I want to puke. I just want to hurl and get this sick nauseating feeling out of my stomach. A home loss to the Pacers missing Jermaine O’Neal, Jamal Tinsley and Danny Granger to end the “easy” month of February at 7-5. Why are we surprised? We really shouldn’t be, this is the most inconsistent team in the league, it fools people into thinking that they’re good (just ask John Hollinger) when they’re just a bad defensive team which exclusively relies on the jumper and has trouble maintaining effort across games. We’re used to the dependency on the jumper, but the non-existing defensive effort can never be excused.

We might as well have had a gimp playing defense on Travis Diener, Troy Murphy or Mike Dunleavy because God knows that Jamario Moon, Jose Calderon and Anthony Parker can’t guard them for shit. The perimeter defense was the worst that it has ever been. I don’t recall a game where it was as bad. It was embarrassing to watch Murphy and Dunleavy get 3-pt play after play after blowing by our perimeter 3’s (Parker/Moon/Graham) with ease. I can’t stress this enough, they pulled their pants down, used the shiniest of vaselines and let it rip. There’s really no other simpler way of putting this. They fucking killed us.

Let’s get to tonight’s key play and if you saw the game you know what it is. After Indiana was pummeling the Raptors by 16 midway through the third, the Raptors found some pride, played a little defense and went on a 15-0 run kick-started by Bargnani and Parker. We managed to cut the lead to one and got the ball back. That’s when Jamario Fucking Moon managed to use his arm to clear out Kareem Rush while the ball was still in the backcourt. Turnover. Momentum gone. Indiana goes on a 10-2 run. Back to square one. Fuck. Moon has been playing D-League level basketball over the past little while, yeah he had a good game against the T’Wolves but he’s not doing the job that he was hired to do. He doesn’t play defense, that play where Dunleavy almost tore his ankle at the top of the three point line epitomized just exactly how bad his defense is. The guy can’t keep his body-weight even and defenders are exploiting it. Plus, he’s it’s become super-easy for players to make him leave his feet. Horrible game by Moon. Just brutal.

For all the perceived depth on this squad, without Chris Bosh we’re a lottery team. It’s cool to shit on Bosh at times for not taking to the rim and finishing strong but take him out of the lineup and you get this. CB4 is our one and only shot blocking threat, once he’s out of there it’s open season for opposing 2/3’s. The only reason our shit perimeter defense has gotten us this far is because once you come inside Chris Bosh is simply awesome on help defense. Mind you that the rotation behind him still sucks ass but at least he’ll make the defender think twice before trying any funny shit.

After Bosh went down, we countered with Jose Calderon and TJ Ford playing a good chunk of the entire second quarter together. It’s good to have them there at the same time for brief stretches but to play them the entire quarter is defensive suicide. I lost count how many times in the second quarter Diener had open lanes to the rim after catching the Raptors defense in transition. It was as if though the Raptors were playing transition defense the entire game. Nobody was dug in on defense at any time, we kinda wandered around, aimlessly switched on screen ‘n rolls, tended to just pick up the player that was the most convenient for us and were three steps too slow. It made you nauseous.

Why Sam went with a lineup where Joey Graham is the 5 is unexplainable. The Pacers are playing small ball but that doesn’t mean you have to comply We have Rasho and Brezec warming the bench, why not throw them in the game to rebound our misses and try to control the boards. Did Sam honestly think our 2/3’s can outplay theirs? Dunleavy must’ve been licking his chops when he saw that we have absolutely no big man in there to even contest his shot once he waltzes past our perimeter D.

People wonder why the American media doesn’t talk about the Raptors and respect them as they should. It’s not because they’re biased or prejudiced, they just know that come playoff time when it counts, we have no ammunition to compete. This team has serious, serious holes starting on the defensive end which are just itching to get exposed in the playoffs. But tonight what pissed me off even more was our non-existent effort. It was pathetic. Ughhh.

What did you think of Bargnani’s performance? I liked it. He was 12-25 for 27 points and only 9 rebounds. I liked the way he played, he was aggressive, he was confident, he was driving, he was pulling up, unfortunately, he wasn’t hot enough early to keep us in the game. He needs to find his offensive rhythm so he can be a little more consistent, it’s games like these that might help him, with the playoffs coming and us being locked somewhere between the 4-6 seed, I say give him the green light so he can warm up and hopefully be a real contributor in the playoffs.

Anyway, to some up the night in two words. Fucking disgusting.

Sorry for the shit language.

Liners:

* It’s hard to sweep even a bad team but Indiana was there to be had.

* Jason Kapono is useless to us. He’s about as useless as an asshole on your elbow. It doesn’t matter if he plays with TJ Ford, Jose Calderon or fucking Bob Cousy, he can’t help this team because he’s too easy to cover and our coaching staff is too dumb to utilize him.

* Chuck, I don’t believe your lying ass when you say you have that much trouble telling part Joey and Stephen Graham that you make the same mistake like 5 times. Here’s a little hint that might help: THEY WEAR DIFFERENT UNIFORMS!! Also, did he just blame the lack of energy in the arena on the fucking weather?

* I’d even excuse the Raptors for allowing the Pacers to blow by them so easily on the perimeter if they at least took away the outside shot, but they didn’t even do that. The Pacers made 12 three and countless 18 foot jumpers. I’m telling you this was the worst I’ve seen them play. Ever.

* We managed to crawl only 2 games over .500 in the softest part of the schedule by playing 7-5 ball. I don’t even want to know what March will bring.

* Why am I shocked? I saw this coming. It’s just that when it actually happens you can’t believe it.

A nice evening for the Raptors, not too much effort expended in an easy win over the Timberwolves which takes us to 8 games over .500. February’s almost over, a home win against Indiana will put us at 33-24 and we’ll end up going 8-4 for the month instead of the earlier anticipated 9-3. The Orlando win offset the Clippers loss but it’s the breakdown in NY that’s going to stop this month from being an ideal one. Even so, we’ve put enough space between us and the .500 mark that even if we struggle in the tough month of March, we’ll have a chance to secure home-court advantage in the first round. And with Orlando’s easy schedule and Cleveland bulking up, it’s all you can hope for.

Before we get to the game (and there’s hardly much to talk about), there’s news that the Celtics have signed PJ Brown for the remainder of the year. It’s a nice pickup for the Celtics and a signing that will pay dividends come playoff time, this is the third key pickup for Boston aside from the Big 3. The key signings of James Posey and Eddie House went almost undetected when they happened but they’ve been a big part of Boston’s success. PJ Brown will add a gritty inside presence and a reliable mid-range jumper, it’s something that’ll fit in Boston. Primoz Brezec looks to be an entertaining pickup that also happens to hit the boards and I’m glad to have him, but if we’re playing rent-a-rebounder, a proven veteran like Brown would’ve also been sweet.

