Doesn't that prove that sports really is a wonderful thing?

Okay, all together now:

That’s why they play the games.

-

THREE POINTERS

Rebounding well

No, not grabbing missed shots, mentally rebounding.

The thing that might have been most impressive about the win was how they handled the inevitable Mavs run and there was an early one that stood out.

Toronto goes up 25-15 early but here come the Mavs, rattling off 10 straight points to tie it with about nine minutes left in the first half.

That’s about the time you kind of expected the beaten up, tired Raptors to fold up, kind of like they did in Memphis the night before.

But noooooo. They go on an 18-6 run, lead by a dozen with three minutes left in the half and it was as bold a statement as they made.

-

Where was Ed?

The first half was as good a stretch as Ed Davis has played all year and I know Jay was getting killed by some Irregulars in the third quarter when he left the kid on the bench for almost 10 minutes.

Why’d he do it?

“It was just a matter of when we were going to get him in in the second half because (Monday) night, Memphis scored four straight times on us to start the second half.

 

“We talked in the locker room that we need to get stops, we played well in the first half but we have to get stops right away here. And Joey did a great job and it was like, ‘I have to run with these guys even though Ed’s having a great game.’”

And it turned out all right, didn’t it?

-

Making his case, again

Once again, Julian Wright didn’t put up the greatest of numbers – scoreless with only four rebounds in 25 minutes – but once again, he had a big impact on the game.

He defender, he ran the floor, he moved the ball on offence and he was quite good.

Which leads me to this question:

Is he rendering Sonny Weems moot?

Seriously, since I’m still unconvinced that Weems and DeMar DeRozan can both function effectively when they’re on the court together, I wonder if Jay shouldn’t just give some Weems minutes to Wright on a regular basis even when Sonny’s ready?

It seems to free up DeRozan to have the ball on offence more, which can only help him and it puts Toronto’s best perimeter defender on the court more often.

Make sense? Does from this angle.

That’s not a knock against Sonny, who has some skills that Julian doesn’t but, on this team at this moment, I don’t think it’s a bad idea.

-

Anyway, a little more:

-

All kinds of questions post-game on where that game might rank all-time and I have to admit, given the circumstances, it’s got to be pretty high on the list.

Now, I don’t like to compare eras and the win in Washington back in ’03 when an eight-man team with three guys on 10-day deals beat the Jordan Wizards was good, as was the first-year win over the 72-10 Bulls at the Dome.

But when it comes to dissect the great gritty performances by an over-matched or under-manned team all-time, that one really has to be in the conversation.

Now all I have to do is remember it when it comes time to compile that list.

-

You know it’s been a good night for someone when you wander outside for fresh air with a coffee at 6:15 a.m. and there’s a half-empty glass of red wine on a little table in the tiny courtyard by the hotel front door.

And New Year’s isn’t until Friday!

-

Hey, people.

Remember the mail?

The place where you send me little notes and say hi and ask questions?

Um, could you get to it, please.

Pretty much empty over there, which means it’s time to click, write and send. Really: Ask, say, tell anything you like.

Thank you.

-

Mr. Sefko, a fine post-game host and a heckuva fella, reports things thusly in the pages of the Dallas Morning News.

-

Right, I owe a guy an explanation.

Some Irregulars might recall the really good line someone dropped on me about mid-way through the fourth quarter last night:

Leandro plays point guard like Curly Neal.

Anyway, someone asked me to explain and here it is: When Curly was doing his magic with the Globetrotters, he was a dribbling maniac, skittering hither and yon, and just killing the Washington Generals.

Well, didn’t you see a bit of that in Leandro down the stretch, in a good way?

Wasn’t this the best play the Raptors had in the last five minutes:

Let Leandro dribble out 18 seconds off the 24-second clock and then see what happens?

Not a bad play, given the circumstances.

-

Hmm.

It’s 6:45 a.m. here and I’m clicking around the dial and there’s not a single bowl game on TV.

Someone’s dropped the ball on that one.

-

Hey!

I just found two files stored on this machine that’ll give me a couple of days of work. It’s more lists, and here’s one:

Q: This one might require some serious thinking, but it gets discussed often in forums and I'd like your thoughts:

What's your top five rules in the NBA that you believe deserve some tweaking for the betterment of the game?

Thanks for your time!

 

Alex K, London

A: In no particular order, let me give you these:

Timeouts: I give each team two per half that can’t be carried over. I guess TV needs one per quarter but that’s it.

