The Morning After The Night Before, LXX (That's where we're starting now)

That was rather boring, wasn’t it? A ho-hum win over a bad team, no one played particularly well and it was a bit closer than anyone really would have liked. Having to stretch Chris Bosh out to 47 minutes against the Knicks was a bit much.

Anyway, on with the good stuff (good being a relative term)

Three Things I Learned

A Warmup For The Playoffs

I’m sure you all noticed how aggressively the Knicks double-teamed Bosh, mostly on the catch. It may have been portend things to come because that’s likely what he’ll see in the playoffs.

How’d he handle it? Just okay. Five turnovers is too many, he found himself trapped in the corner on too many occasions but 29 and 10 isn’t a bad night.

And some work against a double.

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Andrea Giveth, Andrea Taketh Away

Great put-back dunk by Bargnani in the second quarter. Aggressive, quick, decisive move. Seconds later at the other end, he gets on the wrong side of Fred Jones, who’s about seven inches shorter, and gives up an offensive board.

Still, the dunk was nice.

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One Quick Question

Does Quentin Richardson not have the worst body of any player in the NBA not named Eddy Curry?

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Mo’s Moment

Here’s what you guys should do.

When the teams are introduced tomorrow night, when they get to Mo Pete, stand up and cheer. Yeah, a standing ovation. For a visiting player. You guys obviously love Mo from the mail I get and it’s a good way to show your appreciation. And I bet he’d appreciate it. Might make him cry. That’d be cool.

So, we’re sitting around the adult beverage parlour, as is our post-game tradition (and by ‘our’ I mean ‘mine’), trying to come up with five Magical Mo Moments. Here’s what we got:

The time he finished the layup with his headband over his eyes.

That crazy shot in Washington that tied the game at the buzzer.

When he slapped Vince in the face – all in fun – and got tossed out of the game.

When he got in that scuffle against Indy, bringing then-Pacer coach Isiah Thomas racing down the court from his bench and then-Raptor coach Lenny Wilkens sauntering off his.

And whenever we’d see him in the Harbour Sports Grille picking up an order of wings to go and bust on him. He finally wised up and sent his cousin down after that.

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The things you learn, thanks to Voislav, who’s a welcome regular around these parts:

Just one minor correction about spelling. Nesterovic is often spelled Nesterovich as the second one is phonetically more accurate in the English. The original Yugoslav/Slovenian spelling has an apostrophe over the ‘c’, making pronunciation more like 'ch'.

Most of the people from that part of the world, myself included, choose to just forgo the apostrophe and deal with it. Rasho is similar, the original spelling is Raso with a little check mark over ‘s’, making the 'sh' sound, but that's only a nickname, short from Radoslav (no apostrofies or checkmarks).

Interestingly, Primoz Brezec is a bit different. Letter z in his first name has a little checkmark, making it really 'zh', but ‘c’ in the last name is really a 'c', like c in 'centre'. Anyways, getting a bit involved here.

Not all, much appreciated

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From the department of gratuitous yet mildly-entertaining thoughts, a dude’s looking at the second quarter play-by-play, notices the Knicks 14-0 sorta coincides with T.J. coming back in the game, turns to me and says, “he doesn’t even like coming off the bench in the second quarter.”

A joke, folks; it was a joke.

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Mail’s in

Q: Really appreciate your insight about the raptors and I wouldn't say my day is complete without reading your blog (i keed, i keed:P) Anyway, on to my question:

What makes a good road team? I'm sure it isn't really about lack of focus because these guys are professionals. Why are Boston and Orlando such good road teams? And why are the Hawks, even though they're talented and are currently in the 8th seed, a bad one? Are the Raptors a good or bad road team if you take away the road games against the west?

Patrick P, Scarborough

A: In my humble opinion, defence makes good road teams. As the saying goes, “defence travels” and if you can stop teams, you can keep games close down the stretch and have a chance to pull one out.

The Raptors? I’d say they’re an average road team, with gusts to above average. Winning in Boston, San Antonio and New Orleans is a significant thing.

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From our research department (okay, the interweb), here’s what New York wrote about last night’s game and how New Orleans chronicled the Hornets loss to Boston.

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If you want something cool to do tomorrow afternoon (instead of watching the Mighty Davidson roll to another glorious victory), there’s a big high school hoops game at Ryerson.

It’s the All-Canada Classic and it brings together some of the best boys and girls from across the country. Stuff gets underway at noon and it’s worth taking a look at.

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Once more to the mail

Q: Hi Doug, as the season winds down and the playoff race heats up, I have questions of grave importance:

Who wins in a 1 on 1 game between Primoz Brezec and Uros Slokar? Maceo Baston and Pape Sow? And if the winners of each of those games played a game, who'd win?

Okay, so they're not such important questions, but aren't you glad I didn't rant about TJ and Jose?

Alex H, North York

A: I small Pay-Per-View! Think of the buys we’d get all over the world.

Not sure who’d win but it’d take a long time to put on the show, what with Primoz stretching all the time and Pape falling down and Uros making wisecracks every second.

But if I had to pick, I’d take Sloky over The Gangster, Maceo over Pape and I’m taking Uros to win it all in a glorious triumph for a good guy.

And on that note, I’m off to answer tomorrow’s mail.

Comments

[Sammy]

Hi Doug just wondering if you could explain to a puck head why Joey Graham doesn't play more? He looks good when he is out there, to me at least. Isn't he the closest thing we have to the athletic, slasher, athlete everyone agrees we need. The new guy we signed seems to be along the same line as Joey. What did he do to earn almost constant time on the bench, especially since we can't get our other small forwards to drive to the net either?

Like the way the team has played the last 2 games. Great night for TJ. I hope the loons give him a day off.

Blogger's note: Suffice it to say that Joey's penchant for, um, brain hiccups far outweighs the good things he does in any game.

[Louis]

Doug, Which Raptor player has the greatest impact on whether the raps have success or loss in the playoffs? The mind automatically jumps to Bosh, but when he is being aggressively doubled, as in playoff style ball his impact on whether the team plays well as a whole plummets. I was thinking and I think that Rasho might be that player. When he plays well he is providing another legit big guy who can play the post with experience which when combined with CB is just enough to overload teams. He can score, but chooses his shots carefully and is a good enough passer to get the ball into the right man's hands to make a quality play. He also rebounds quite well and that is a big help. I would say that his greatest strength would be his defense. He just might be the best interior defender on the team and does a great job of being an anchor for the defense. What/who do you think Doug, and why?

Blogger's note: This is a mailbag question and it's drawing close the darkness of EarthHour here at Chez Smith, I'll get to it in another forum.

[junior odeneho]

Doug, what about T.J Ford for Jamal Crawford will it work ?

Blogger's note: Works money-wise but why would the Knicks give up the only guy on the team who can score consistently from the perimeter?

[Zack]

Got to agree with you on the Slokar vs. Baston finale but c'mon Doug, give the veteran some credit. Baston would take Uros to school.

[DSistheman]

Doug... you're my hero. I heart you.

Blogger's note: How cool, my relatives post here.

[Mike S]

So, the lineup has now been changed for two games. And for two games Jose and TJ have been on the floor at the end of the game. Is Sam just delaying the inevitable (deciding who to end the game with) or did it really come down to matchups in the last two games?

[Matt]

Hey Doug, Love the blog, read it every day.
Question: Why did Camby only hang around T.O. for two seasons?
Thanks

Blogger's note: Because they were able to trade him for Charles Oakley, who brought exactly the kind of toughness and leadership they needed at the time.

[RapsFan]

The Raptors should retire Mo Pete's jersey in a few years...

[Matt]

thanks