A possible second round matchup took place tonight between Boston and Cleveland (I’ll get to our game soon, don’t worry) and the Celtics controlled the proceedings and maintained a comfortable margin throughout the game. Cleveland looks to have failed their first real test and immediately one tries to look at it from a Raptors perspective and ask the question, can we beat Cleveland in a 7-game series? The logical consensus is a ‘no’, we’re 5-10 against Cleveland in the LBJ/Bosh era but have always managed to play them tight. If you go along with the “let Lebron go off and contain everybody else” philosophy, you notice that there’s not anybody else who can really threaten you offensively. Wally Szczerbiak and Joe Smith will be battling to be #2 on that team, that’s not exactly great. Their advantage against us lies in their rebounding line of Ilgauskas, Wallace and Varejao and if we’re able to play even on the boards through a strategy as simple as pulling their big men out of the paint, we might have a fighting chance. It depends entirely on how well we shoot the ball and box-out on the defensive boards. It’s quite a tall-order and the odds are stacked against us but we’re capable of the task if we get scoring from Bargnani and strong defensive efforts from Brezec/Rasho/Hump. Am I thinking like a homer? Probably.

Back to the game at hand. For the second straight game we managed to outrebound our opponent on both the offensive and defensive glass. Bosh met with little resistance en route to his 28/7 (why he played a game-high 41 minutes in a blowout is mind-blogging) and TJ Ford was stellar again with 16 points. Bargnani had some nice drives to the rim and Kapono found the stroke (from 2-pt range) to ice this one in the third. The T’Wolves started well enough but the effort they exerted in building their early 10 point lead was far too great to sustain and they fizzled gradually starting from midway through the first quarter all the way to the end. Towards the end you felt sorry for the hard-working Al Jefferson and the situation he’s in, a poor salary situation and a GM who often mistakes mediocrity for talent. Minnesota’s not exactly a hot spot for NBA players and Garnett was the reason anybody signed there as a free agent, they’re well on their way to being as obscure as they were before KG came to town.

You’re probably heard about TJ ’s comments that Jose should start the rest of the season; here they are in case you haven’t:

“I think Jose is doing a good job as a starter, he should continue to start probably for the rest of the year. I don’t think starting is a big deal to me, I just want to get out and help the team win, and at the end of the day it’s all about wins and losses.”

The reason I bring this up is that there’s a general perception that TJ Ford is a selfish player who looks for his shot first before anything else. That he is easily upset when things aren’t going right for him and tends to jack it up and singlehandedly carry the team. Calderon is obviously a very nice guy (I mean, the guy used to end hsi blogs by saying ‘hugs and kisses’) and people view him as being the ultimate team player which he very well might be. However, that does not mean that TJ isn’t. Sometimes his high shot count is interpreted as being selfish and to the detriment of the team. The problem with that line of thinking is that if TJ doesn’t do that, he’s not going to be nearly as effective. Part of his shtick is to score on opposing PGs via a short jumper so that they’re forced to come out and defend him, that way he can use the real advantage of quickness to create for his teammates. A TJ who’s not making his mid-range jumper is a TJ that’s ineffective. That’s why I’m of the belief that he needs to get his shot going, before his injury he was nailing everything in the 14-17ft range and over the last couple games it’s clear that he’s on his way to regaining that form. Ultimately, Ford like Calderon, will be happy if the team is winning. They’re both fierce competitors that take a lot of pride in their game but want to be measured by wins and losses.

Once the off-season arrives, one of them may very well end up being traded to tend to some other need. If it’s agreeable and financially feasible, there’s no harm in having both PGs stay put, in the Eastern conference, the PG spot still remains the position where this club will have an advantage every single night. Bryan Colangelo in a Fan 590 interview gave all the reasons why this team is still pretty good and firmly believes in Bargnani’s game and attributes his struggles to injury et al. If you want to hear the interview with Chuck and BC sounding like chipmunks, go ahead:

His assessment of the Cavalier trade isn’t that great.

The T’Wolves coming off a back-to-back didn’t give us anything interesting to talk about. If you missed the game, check out Eric Smiths’ blog, he’s got a nice little recap of the game. This game was so boring that even Raptors Talk is at a loss for words. Top Rap? Hmmm….let’s give it to Jamario Moon who ran the floor well enough and only took two bad jumpers, making one of them. Indiana on Friday should be similar and then things get very interesting in March where we have a stretch of 8 out of 10 games on the road. That’ll tell us just exactly how good this team is and what we can expect in the playoffs.

On the subway coming home from work I saw this young couple getting so excited to watch the Raptors. I hoped it’d be an exciting game so they’d get their moneys worth. Poor bastards.

Till tomorrow.

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Sometimes a win can overshadow many things that went wrong in a game and such was the case last night. This was a little too close to being a L for one’s liking. The Pacers sans Jermain O’Neal and Jamal Tinsley frustrated the Raptors by putting up a fight and took the lead midway through the fourth quarter at which point it looked like this might be a New York repeat. A couple Delfino deep bombs restored some order, but the offense went dead after that giving the Pacers a chance to tie it up with 19 seconds left. Fortunately for us Jim O’Brien’s playbook appears to be paper thin and all they could muster was a Kareem Rush one-on-one contested three. Game over. Thank God.

Not the ideal follow-up to the NY win; getting bailed out by Delfino’s deep threes isn’t something you want to rely on but at the same time it’s good to see him knock them down. TJ Ford’s close to returning to his pre-injury form and becoming the nightmare that he is for slower guards that are forced to give him space. If he’s matched up with a guy the same size such as Travis Diener, what usually follows is an infliction of speed combined with hesitation that will leave the defense on its heels. TJ’s 16 points and 7 assists were essential on a night where the reliable Jose Calderon laid an egg in the assist column, something that will never happen again. Ever. It’s only a matter of time before TJ gets the starting job, has a bad game and the Forderon debate begins anew. The starters were in the habit of creating a hole (1st and 3rd quarters) only for the bench to come back and restore sanity (2nd and 4th quarters). We outscored their bench 55-24 (Marquis Daniels had 20) with Delfino leading the way with 6 threes and a career high 23 points. Check the box score, it’s all there.

Time for a post game quote, it’s always good to hear some sort of praise from the opposing coach:

“It’s hard for anybody in the NBA to match bench for bench. That’s a formidable group, and it speaks to their depth that those players come off the bench.” - Jim O’Brien

Depth is one of our strong suits, no doubt about that. But come playoff team when the rotations are shortened and roles become well-defined, I’m not sure how much our depth will help us. We’ll see I suppose.

