The Morning After The Night Before, LII

Was sitting there watching Theo Ratliff try to go around Rasho Nesterovic and I was thinking it’s a time trip back to 2001.

FILE PHOTO FROM THE CANADIAN PRESS

Scroll down to find out why Brendan Mallone won't stand for hot dogs on his team.

You all gave your ticket stubs away to someone who would really appreciate spending a half hour or so in a warm restaurant today, right?

And on with the show

Three Things I Learned

A moment in time

Not sure if this ironic, or funny, or what but Chris Bosh passed Morris Peterson for second on the all-time scoring list in the first quarter last night. And he did it when he made that three-pointer. Bosh now has 6,521 career points. Next up: He Who Shall Not Be Named, V. 2.0, who had 9,420.

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Sam’s tiny gamble

A subtle change in strategy by Sam and something he should probably do more often. Bargnani gets two quick fouls – surprise, surprise! – and has a seat on the bench after less than seven minutes and he’d usually be done for the half. Sam rolls the dice, brings the kid back in with about eight minutes to go in the second and he ends up making a couple of baskets, and getting no fouls, in the rest of the quarter.

Since Bargnani hardly ever plays in the fourth quarter, what’s the harm in letting him get second-quarter minutes with two personals?

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Well, looky here

Seems the Raptors have had a slashing small forward all along. His name’s Jason Kapono.

I know a kabillion of you are ragging on Sam and everybody because Kapono doesn’t shoot three-pointers any more but he had 10 points and three boards without attempting one last night and nine points without trying one on Tuesday in Indy. He keeps doing that and you’re going to forget about filling up my e-mail with “What’s wrong with Jason?” questions.

Oh, and because it was a boring game and we like to make, um, caustic comments to each other, I turned to M. Grange ™ and said, “Kapono spends more time in the paint than Jamario.”

Old Mike says, “So do I.”

We slay each other!

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From the mail, one last time, with feeling.

Q: Seems to me that you are always Big on Bargnani (BOB) but Malignant on Magloire (MOM). I personally would like to see a Canadian play for the Raptors and believe that Mitchell could get something out of this home grown, Toronto fella. It wasn't that long ago when he was an all star and he is only 29 years old. The Raptors desperately need a rebounder/defender in the paint, and when you witness Bargnani's inconsistency (BN his Indiana stats BOB) someone of Magliore's ilk would clearly be an asset. Particularly with the Cavs on the playoff horizon. It might all be redundant now given that the Mavs saw something in him that you didn't, but I'd love to see you change your MOM ways.

Frank K, Orillia

A: Sorry, dude. Not changing.

This is getting exasperating, but I’ll do it one more time and then we’re letting Magloire-to-Toronto die forever.

His skills have eroded, seriously, seriously eroded. This is not just me talking. This is every scout I’ve asked about him, and every person in New Jersey I’ve had a discussion with him about.

I have no idea why the Mavs signed him and I will be surprised if he does anything more than play mop up minutes and commit some playoff fouls.

And here’s one other thing for you: Do you think these guys want 10 weeks of constant questions about why the local fella isn’t playing when everyone connected with the team would be loathe to tell the truth? Why do you think he didn’t travel here with Jersey right before the all-star break? Professional courtesy, so he wouldn’t have to answer those questions for even one night.

At one time, Magloire was a good – not great, good – NBA centre; that time was about four years ago.

We’re done with Jamaal and Toronto, okay?

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The NBA: Where Sam Happens

In about an eight-minute soliloquy post-shootaround yesterday he got Barry Bonds, the New England Patriots and Andre The Giant into the speech.

The verbatim snippets:

On winning begetting winning:

"The more you win, it becomes, I wouldn’t say a habit …

"I remember Barry Bonds said something. Someone asked him about his work ethic. He said, ‘when I’m on a hot streak, I spend more time in the batting cage, I lift more weights, I run more in the outfield, I’m in here earlier. When I’m going well, I’m really cranking it up because I want to keep it going.’

When you’re winning, that’s what you want to do. ‘Cause that feeling of losing – if you can ever get on a streak where you can win 10, 11, 12 games in a row, man, you don’t want to lose. You don’t want to lose, you don’t want that feeling, that taste in your mouth of losing a basketball game or losing anything you do."

On games you’re “supposed” to win (notice the seamless transition from football to grappling):

"All them people who took the Patriots, that just goes to show you on any given night that the team that executes and plays the hardest and plays the best is going to win. It’s funny, now I look at the highlights and see talk shows and you’ve got people saying, ‘well, the Giants could win.’ Well, you always say they could, to cover your backside.

"If Andre the Giant the wrestler was still alive and we had a wrestling match, yeah, I could beat him. Just to cover the backside. But no one’s going to bet on me winning. People do that just to leave that little crack open but no one really thought they could win that football game. No one.

"Now you look at and see what happens. New England didn’t lose, they got beat. They didn’t give the game away, they got beat.