Kicked ball: Leave the shotclock where it is, don’t re-set it to 14 if it’s below that when a ball is kicked.

Timeouts II: Know what I’d like to see back? If a player has possession of the ball and is falling out of bounds, I’d let him call a timeout. It usually happens at the end of some hustle play when it happens and I think a guy should be rewarded. Or at least have the chance to be.

Goaltending: The more I think back to the worlds and Olympics, I’ve seen, why not let defensive players knock the ball off the rim if it’s bouncing around.

The charge circle: I’d shrink the semi-circle under the basket a little bit, give the defenders a better chance to contest shots at the rim.

-

I need some help.

Because of this zany schedule, we’ll be in Houston long enough to get citizenship, I think. Arrive Wednesday afternoon and don’t leave until Saturday morning and that’s an awful lot of time in a city I don’t particularly like because it’s so spread out.

So what I need is a couple of dinner spots that should be somewhere close to the Galleria mall (locals or those with Houston knowledge will know what I mean) because there a couple of nights to kill. I’m sure I’ll find a local to sit and sip and work on mail and year-end stuff but a good, relatively inexpensive joint or two would be nice.

Thanks.

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Comments

[HopeCaper]

Hello Doug. Agree with you on a great game for the ages. I get a kick at these writers saying the injured should just suck it up and play. They have been watching too many Rambo movies!!!! But hey make believe is fun too. I don't recall this many Raps being seriously injured at the same time, do you? One thing is for sure, this team has lots of heart. Jay has done a great job to keep them motivated. Enjoy Houston.

[GM]

*Man, the one game I can't watch this season and it appears it was one of the best! Here I am in the heartlands of Alberta and no NBA-TV so I can't even watch the game in an hour. C'est la vie, I guess. Hopefully it'll rerun next week when I get back.
* When I got home from dinner, I read the DSIGBT in one tab with the boxscore in the other. When a player or stat was mentioned, I tabbed over to the boxscore to check. You mentioned DeRozan's 3-pointer, as did a fellow Irregular here today, but in the boxscore it says he was 0-0 from 3-point range. They must have changed it to a 2, I guess.
* Glad you're finally getting on the Julian Wright bandwagon. He's been showing that since his first meaningful minutes game. He plays within himself, knows his role, hustles, plays good defense... everything you want in a role player.
* I agree with the Irregulars who state that if you do away with the kicked ball violation, you'll see no end of flailing legs. You'd probably then see fewer bounce passes and therefore more steals and probably lower scores. Players and coaches are very quick to evolve.
* I agree with making the circle smaller, or even doing away with it. But more importantly, I'd like to see refs not be so taken with a flop. They feel they have to blow their whistle one way or the other if a guy falls over. In reality, nobody falls straight backwards if they're run into. They stumble backwards. Also, if a Shaq or Dampier-type player is run into by a Calderon/Paul-type player, it's not going to affect them one bit, so it's ridiculous that they have to fall back to get the call. A charge is a charge no matter what the defensive player does.
* Don't like the idea of raising the rims. Have you ever tried playing ball on 9-foot hoops? It puts us at about the height of an NBA player, relatively speaking. And while it's really easy to dunk uncontested, it's surprisingly difficult to dunk when someone is playing defense on you. What these guys do is incredible. They just make it look easy.
* I don't think anyone should judge a player's injury. We've all been injured and sometimes things that don't seem like much to other people are incapacitating to you. Ever try to play sports with a strained calf muscle? Not fun. You're essentially useless. They play through all sorts of pain that we never hear about, so trust them when they have an injury that prevents them from being effective. Better to have them out than hurt the team by being useless out on the court.

Blogger's note: The great M. Grange (TM) once made this point about the game and the height of the basket and the skill of the players and it's incredible apt: Take the best basketball you've ever played, put the rim down to nine feet, add two players to each team and then see how easy it is to score. That's NBA basketball. These guys are jaw-dropping good, even the "bad" ones.

[doug]

@ hopecaper....no one is saying the injured need to suck it up and play...but to me when a guy has a "bad knee' then comes back and scores a season high...then misses the next game due to a "sore ankle" ..then comes back for a game and in that game has a "strained calf"...come on those aren't injuries that's life in the NBA...Conley played with 12 stitches on his shooting hand the other night in Memphis, Kobe played all last year with a wonky thumb...Evans injury is serious, and Amir's injury isn't pleasant but it's not in his nature to look for a easy way out...it has nothing to do with Rambo, it has to do with accountability, ..ask any NBA player, NFL player at this time of year do you have any injuries?? the ones that say no are lying...a "calf strain" is not a injury it's a inconvenience, get your ass out there and play or least try...or go back home with your mom, we had one mom to many with the raps already...