Although the Raptors are a defensively challenged team they go into these hounding defensive sequences where they pressure the ball handler, trap on the baseline, collapse on the big men and actually come out to make the rotations. The second quarter and some stretches in the fourth were great examples of this. However, it’s hard to maintain that sort of a defensive effort across four quarters because of the sheer toll aggressive defense takes on the body. That’s why you see a Jekyll and Hyde effect with the Raptors defense. We’re a middle of the pack defensive team (11th out of 30 D-Rating) with some gaping holes on the perimeter which will undoubtedly come back to bite us. Jamario Moon’s defensive game has regressed, he’s falling for simple up-fakes, isn’t following the scouting reports and is too concerned with providing help. Murphy, Granger and Dunleavy all took turns undressing Moon on simple moves. It didn’t come back to bite us but a case could’ve been made that Joey Graham deserved to get some run based on Moon’s poor effort. Sam is by his own admission an “equal opportunity hater” and Moon definitely deserved some hate today.

Anthony Parker tries to do his best to contain his man but he’s a sucker for help defense, maybe that’s how he was coached overseas for all these years and it’s in his nature to help off his man on another wing player. However, in the NBA once the perimeter man is beaten, it’s up to the 4/5’s to contend with the man that just penetrated the heart of the defense. Parker’s always guilty of leaving his man to provide help which ends up amounting to nothing because by leaving his man he’s made him the easiest pass for the penetrator. Thus we see Parker always late getting back and wildly flailing his arms at his man as a three is being drained. I’m disappointed in Sam Mitchell’s inability to instill a defensive mindset and philosophy in this team over his tenure, the offense is very simplistic so you’d think that the majority of the work the coaches might do would be on the defensive end but frankly speaking, I don’t think we’ve improved at all.

The frustration with Bargnani continues: 2/5 on 1-5 FG. Even though I’m a traditional center guy I’m willing to go with the “new age” center theme on this one but it has to be done the right way. It’s great that Bargnani is a 7-footer that can shoot but he might be taking it to another extreme. 35% of his field goal attempts are threes! That is an insanely high amount, to put that in perspective, 38% of Parker’s FGAs are threes and only 28% of Jason Kapono’s shots are threes. Does a “new age” center mean that he’ll be living on the perimeter? Because I thought a 7-footer center meant he’ll be beating his man off the dribble and out-quicking him in the post for easy scores, not settling for deep bombs. To further extend my late night analysis, I looked at Dirk Nowitzki’s shot selection (chosen for obvious reasons) in his first two years and only 25% of his shots were threes, gradually he moved his game further in and currently only 21% of his shots are threes. My point? Threes are nice but I doubt Colangelo brought him here to be a 7-foot Kapono, he needs to move his game inside.

Primoz Brezec got his first DNPCD. The guy must be wondering what he did wrong in the NY game to warrant a benching. Instead Kris Humphries got the call (well, for 7 minutes) and played well in getting his 5 points. With Kapono getting 23 minutes and Bargnani staying out of foul trouble, the Raptors big men reserves only netted 11 minutes. This was also the first game since TJ’s injury where Ford got more playing time than Calderon which is a telling stat because this wasn’t a blowout and every possession meant something. Sam opting to go with the in-rhythm Ford means he’s confident in TJ’s ability to run this team again and the “ease back TJ” period seems to be over.

It’s hard to end this post without a mention of Chris Bosh’s seemingly routine night: 24 points, 10 rebounds. He didn’t have a pretty night, got stripped at least three times (5 TOs) and took some questionable shots that’ll make anybody grimace. Chris Bosh is very obviously choosing spots where he can be aggressive and where he can ease back. This is a perfectly normal strategy for the regular season, I’m hoping (praying?) that come playoff time he’s not mulling over shoot or drive decisions, it should be pretty obvious when a player of Troy Murphy’s quickness is covering you.

Unlike Washington and New York, we avoided a letdown in Indiana. It should be a super-easy win on Wednesday against the T’Wolves before we get a chance to sweep Indiana at home on Friday. Check the schedule, look at March and shit in your pants.

Liners:

* Hard to believe Rob Babock passed on Danny Granger. Twice.

* Indiana was one well-designed play away from taking this game to overtime. We’ve got to start the halves much better against them on Friday.

* Kareem Rush and his brother Jaron Rush used to play at Pembrooke High School in Kansas City, MO. I used to go to O’Hara High School in Kansas City at the same time. These guys used to come in and put on a show. Jaron was clearly the better player but he got hooked on drugs, took money from agents and ended up ruining his shot at the NBA. He’s trying to find HS coaching jobs now, kinda sad.

* Leo Rautins making excuses for Jason Kapono? Stop trying to convince us that Jason Kapono is anything more than a strictly one-dimensional player just because he cut to the rim and had a layup. It’s insulting our intelligence.

* Does Chuck Swirsky know anything about basketball? His reasoning for the West being stronger made no sense, he somehow managed to give Bryan Colangelo credit in why the west was stacked. Apparently he’s also a proponent of the Top 16 teams making the playoffs regardless of conference. Might want to think that through Chuck. Pain to listen to.

* “He sure blabs a lot” - That’s my wife’s (who knows nothing about basketball) take on Chuck Swirsky. Bang on really.

* Carlos Delfino is the Top Rap.

Thanks for reading. Later.

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There’s a damn good reason why the Knicks are 17-39. They play selfish basketball, don’t communicate on defense, are horribly coached and are in general just a bad dysfunctional team. Despite all that, they managed to split a home and home against us. Just like one didn’t feel excited about beating an injury-depleted Washington on the back-end of that home and home by 39, there’s not much pleasure to take out of this one. Except from some individual performances.

Andrea Bargnani’s 25/7 came in fairly natural way, usually when he ends up having a good game he shoots a very high percentage, hits some deep, deep shots and at the end of the night you get the feeling that there’s no way he can actually sustain such performances. Today was a little different, things came a little more naturally, all his threes came off of swing passes and Bosh kickouts. The rebounds he got didn’t fall to him, he had to work for them, even his five assists were clever. Nothing flashy, just solid decisions when the ball is passed to him on the perimeter or below the foul line. One wonders if he can deliver performances like these on a semi-consistent basis. I mean, we’ve seen this movie before, a few bad games followed by a great game leaving all of us confused. Those who doubt him get a glimmer of hope, those who blindly support him get a little more reason for their faith. In the end, we all get a little hope that this guy can be more than an erratic three point shooter who rebounds on occasion. The saga continues. The ESPN recap has some fighting words from Andrea and praise from Jamal Crawford:

“I tried to be more aggressive from the beginning, we were very angry after [Friday's] loss. It was a bad loss.” - Andrea Bargnani

“That’s tough, that’s not something that you see. He’s probably the only guy in the league with that range to be that big. He got it going tonight and that set the tone for them.” - Jamal Crawford

The NY Times perspective on the game pretty much makes fun of Isiah Thomas’ substitution pattern and Eddy Curry’s crapiness.