"You’re never suppose to win.”

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If you care, and I can’t imagine why you do, here’s what they said in Minneapolis about last night’s dull affair.

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Great story from Someone Who’d Know

The roster in Season 1 was full of rather unique personalities. Guys at the end of the line, journeymen hanging on, dolts and the odd knucklehead.

Seems one night in New Jersey, the various chuckleheads who weren’t playing much were not only goofing around on the bench while the team was getting drilled, one of them (and Someone Who Knows can’t remember exactly who it was) ordered a hot dog from a vendor and ate it during the game.

Little did they know, though, that Isiah Thomas, knowing something was afoot, had a video guy taping the bench antics.

"We came to practice the next day and Brendan had the screen all set up and we thought we were going to watch game video. Then he showed us guys eating hot dogs. People started getting waived after that.”

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Speaking of Isiah, Duane C of Toronto points this out. It’s probably piling on ‘cause Zeke’s gotta deal with that dopey team he put together but it goes to a question I got earlier. You’ll need your volume turned up.

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Mea culpa time

One from the mail:

Q: One comment and a question. The French term for three is not trey, it’s trois.
On to my question, you always hear people say that the team watches tape in order to prepare for their opponent. How does a team obtain that tape? Does the NBA send out a copy of each game to all the teams?

Timothy S, Markham

A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got you, and the others, on the trios, tres, French-Spanish thingy.

In this age of satellite TV, teams generally do their own taping off broadcasts of every game. And, with these guys, it’s not even tapes anymore, it’s DVDs.

And one from me:

In a game Nov. 14 against Utah, Jose Calderon played 16 minutes without an assist so Monday’s game in Indy wasn’t his first assist-free game of the year.

Comments

[Dave]

Doug,

I think it's great that you encourage Raps fans to donate their free pizza tickets to the homeless, but surely the few guys outside the ACC can't eat all that pizza themselves. Perhaps you could coordinate with a local shelter or the people that run the Out of the Cold program to collect the tickets and give them out to many more people in a more efficient manner. Having a few conspicuously located 'pizza donation officers' will also probably encourage more people to give up their stub. The ticketholders, Doug Smith and of course the city's needy will all be happy.

[Pete Z]

Re: the hot dog fiasco... "can’t remember exactly who it was" or just won't say?!

Sounds like something Vince Carter would do. After Juan Dixon egged on Lebron, who then went on to single-handedly win the game, I think the Raps should focus on playing the game with their hands, feet, etc., not their yaps. Luckily, I think we have one of the classiest teams, both on & off the court. And I'm sure no one on the end of our bench will be throwing any verbal jibes at Lebron or Kobe anytime soon.

Doug, for your money, which NBA teams talk the most trash? And more importantly, which teams talk the most trash and then go out and actually back it up on the hardwood??

Blogger's note: Boston's a chatty team but I guess when you've got the best record in the league, you're allowed to whoof a bit.

[richm]

Is "Someone who'd know" former raptor Ed Pinckney? I noticed he was at the game last night and was there that 1st season..

Blogger's note: The identity of Someone Who Knows shall remain a closely-guarded secret every time he/she/it tells me something.

[Lance Uppercut]

It seems Antoine Walker missed the game because of "passport issues", which got me thinking. There must be someone at MLSE with good enough connections to give LeBron some passport problems during a playoff series. Doug, you need to get the ball rolling on this.

[shawn]

Doug, ss you have said, and scouts have seconded, Magloire no longer has the NBA skills/work ethic to contribute in the league, but do you (or the scouts) think he has enough skills left to contribute to the national team once his NBA days are over (which seems to be on the horizon)? That said, do you think he will ever play for the national team in the future?

Blogger's note: I can't imagine him all of a sudden getting patriotic, no.

[jc]

here's a hollinger link from espn which puts the raps in a nice light

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=Storylines-080228a&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3dhollinger_john%26page%3dStorylines-080228a

[U. N. Owen]

I know Rod Strickland wasn't with the Raptors in Year 1, but the hot dog situation sounds awfully like him. Not to mention some puking on the side.

http://misterirrelevant.com/index.php/2008/02/22/rod-strickland-is-puking-his-heart-out/

[Andy c]

"passport issues" sounds like he's about to be bought out to to join a playoff team

[Mark]

Hey Doug

This question may be a better fit for the mailbag but I know I'm more likely to get a response here.
Why the sudden slow down in play these past two games? The refs seem to be calling a lot more fouls then usual and the games are moving at a very slow pace. Are they trying to crack down on the little fouls or is it just by coincidence?

Blogger's note: I think it's coincidence, actually. The Pacers are a plodding team of bigs without much athleticism so they'll foul a lot and the refs did a pretty good job in the Minnesota game, I thought.

[CARLoS M.]

I love reading your blog everyday... but that hotdog story is by far the funniest thing I have ever read about the Raptors!! Keep 'em coming Doug. Great work!