High flying Bargnani and a nifty name for a night of shooting

Join Doug Smith at noon Friday for a live basketball Q&A, as the Raptors get ready to take on the Cleveland Cavaliers.

So it’s snowing and blowing here and it finally feels like a winter morning and all I can say to that is:

Bring on spring!

Seriously, this is enough, thank you very much.

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The things you see that make you rub your eyes and shake your head.

We’re standing around after practice Thursday, waiting to be entertained by the musings of the eminently quotable Raptors (and, actually I’m being quite facetious) and there’s the usual hijinks going on on the court.

Alvin’s down at one end try to school someone in a one-on-game (and trash talking all the time), a couple of guys are getting up free throws and right in front of us, Marc Iavaroni’s working with Andrea, Amir and Rasho.

Usual stuff at first -- post moves, up-and-unders, jump hooks – and then the move a few more feet from the basket and run some screen-roll stuff.

And I swear, during the running of said drills, we watched Andrea peel off imaginary screens, roll hard, take a lob pass and dunk.

Now, that may not sound like much but think. Think hard.

When was the last time you saw Andrea Bargnani leap, take a lob and dunk?

I can’t remember one and I see him working after practice three or four days a week.

E Koreen mentioned it, too; and if there are two of us who don’t think we’ve seen something before, there’s a good chance we haven’t.

Now, I’m not saying they’re going to put backdoor cuts in for Andrea into the playbook or anything but they could.

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I don’t know much about miracles except that I wish I could conjure one or two up every now then but I do know that it’s not easy to get that done.

And for that reason, I put it a 1-99 that we see Mr. Bosh on the basketball court tonight. Maybe even less than that.

If he’s still got some pain in his left ankle and still hasn’t done much more than stationary shooting drills this week, there’s absolutely no sense to run him out there.

This team has bigger fish to fry other than one game against a good Cleveland team on a Friday night in late-February. Bosh knows it, Jay knows it, the other players know it and so do you, really.

If Bosh knows anything, as he mentioned Thursday, it’s folly to think try and come back too early from anything.

The ankle’s getting better, the swelling’s gone, but there’s discomfort and there was some pain and that’s more than enough to spend another night in a suit.

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So I’m watching the women’s pucks for a minute (I still can’t get over the longshot that it was Canada-US for gold) and the dude doing the play-by-play is picking out the famous people in the stands.

He nails Gretzky with the prorogue doofus from Ottawa, gets Michael J. Fox right and then sees one of our best Olympic athletes of all time signing autographs.

“And there’s Sara Hughes.”

And I don’t know whether to sigh in exasperation or barf.

I sighed.

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What’s up in Cleveland?

Well, they say Shaq suffered a “significant” thumb injury last night as the Cavs laid waste to the Boston Celtics.

My man Brian Windhorst makes it sound like a pretty big win.

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Got any questions? Well, I’ll be around here about noon to answer them if you’d like.

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Nifty 250.

That’s what they call shooting sessions that Antoine Wright goes through with assistant coach Eric Hughes back at the Air Canada Centre most evenings after afternoon practices.

Saw Antoine give Eric a signal for a 6 p.m. get together when practice ended just after noon on Thursday and figured I’d check with Wright to see how long he’d be hanging out and shooting.

He said it really depends on the night, his mood and the willingness of the ball to go into the basket.

Sometimes if he’s making shot after shot, he can get to 250 attempts and feel good about in 45 minutes; sometimes it can be appreciably longer.

The drills are pretty much as you’d expect. Five-station shooting drills inside and outside the three-point line, one dribble pull-ups and work coming off imaginary screens.

Pretty basic stuff but as Wright said, he needs to feel each night that he’s in a good rhythm before he’s satisfied with the work.

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I’m told the big pucks game doesn’t start until 9:30 Friday night? Sweet.

We may get four quarters of uninterrupted basketball and you’ll still have a chance to repair to the comfort of a nice seat to see the buik of the big game while some of us type.

Very cool for you. And me.

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So, I get practice over with and a tortuous torturous time in the dentist’s chair getting cleaned up (actually, Liz wasn’t torturing me as much as helping) and was able to go check out a game.

And let me tell you, the Hawthorn Hawks had a tough afternoon.

Before a home crowd of 3, which swelled to double-digits for a few minutes after PLASP got out, I think, they were edged 48-33 by the Cougars of Queenston, a team that looked like the Lakers of the Peel Grade 8 league.

Super Son wasn’t sure what that did to their playoff hopes. I can’t imagine it did much.

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Oh, and get the mail in here, please. I figure a nice night in a lobby enjoying a refreshment and doing the mailbag is a fine way to spend a Saturday eve in Oklahoma City and I need some help with good questions.

And since the most convenient way to get to Oklahoma City on a Saturday while avoiding O’Hare is to fly through – get this! – Minneapolis, by the time I eventually land amongst the tumbleweeds, I may need that lobby and a way to put travel woes out of mind.

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Comments

[KB]

On the political side: Sure "doofus" may be a little strong ... but a blog is a place for opinions, and Doug you are entitled to yours. I gotta say, I have wondered while following your blog over the past couple of years if The Star's political bent filters on down to even the sports writers ... I believe I may have my answer?! :)

On the BBall side: what's your take on the comments made by Roy about Jose and Jack (i.e. Jack was killing them and then the change in the 3rd)? ... any thoughts on the coaching strategy and why you think the change was made? If you already covered this somewhere and I missed it ... sorry, I can be a doofus sometimes.

Blogger's note: No real thoughts; was the regular rotation and I have no problems with it.

[Dan]

Can somebody please tell Don W that Harper and Flaherty pushed McGuinty into bringing in the HST (for better or for worse)? And, he clearly knows nothing about American politics or taxes.
On an unrelated note, Chad Ford claimed yesterday that Bosh is privately "pining" to move back to the US. Is that as unfounded and irresponsible a claim as I think?

[John]

Greg, Parliament was prorogued and closed for lets say 8 weeks. In reality it was going to be closed for 6 of those weeks anyway for standard Christmas vacation, so in realilty, prorogueing just added a couple weeks. Go Raps!!!

[The J]

WSG - It's not a "sports column", it's a sports blog. Two very different things.

[Ray from Mississauga]

"the prorogue doofus " Doug, love your work and read it faithfully however sad to see that you've been drinking the kool-aid down at the Star. Scary to think that could happen to think that could happen to a gold, old Mississauga boy.

[Ron]

As per usual, everybody wants to hear somebody else's opinion as long as it doesn't contradict the views they have. You are entitled to your opinion as much as I am or some of the other guys here as well.

I just wanted to say to keep on trucking along and don't let these people allow you to think twice before writing something. It's your blog and you are definitely entitled to give your views.

[LeeZ]

With the news of Alvin Robertson being up on sex trafficking charges, how about a top five list of unsavoury Raptors?

In descending order of severity:
1) Alving Robertson
2) Keon Clark
3)That Univ. of Maryland alum who had a loaded gun near the White House (can't remember his name)
4)Isiah Thomas (sexual harassment)
5)???

[joe]

Doug,

I think I remember Bargnani doing a lop and dunk in a very early season game against the Nets in the 07-08 season. May have been the 2nd or 3rd game of the year if my memory serves will will. I think it was Calderon who lob him the ball.
There's probably some Youtube video that might verify it.

[james]

WSG writes: " To whatever extent one might disagree with the actions of the nation’s leader, blatant disrespect towards him in a sports column seems uncalled for and to my mind, just wrong."
Unless the nation's leader shows blatant disrespect for the public by taking time off to watch sports events with VIPs: then he's fair game.