[revelation]

Personally hope the injured take a few more games off (except bayless) to see if the team continues to show hustle and effort --win or lose. That hustle equates to better team defense and teams like that rank high on Hollinger's rankings because they keep games close (and conincidentally improve every year). Developing that culture of hustle and grit is just as important as drafting well and trading for good players. The overall athleticism of yesterday's lineups was off the charts.

[Smalahove]

Alvin Williams did a great Curly Neal routine in Vince Carter's first charity game. I had courtside seats and won't forget it. The other players loved it, they were staring at him in awe and laughing. The Raptors on the floor had probably seen it before, but he definitely blew the minds of the guys from out of town. That was a fun moment!

[d]

Good win. Horrible Plan for the future. This team has almost no desired assets, no Tier 1 or 2 guys ( possibly Bargs), and no cap room.

Colangelo is making me crazy with his trades, his lack of other trades and his insistance on keeping Triano as the coach. Love Jay, but not the right coach for a team that isn't good already. Not hard to coach Olympians, a little harder to coach a team of bench warmers.

Toronto really has no identifiable plan going forward. We are in half blow up and rebuild mode vs challenge for a playoff spot mode. It has to be one or the other, it cannot be both. Either give up this season, get rid of extended contracts and try again, or live in mediocrity for the next 3 seasons at least.

Weems, Johnson and DeRozan need to go. Sorry folks, they are just not as good as hyped up to be. Has DeRozan even had a 30 pt game yet in 2 years, or a 25 plus this year with NO BOSH hogging the ball??? Kid has HOPS, but no GAME !!

[Trev]

Hi Doug
Your blog has been a daily read since the Nothin' but Inter(net) days.
I lived in the Galleria area for a few months earlier this year (saw the Raps get blown out by the Rockets in Feb) My recommendations - any of the Pappas joints along Westheimer (Pappas Bros. for steak or Pappadeaux for seafood) BBQ I would go with Goode Company in the Rice Village area. For Tex-Mex, Molina's on Westheimer and for beverages Big Woodrows at Westheimer/Chimney Rock ($1 pints on Thursdays). Enjoy some St. Arnold's for me.

Blogger's note: I'm hoping St. Arnold's is a local delicacy?

[Christa]

Doug, I agree with the blogger who commented that this should seal the deal on Jay Triano - these young guys BELIEVE and work hard for him. The talking heads talk about how it's time for a coaching change when the coach "loses the room". It was obvious to everyone last night (and in the game in which they were down by 25 earlier this season) that these guys listen to Jay and work hard for him. Any coach can teach Xs and Os, not every coach can get guys to listen and Jay has. Enough about firing Jay.

[J]

"Toronto really has no identifiable plan going forward. We are in half blow up and rebuild mode vs challenge for a playoff spot mode. It has to be one or the other, it cannot be both. Either give up this season, get rid of extended contracts and try again, or live in mediocrity for the next 3 seasons at least.
Weems, Johnson and DeRozan need to go."

@d: Sadly, your post has no identifiable plan going forward. You note that the team doesn't possess much in talent (which means you're probably not deluded enough to think we can trade nothing for something and turn this into a true contender), then turn around and advocate to dumping essentially all our youth. I'm not a big Weems fan, and I don't think DeRozan or Johnson will be stars, but you must be confused about what it means to rebuild. "Giving up," as you say, is *not* rebuilding -- that's just wasting everyone's time and money on the hopes that the lottery balls will fall the right way in the right year.

[Trev]

St. Arnold is the local brewery in Houston - http://www.saintarnold.com/
They make some good beverages.

[Danno]

Doug,
Truluck's for dinner, especially seafood.
Courtyard on St. James for lunch.
Richmond Arms pub for a pint and some comfort food.
Enjoy Houston!!

[Rich A.]

Doug - try the Richmond Arms on 5920 Richmond Ave. on the Southwest side. About 100 beers and excellent but inexpensive food. It's worth spending a night or three, and a "can't miss" whenever I'm in Houston. Enjoy!