Primoz Brezec looks to be a serviceable player, give Bryan Colangelo credit for acquiring a big body. It’s only one game but it’s clear that Brezec plays with a swagger and confidence that this team needs. Plus he runs the floor and hits the glass - at least he did for one game. I feel bad for Kris Humphries, he’s done a good job for us, his hands may be clumsy at times but his effort and desire can never be questioned. If this game is any sign of how Brezec’s going to play, it’s hard to see Humphries and Baston get any burn. Again, it’s only one game but 11 clean points and 3 rebounds got me thinking that just maybe him and Rasho could allow Bosh to ease himself on the defensive boards. This story about Brezec lipping at Sam Vincent didn’t exactly make me feel great but at the same time it’s good to know that we got a Raptor with an edge. As for calling him a steal, we should remind ourselves that when Juan Dixon was acquired for Fred Jones, we all thought it was a steal. Check out a conversation between Bryan Colangelo and Brezec, very interesting character this Brezec fella.

I’m all for TJ Ford jacking up shots. He needs to get his legs back in to his shot and must play at his pre-injury level. With Bosh and Bargnani around, sometimes we forget that our real true strength and advantage over any other team is our PG play. Looking ahead at the potential matchups against Cleveland, Washington or Orlando, if you had to pick one position where we can dominate, it’s got to be the PG spot. So even if it comes at the expense of some bad stretches of play (like Friday in NY), I’m all for anything TJ needs to do to get back to being TJ.

For the high-flier Jamario Moon is, he sure wimps out when he’s within a 6ft radius of the rim with any sort of traffic around. What’s up giving up the ball to somebody who isn’t even expecting it when you have a chance to take it hard? His defense in this mini-series has been brutal, Sam rightfully went off at him after he kept giving Crawford space to shoot. Anthony Parker was then given the Crawford assignment and faired much better by forcing Crawford to create. Parker’s good scoring night was nice but his aggressiveness in taking the ball at Crawford slowed down the Knick G. Crawford’s an awesome offensive player but he’s not a great defender and can’t guard the slower but multi-faceted Parker.

We were making the same mistakes as Friday in the first half: leaving Jamal Crawford open who made us pay with 14 points which kept the Knicks in the game. Mitchell’s message at halftime worked, he played all five starters the entire third quarter which began with a 18-3 run where the ball movement out of the post and round the circle was impeccable. Although we almost exclusively made the critical run through jumpers, at least we went inside and started things off of Bosh doubles. On the other end, all you have to do is collapse on Randolph and Curry - they’re just not smart enough to know how to react. Over the last two games, every single time we’ve crowded them and put them under pressure, good thing have happened. I still can’t figure out why we didn’t do that for all 8 quarters.

Indiana tomorrow, we’re 5-4 in February, need to step things up.

Liners:

* There is no reasonable explanation of the drop-off in Kapono’s production from early in the season. One can only give so much credit to the defense and scouting reports. At some point you have to wonder just exactly what we need to do to get him off and implement a solution to this HUGE problem. If I’m Sam, I’d start by running a couple scripted plays for him, almost like out-of-timeout plays anytime he comes in to the game. This guy needs to air it out before he becomes completely useless.

* Zach Randolph: That play where he tried to take Brezec one-on-one and lost the ball only to run it back from halfcourt was bad enough, but then he jacked up an airball. What a mess!

* You have to check out the injury to Arsenal striker Eduardo from yesterday. Reminded me a lot of Jorge Garbajosa’s injury.

* Bosh only played 27 minutes, he should be good to go tomorrow at Indiana where we need to win and finally pick up some momentum and get 7 games over 500 for the first time this year.

* Bargnani: Top Rap

Till tomorrow.

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Eduardo Injury Update from Arsenal.com:

All being well, Eduardo will have his leg in plaster and using crutches for the next six to eight weeks. After that time, partial weight-bearing exercises will be scheduled into a slow rehabilitation process. It is hoped that Eduardo will be running again in six months time and making a full recovery after nine months. Eduardo will be released from hospital in a few days.

That’s great news.

—

That was not a penalty. Clichy got all ball, the video below shows that. That’s about all the analysis I’m willing to make. That and Taylor should never play football again.

I feel dirty dropping 4 points to the Brums. We played like shit against them in January but this time around, deserved to win. Two set-pieces gift-wrapped by the ref resulted in two goals. Horrible night for the Gunners, if there’s a silver lining, it’s that Walcott finally broke the ice and scored two league goals. Bad result in FA Cup followed by mediocre result in Champions League followed by a bad result in the league. This is when things started to go south for us last year but this year is different. We played awful last year during this time period, but this year it’s a question of injuries (RVP, Rosicky), bad luck (Adebayor and the crossbar) and bad refereeing (penalty today).

I’m not concerned, we’ll shake this off next week against Villa and finish the job in Italy. Prayers with Eduardo, he’s out for a long, long time, will miss the season obviously and is out for Euro 2008. Say what you will about Arsenal’s bad disciplinary record, we’ll argue with ref, go for a bold tackle, but we don’t try to end players’ careers. The FA needs to realize people come to watch players like Eduardo, not riff-raff like Martin Taylor. I’m very interested as to what the suspension will be for this guy, seeing how we’re the Gunners and not Man Utd or Liverpool, he’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. At what age do they teach you how to tackle? This fucker still hasn’t learned, ban this guy for a season. Wenger is pissed, and rightfully.

Arse!

Eduardo injury pictures:

There are two more, these are more gruesome, so view it at your own risk. Here’s the other one. Here’s one at a unique angle.

Finally, this one is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC in nature. The injury video is the last one on this page, scroll down for it.

My Arsenal Feed.
Match Report.
BBC Match Report - Arsene Wenger Post Match Interview.

MOTD Highlights

McFadden ‘28 1-0: Flamini “foul” + goal Download :: YouTube

Walcott ‘49 1-1 Download :: YouTube

Walcott ‘55 2-1 Download :: YouTube

McFadden penalty + Clichy “foul” ‘90 2-2 Download :: YouTube

Martin Taylor’s horror tackle on Eduardo who breaks his leg Download :: YouTube :: FootyTube video + discussion :: High Quality

Bad tackle on Hleb Download :: YouTube

Adebayor fouled, penalty not given Download :: YouTube

So much for that Orlando win, before we dissect this performance it’s time to remind everybody that the Raptors are 4-4 in the easy month of February, a month where they were supposed to go 9-3. Let’s get the stats out of the way: We got out-rebounded 45-36 (12-5), the leaky perimeter defense gave up 43 points to Jamal Crawford and we committed 16 turnovers. Andrea Bargnani went 1-5 FG with 2 rebounds, Zach Randolph killed us with 26/15 and Bosh countered with 23/8. Enough numbers, let’s talk about why we lost to the team that got spanked by 40 in Philly.

