggling.

* Not having a regular 8-man rotation is affecting this team’s offense. Don’t give me a PPG stat, those are meaningless.

* I want to take the Caliper test that Bargnani took and see how I do. Damn curious.

Feed.

The impressive defensive stand in the second half showed the true mettle of this Arsenal team. Chelsea did everything they could to get that elusive equalizer but we were up to the task, from Almunia to Adebayor we did enough to keep them at bay and still manage to produce counter-attacks that deserved much better finishing. But the bottom line is we rose to the challenge of Grand Slam Sunday and got a pressure win knowing that anything less would result in a reverse in the standings. As almost expected, Captain William Gallas provided the needed score in typical Gallas fashion - on a header in traffic. I don’t know why the commentators (clearly very big cunts) kept attributing the goal to a Petr Czech “mistake” rather than a rising Gallas who read the cross perfectly. I don’t know much about English commentators but they don’t seem to be as friendly towards Arsenal as they are towards the other members of the big four - maybe because of our foreign content?

It was good to see Arsenal play their game and not get lulled into a boring ping-pong match which Chelsea wanted to play. Sure, they disrupted our midifield’s passing at times but it didn’t stop us from mounting enough pressure that Chelsea was entirely content to play in their half and get whatever they can on semi-counters. Hleb, Flamini and Fabregas all looked rusty but that was to be expected and it wasn’t surprising to see some off-color passing on the part of Flamini and Fabregas. Gallas and Toure were clearing any danger that Chelsea presented while on the other end of the pitch Adebayor was playing the role of playmaker rather than target-man which doesn’t suit him well and the real attacking was done by Flamini and Hleb with Eboue/Sagna having their say by supplying through balls from the sides. Aside from being a little too elaborate on certain runs, the Arsenal attack performed well in the fist half and was punctuated by a Gallas header off a Fabregas corner which in itself came about after a determined run by Rosicky.

We had two goals disallowed, a phantom Adebayor foul and a questionable offside decision. Aside from those two we missed about three sitters and by sitters I mean SITTERS. Luckily for us it didn’t come back to bite us. This post is devoid of any mention of Cuntley (except this one) because him and his face-punching ass doesn’t deserve any ink, even in a Canadian blog. I’m just ecstatic that we have Gallas and they have the biggest dog-turd on the planet.

Any Chelsea attacks were the result of unforced giveaways in midfield which doesn’t concern me much because it was mostly due to the players coming back. In short, we played our game in the first half and deservedly got a score out of a well executed set-piece. In the second half, Chelsea expectedly came attacking and we showed our defensive mettle. It looks to be a two-horse race in the Premiership. Richard Jolly figures Liverpool is done. Robin van Persie’s introduction brought an immediate threat to our counter attacks and quantified just exactly what we were missing against Sevilla, Newcastle and Middlesbrough. The race is on and the Gooners seem to be back in prime form. Third Gen’s comprehensive match report covers it all. Feed.

Match Report.

MOTD Highlights

Gallas ‘45: Download

Arsenal Chances

Alex Mistake (Min 12)
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van Persie Chance (Min 75)
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Arsenal Disallowed Goal (Min 85)
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Arsenal Disallowed Goal (Min 89)
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Chelsea Chances

Wright-Phillips Shoot (Min 13)
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Shevchenko Shoot (Min 37)
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Terry Injury
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Wright-Phillips Miss (Min 75)
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Shevchenko FreeKick (Min 92)
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