We were shutting out the Knicks in the first quarter for one singular reason: hard double teams at Randolph/Curry, neither of which know how to pass out of double teams. It left the Knicks scrambling and struggling to get into their offense, they couldn’t establish any kind of rhythm and their bigs never got near the offensive glass, it was one and done. Starting in the second quarter, Jamal Crawford lit us up from the perimeter and for the remaining three quarters, we never adjusted. We continued to give him space on the perimeter and he kept knocking down jumpers, Jamario Moon, Anthony Parker and Carlos Delfino were all guilty of allowing too much space beyond the arc for the deadly Knick. The same old perimeter defense, the same old result. Sam any ideas on Crawford?

“With Jamal making shots like that, it’s just tough. It’s hard to overcome 43 points by one guy”

Aah, the throw-your-hands-in-the-air excuse.

But we’re used to bad perimeter defense and bad rebounding so it’s not a shock that even the lowly Knicks can beat us when they’re motivated enough to play. It’s the mysterious departure from doubling Randolph that gets me, whenever Randolph caught the ball in the third quarter, he was allowed to progress instead of give the ball up. Maybe it was the fear of Crawford that was in Sam’s mind that he refused to double Randolph, allowing him to go at Bosh and Baston without mercy. Sam does know that it’s possible to slow down a hot perimeter player AND send a double team to a guy who can’t pass out of one, right? We allowed Crawford to get hot early and he stayed hot, we allowed Randolph to get hot starting in the second and he stayed hot. A bad, bad defensive game by the Raptors.

We attempted 26 threes. Granted, we’re a three point shooting team but you can’t rely exclusively on the outside shot. Time and time again, the Raptors swung the ball out of Bosh double teams only to settle for a three. If you thought the Raptors interior rotation defense is bad, I got news: the Knicks is even worse, their communication on defense is horrible. However, we never exploited this weakness, instead of swinging the ball inside ala UCLA cuts, dump-downs or even hi-los, the Raptors were content on shooting from the perimeter at the end of the swing sequence. Case in point, this is how the Raptors ended the game on offense:

2:39	Carlos Delfino misses 23-foot three point jumper   94-97
2:36	Jamario Moon offensive rebound                     94-97
2:27	Jamario Moon misses 26-foot three point jumper     94-97
1:44	Chris Bosh misses layup                            94-97
1:15	Chris Bosh defensive rebound                       94-97
1:00	Carlos Delfino makes free throw 1 of 2             95-97
1:00	Carlos Delfino misses free throw 2 of 2            95-97
0:39	Jose Calderon misses 25-foot three point jumper    95-99
0:20	Chris Bosh misses 26-foot three point jumper       95-99
0:15	Jose Calderon personal foul                        95-99
0:14	Jamario Moon defensive rebound                     95-99
0:07	Carlos Delfino misses 23-foot three point jumper   95-99

We took 5 threes in the last two and a half minutes. The only play going to the rim was a short Bosh jumper at 1:44. That’s it. Bosh was guilty of settling more than anyone, two nights after his performance against Dwight Howard, he never challenged Zach Randolph or David Lee into guarding him, always making life easier for the defender by opting to go with the jumper. Maybe we thought we had this game won after the first quarter? We’ve had letdowns before and it’s no surprise that it happened again tonight, and we shouldn’t be surprised if it happens again next week against Indiana.

Good thing Colangelo got Primoz Brezec to come in and help out with the rebounding, I was getting real worried there for a bit. Seriously though, we can’t compete with any team with a half-decent frontline when it comes to rebounding. Chris Bosh is the only player who goes after the rebound on every play as soon as the ball hits the rim, but other than him and maybe Jamario Moon, we’re all “wait and see” rebounders. As in, let’s wait and see where the ball goes before I decide to go after it or not. Asking Bargnani to rebound is like asking Paris Hilton to do her own laundry. Bargnani prefers to shoot the ball, rebounding is meh to him. I was angry 7 seconds into the game when Bargnani launched a deep three as soon as he caught the pass from Calderon on our first possession. What the fuck are you trying to prove man? A heat check this early? Whatever happened to inside-out and using your quickness against the slow ass Curry? All that shit went in one ear and out the other?

I’d like to quote CreaM from RealGM who summed up Bargnani’s overall game in response to a poster who was blindly defending the pick:

Do you honestly think that with the type of shots Bargnani takes, he is consistently able to hit at a high percentage? The numbers don’t lie, he is inefficient as a scorer but people fail to realize this because the try as much as possible to focus on the little “positives” they can find.

Call me a hater but as long as Bargnani plays the way he does, he will never be a consistent scorer in this league. He like to get up shots in a hurry and when he hits 2 or more straight, he feels like its his right to take the next 5. I dont know if that is the way he was coached in Italy or its just a natural flawed mentality but its present. That is why you either see 4 point games or 24 point games from him. Unfortunately, the latter only happens once every 10 games.

As long as Bargs plays the way he does, he will never be a successful player in the NBA IMO. He has to change his style of play which I don’t see happening anytime soon.

It’s hard to sweep a divisional rival, no matter how pathetic, in any league. The Knicks were going to get a win in the series at some point, they almost pulled it off in January and finally managed to do it here. The worst part about it is admitting that the Knicks deserved to win this game while the Raptors pretended to have won it. This team often goes into cruise control for reasons beyond my comprehension and that is a reflection upon the coach. As soon as things start coming a little easy for us, we assume that that’s how things will be for the rest of the game. There is simply no excuse to let your guard down when you’re playing at Madison Square Garden. Sam Mitchell sees it in the same light but is obviously unable to transfer his ideas onto his players:

“You’re never supposed to win, this is professional sports. If you don’t play well and execute, you’re going to get beat. I don’t care who you’re playing.”

Calderon had a very mediocre night going 5-15 FG and Ford looked very rusty and rightfully so. This game showed how important Calderon is to this team, he needs to have a stellar game for us to have a chance in games. Any time Bosh is neutralized we can only look to Calderon to provide the necessary scoring punch and leadership. It’s sad that the two other sources of offense that we were supposed to have (Bargnani and Kapono) are struggling so bad that we’ve grown to accept their negligible offensive production. I hope the only reason Kapono remains on this team is that nobody was willing to take on his ridiculous contract, other than that there is simply no excuse why his ass is warming the bench. 8 minutes and no shots? As PsychicSpy’s conspiracy theory goes, he’s strictly looking out for his percentages and doesn’t even want to shoot unless he’s wide fucking open.

Is it me or is every Jamario Moon jumper of the bad shot! bad shot! goooood shot variety. You know, the one where you cringe while the ball is in the air and let out a sigh of relief when it goes in hoping he’ll never try that again. You just knew he wasn’t going to make that three late in the fourth, he was simply due to miss. You can’t argue with his production on the night though, 16 points and 8 rebounds is saying a lot despite the two instances where he tried to force a pass to seldom used nomad Maceo Baston. Baston’s cameo reminded me just why Sam Mitchell doesn’t play him. Brezec’s already ahead of him in the rotation.

Here’s a lame prediction: we’re going to kick the Knicks’ ass on Sunday but guess what? Just like Washington, it don’t matter if you didn’t win the first game. Going .500 against the Knicks is as bad if not worse than going .500 against a Wiz team missing Butler and Arenas.

Liners:

* What is up with the funky camera angles when interviewing Brezec at halftime? Made me dizzy.

* I’m not sure how I feel about Delfino’s game. He was 5-11 FG with a couple important deep threes and was a huge part of our comeback. But I’m not liking the shoot-first modes he goes in and out of throughout the game.

* Kris Humphries played a good 9 minutes in the first half and was never heard from again. I don’t understand it, why did we bring in Maceo Baston when Humphries was on his way to having a solid game. He already had 4 points and 4 rebounds in 9 minutes, why the exile to the bench?

* Same applies to Rasho, he should’ve been there at the end of the game instead of one of Parker/Delfino/Moon, none of who can properly box out and prevent David Lee from getting crucial offensive boards.

* Eddy Curry wasn’t even a factor in the game. He was hurting us early but Isaiah did a good job of taking him out of the game for us.

What a horrible way to start the weekend, I’m disgusted.

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This trade is hardly worth it’s own post but since we’re all Raptors fans it’s mandatory to beat a topic, however inconsequential, to it’s ultimate death. If you’re sick and tired of hearing about the trade deadline and would like a more entertaining and humorous read, look no further than funnyman Dinosty’s take on the situation. For those of you who like to suffer, read ahead:

Reasoning for trade

Juan Dixon was doing very little as a Raptor and wasn’t being utilized to his full potential. With Calderon being a vastly superior player, the introduction of Dixon at the point was a significant drop-off and he never cracked the regular rotation, even falling behind Delfino at the PG spot. He was unhappy and felt that his talents deserved more playing time, obviously it wasn’t happening with the Raptors and Colangelo moved him. That’s what we know for sure. Was Colangelo’s primary intention to improve the team? No, otherwise he would’ve made a “real” trade, not a journeyman for journeyman swap which added nothing but a different ass for the bench to warm. The trades that were being discusses earlier involving Joe Smith and Mickael Pietrus were the trades Colangelo was trying to pull but failed to do so. The Juan Dixon trade was nothing more than respecting a seldom used veterans trade request (not demand) and in return bag another expiring contract. I’m sure that if Brezec had even a single more year at the same numbers, this trade does not happen.

What does Primoz Brezec give us?

Nothing much and it’s not a slight against him. He can’t possibly be looked at as the solution to our rebounding problems, he’s a hardly used player who’s already behind Andrea Bargnani and Rasho Nesterovic in the depth chart while his Per 48 rebounding is well below the undersized Kris Humphries. We already have a big body going to waste in the form of Maceo Baston and Sam’s as stubborn as a mule when it comes to the rotation. If he thought cracking the Detroit lineup was hard, wait till he gets a sense of how Sam works. I can’t seem to figure out what Brezec will give us that his fellow Slovenian Rasho Nesterovic can’t. Therefore, one is forced to conclude that this trade was nothing more than a convenient swap which came with some cash. A can’t lose situation. I read an argument in the now legendary 70+ page thread that Brezec will be able to help us out in case we face Cleveland in the playoffs. I have a hard time believing that even a washed up Ben Wallace, Anderson Varejao or Big Z will be intimidated by Primoz, at best he’ll be good for 6 fouls. Well, let’s see how he plays (if he plays) and talk about his game then. Until then, Primoz, meet bench. Bench, meet Primoz.

Should Colangelo have pulled a Cleveland-type deal?

No, I think he was wise not to jump into the trade market with reckless abandon. Cleveland did end up making their team a lot better with the acquisition of Ben Wallace, Joe Smith (who the Raptors liked), Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West. In the process, Danny Ferry also acquired Wallace and Sczerbiak’s behemoth contracts. No sane Raptors supporter would’ve been an advocate of a drastic makeover which is sure to put a financial straight-jacket on your club for the next few years. If Cleveland fails to click with the new additions, it’ll be one of the worse trades ever. If they manage to get to the NBA finals, Ferry will be known as a proactive GM that saw in Wallace what others didn’t. I’m of the opinion that this was a trade made to keep Lebron happy, they had already missed out on Mike Bibby and Jason Kidd and wanted to give Lebron some help, any help.

The reason why fans are disappointed

Nobody is expecting anything from the Dixon deal, nobody is saying that we got robbed. That would be crazy talk. Fans are upset that we’ll be entering the playoffs with the same weaknesses as last year. What adds to the frustration is that players such as Francisco Elson, Kurt Thomas, Reggie Evans, Drew Gooden and Joe Smith were all available at reasonable rates and Colangelo failed to orchestrate a trade. This is a legitimate grievance and even the staunchest of Colangelo supporters can’t deny. Excuses such as rebuilding and being cautious with the salary cap are just that, the bottom line is that this team had a very obvious need which still remains unfulfilled. Maybe, just maybe, Bryan Colangelo might be totally cool with making a first-round exit as long as his plan of building around Bargnani and Bosh and adding a free agent a summer from now remains intact.

Where do we stack up?

Cleveland has upped the ante in the race for 3rd and looks to have the edge on Orlando. I’m ready to hand Cleveland the third spot which might be a good thing for us. If Cleveland finishes 3rd, it means the Raptors will finish somewhere between 4th - 6th. If Orlando finishes behind Cleveland and we manage to hold off Washington, we’ll get the 4/5 playoff matchup we want - Orlando. Taking out Cleveland in the playoffs is impossible for the Raptors, way too much rebounding for us to handle and the Lebron factor is too big to overcome. I’m a little scared of Gilbert Arenas to welcome a Washington matchup. Even with Arenas out, Jamison and Butler would cause us serious matchup issues and once you throw Arenas in there you have to think he’ll wash out whatever Calderon does. Blatche has all the skills to have a Mikki Moore type series and if Haywood decides to play, we’ll be in trouble. The Orlando matchup against Dwight Howard is the most likable. Howard can be neutralized by Bosh and I believe it’s always easier to slow down a superstar big man who doesn’t have the ball at the start of the play rather than a superstar guard, which is what Cleveland and Washington present.

The trade deadline is over and the Raptors continue to remain a very easy team to prepare a game-plan against. If you stop Chris Bosh, half the job is done. If Calderon continues to play at such a high level, he might be able to give us an outside chance in a series. However, in a playoff setting when the opposing coach has had time to devise a plan to slow down our offense, it’s up to our defense and rebounding to hold down the fort and I just don’t feel confident that we can step up to the challenge. I suppose a lot depends on whether Jorge Garbajosa can come back and spark our defense, maybe Colangelo is relying on Bargnani to have a strong finish to the campaign and doesn’t want to hinder his progress by acquiring a player who might bite into his playing time. Whatever the key to playoff success is, it’ll have to come from within. There’s no help coming anytime soon.

Thanks for reading and posting your thoughts. Till after the Knicks game.

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Move the ball, go inside with Bosh, shoot well from the outside and play just enough defense. Sounds simple enough but the chances of all four things happening on the same night are rare, but when they do happen, it’s a sure sign the Raptors will win a blowout. The Magic game was supposed to be one of the tougher ones of the month what with Dwight Howard and all, but Chris Bosh has always reserved his better games against Howard (CB4’s averaging 22.5/9.2 against him) and tonight was no different. For all of the shit Chris Bosh takes at times (including in this space), he remains our best player and last night’s game was Exhibit A of just how un-guardable he can be in certain matchups. This game actually changed my outlook on whether we could take out the Magic in a 7-game series, I think we can.

There were a couple plays tonight which served as microcosms of this game, they both went something like this: Calderon brings the ball upcourt, Bosh sets a screen for him (at this point Jameer Nelson is lost), Bosh is rolling towards the rim while Calderon is also attacking the rim at the same time, the help comes inevitably. Instead of Calderon forcing a shot, he swings it to the weakside where the ball is swung around back to the strong side for a short jumper. If there’s a thing called “textbook Raptors basketball”, it was on display tonight. And top it all off we only got out-rebounded by 6 and there’s even a silver lining there, we beat them on the defensive boards 25-23.

Dwight Howard had a quiet 37 which I only learned of when looking at the box score after the game. That sounds like an idiotic statement but many of his points came with the Raptors up by 14-17 points and comfortably in command. Thanks to some key scoring plays in the fourth the Magic never went on the run that might’ve cut this lead to say 7 points and made a real ballgame of things. Scoring 37 on 13-16 FG is awesome but when your counterpart is going 14-16 FG with 40 points, you know you haven’t done your defensive duties and your offensive efforts have been more than offset. In all fairness to Howard his lateral quickness is very shitty, almost as bad as Brian Cook’s which made Bosh’s job even simpler. Give credit to Bosh, he did the right thing every time, when given space he hit his jumper, when played too tight he took it to the rim. Flawless game. Throw in some ridiculous 11-20 3FG and the only way the Magic would come out with a win is if their offense was clicking at peak efficiency. Turkoglu and Lewis went through cold stretches whereas Delfino and Calderon never eased up. Orlando was savoring their Detroit victory and didn’t feel too bad writing this one off.

There’s a nice quote about Bosh from Stan Van Gundy in this Orlando Sentinel article:

“My respect for Bosh came three years ago in one of those rookie-sophomore games (during all-star weekend). One of those games where no one tries hard. Except Chris Bosh tried hard all night long. I knew he was special then. Everybody was clowning around but not Bosh.”

Despite all the respect, Bosh rarely saw a double team all night which Van Gundy later regretted.

“There was not one thing they did that we could guard. Chris Bosh we could not guard, we didn’t have anybody that could guard him, we’ll have to think about double-teaming him next time. I thought Dwight (Howard) could guard him a little bit but he obviously could not. We could not guard (Jose) Calderon on the pick-and-roll at all and we did not close out on their shooters. There wasn’t one thing we did defensively tonight that impacted them whatsoever. We didn’t have much trouble getting good shots and scoring, that’s not the issue against this team. We’ve got to be able to guard them, we could not and end of story.”

In the same article Van Gundy mentions how Chris Bosh “destroyed” Orlando center Dwight Howard. Makes me feel good.

Not to be a bitch about things but one thing I noticed is that we have horrible communication in our interior defensive rotations. Bosh is left hung out to dry almost every time he comes out to help. Now he’s not the kind of guy that’ll turn back and give Bargnani or Parker a glare, but somebody (Sam?) needs to recognize that we need to get a LOT better in such key areas in order to actually contain a good offensive team over a series. It’s always a pain to watch Jamario Moon shoot jumpers but to his credit he’s gotten smarter and confidently dribbles in a couple steps to get the target within his limited range.

Normally a “heat check” happens when a player’s hit a few shots in a row and he wants to test whether he’s still in the zone. Carlos Delfino works the exact opposite way, his first couple shots are his heat checks. If they go in, he’ll keep shooting and if he makes them nobody complains. If he doesn’t make them, he’ll wait a few minutes and do another couple heat checks, if he’s still not making him, he’s useless on the night. Today, he made all his heat checks and it follows that he had a strong offensive game. Delfino is an extremely streaky shooter who hovers on the border of chucking far too frequently. He can’t be relied upon to provide consistent scoring, if he’s hitting his wide open jumpers presented to him by Calderon, it’s a good night but other than he’s hit and miss. Check out his recent scoring outputs:

8, 5, 0, 0, 3, 12, 2, 16, 14, 23, 26, 0, 0, 15, 18, 1, 11, 6, 7, 14, 7, 11, 7

The talk of freeing up cap space to sign Calderon often comes up but soon we’ll have to make a decision on Delfino. I doubt he’s worth more than 5M/yr and if we could just trade Kapono and give that money to Delfno, I’d call it a fair day.

Trade Deadline

The trade deadline is today and unless the coaching staff has a master plan to get production out of Kapono, he is the prime candidate to depart, not Juan Dixon. Case in point is this game: if he’s only managing to get 4 points in 14 minutes against a Magic team coming off a back-to-back, its hard to imagine how inconsequential he’ll be in the playoffs when the defense is locked in. In theory, he’s a great signing. People double Bosh and we need some outside shooting to offset that, but in reality he’s simply too easy to cover on the perimeter and there is no conscientious effort being made on the part of the coaching staff to actually get him in a rhythm leaving him to create on his own, which he can’t. I don’t believe Leo’s bullshit about Kapono not being a one-dimensional player and willing to put the ball on the floor. He’s missing the point completely: we didn’t bring him here to put the ball on the floor, just like we didn’t bring Dell Curry in here to be a swingman.

There are teams out there that could use outside shooting: Phoenix, San Antonio, LA Lakers, Golden State to name a few but Kapono’s contract is a bit on the ridiculous side to make him great trade bait. But then again, he is the best open jump shooter in the league and I find it hard to believe that there aren’t takers, even if they’re just willing to give expiring contracts in return. I just got done watching the Phoenix/Lakers game and the Suns need outside shooting and they might even do it at the expense of Kapono’s non-existent defense.

There’s also the Michael Pietrus for Juan Dixon and Joey Graham rumour that’s gaining momentum. I’m not sure if this trade will even have a ripple on the eventual record of the Raptors team, Pietrus is a good talent but at 6′ 6″ he’s a bit undersized to really help us with our rebounding problems. He’ll be able to help us out with our perimeter defense. Now his teammate, Andris Biedrins is somebody who would really help us out with some rebounding, shot-blocking and interior defense but Don Nelson isn’t demented enough to give him up.

Liners:

* Stan Van Gundy needs to relax. Taking one of two on the road on a back-to-back isn’t all that bad.

* I’m not one for the Jose Calderon/TJ Ford debate but it’s hard for a point guard to play any better than how Jose’s playing right now. I feel at ease every time he has the ball, even with the clock winding down or late in crunch time. 19 points, 13 assists, 8-10 FG.

* Andrea Bargnani was brutal tonight: 1-8 FG, 2 rebounds. He looked a lot like that Bargnani we started to loathe in January. If we lost this game, he’d be a big talking point.

* This is the easiest part of our schedule, we get to play the Knicks who got blown out by 40 in Philadelphia. It would dampen my spirits if we lose even one of the game against the Knicks.

* 127 point is a season high for the Raptors.

* How many times do we have to hear out the names of the TV crew in the truck? Chuck, stop yelling out their names and saying us how great they are. They’re mediocre as can be, hardly a game goes by where the auidence doesn’t miss at least three plays. Besides, if every time somebody got a shout-out for just doing their job, all we’d be doing is shouting shit out.

* Chris Bosh is The Top Rap.

Later.

Adebayor’s header at the end would’ve been nice but in the end we have nothing to show for dominating the game. A win at the San Siro will be difficult but if there’s one thing Arsenal know after this game, it’s that they have what it takes to beat Milan. As the boss himself said, we were a little nervous in the final third and deserved at least a couple goals. Toure’s early injury looked to be a setback but Senderos filled in nicely, Fabregas was awesome and Hleb magnificent. Milan were backtracking for the better part of the match only choosing to attack when Arsenal chose to take a break from their onslaught.

The best chance of the evening fell to Adebayor in the closing seconds but his open-net header hit the crossbar. He should’ve scored. Earlier in the match, his five yard pass was too strong which would’ve been a sure Arsenal goal. The big man did cause Milan problems all game long with his size, but never connected on any of the tempting crosses from Sagna or Hleb. The introduction of Bendtner to add some height saw the largely ineffective Eduardo taken out but he couldn’t free himself for any clean headers. Theo Walcott, an injury time introduction, created the final Adebayor chance and got around his defender with ease. Wenger will be sure to use this weapon nicely in the away leg.

Kaka was held in check and Arsenal played smart football on the back-line never allowing Milan and the dangerous Alexandre Pato any room to create. Jens Lehmann didn’t have to do much but his quick outlets, confident clearances and leadership in the back was a welcome sign. Lest we forget, Jens is still a good goalie.

Arsenal tie 0-0 but dominate against the mighty Italians. In two weeks time, this young Arsenal squad will play the biggest game of their lives. After dominating AC Milan for a large portion of this contest, we have the confidence we need to pull of the first ever win by an English club against AC Milan in the hostile atmosphere that is the San Siro. It’s time for the Gunners to pull of yet another Italian Job, just like they did years go against Inter Milan.

Match Report

Match Highlights Download

Arsene Wenger Post Match Interview (Audio’s a bit off) Download

Starting Lineups and Introduction Download

One usually give two shits about the dunk contest but this year it would’ve been nice to see the crown return to Toronto and the Raps get a sweep of the top two ASSN competitions. Kapono’s demolition of the field (take that Lebron you pompous little prick) wasn’t a surprise and if anything, I was shocked he missed the one shot on the final rack which would’ve given him 26 on the night, thus breaking Craig “I practice 3s two months before the competition” Hodges’ record. When open, the man is deadly. When covered, he’s a waste of the MLE.

What was slightly depressing but deserving was Moon’s early exit thanks to some suspect judging which put a high value on props rather than substance. You’ve all seen this video by now which prompted many a pundit to pick him as the favorite and increased the size of Moon’s head by a 600% margin. That’s the only reason I can explain why he completely forgot that NBA rules stipulate that you must use another player to assist in one of the two dunks in the first round. When Moon did his first dunk he forgot to use a player thus forcing him to use Kapono as the assist-man on the FT line dunk - which is impossible because you need your full momentum and can’t be bothered to catch a pass, just ask Michael Jordan. The anti-climax that followed was a dunk from just inside the FT line, something very impressive but negated by the pre-competition hype and the really bad and unnecessary idea of marking the take-off spot which you miss by two feet.

Darrel Dawkins gave Moon an 8 on his second dunk which ultimately proved the difference. Moon’s dunk deserved at least a 9 which would’ve tied him with Gerald Green forcing a dunk-off. It’s not the low-score on Moon’s dunk that bugged me, it’s the high score on Gerald Green’s “Let’s put Rashard McCants on a ladder and have him pass me the ball” dunk which got all 9’s. This dunk was practically and alley-yoop, but easier. At least on an alley-yoop the pass has a chance of being off-target thus forcing the player to improvise and apply the needed correction, in this case all he had to do was catch it and slam it. This was possibly the worst dunk of them all and the sole reason why Moon was a spectator for the final round. The ball was caught on it’s way down and it wasn’t even that high to begin with (Rudy Gay’s alley-oop in the Rookie/Sophomore game was much higher). The windmill added a nice touch but that’s been played out. The candle-dunk was nice but not close to being as impressive as Moon’s left-handed near-FT-line catch-and-dunk of Kapono’s pass, yet it got nothing less than a 9. You might think I’m biased but I’m not evaluating this as a Raptor fan, but as an impartial observer.

The Superman dunk wasn’t even a dunk. It’s hard for me to look past that, this is the All-Star DUNK competition and you must DUNK the ball in order to get a score. Once again, props over substance. Take a look a the two pics below, you know what the main difference is? One of them was a dunk.

Dwight Howard did deserve to win, but Moon would’ve provided much better competition in the final round than Gerald Green who still thinks that the “between the legs” is more than just a treadmill move. Rudy Gay’s dunks weren’t all that bad, his second dunk was impressive, it was basically the same as Dwight Howard’s behind-the-backboard dunk except at a slightly more convenient angle which the judges will never pick up on unless they see a replay. The judges need to see a replay before they give a score, you can only measure the impressiveness of a dunk once you see it at a few different angles, evaluate the verticality, the body angle, the force etc.

Why does Magic Johnson open his mouth? Does he ever have anything to say besides inane banter? The TNT crew would do well by kicking out Magic and inside-joke King Reggie Miller. Kenny Smith’s been using the “Let’s go home” line since VC2000, it’s time to find new material.

Either Jamario Moon should make another YouTube video which shows what he can really do OR he should do something in-game - doesn’t matter if he travels or carries, just throw one down to get some face back.

How about the Atlanta Hawks acquiring Mike Bibby for next to nothing to strengthen their playoff push while Bryan Colangelo sits and waits. The only reason he’ll make a move is if his hand is forced and I’m glad Juan Dixon’s doing that right now.

Till another day. Grab the feed.