Utterly Humiliated: Defining Play of This Raptors Season

I know its infuriating, but let's take a look again at how Paul Pierce shat on the Raptors:

As much as you may hate Pierce, this isn't about him. Pierce is a bastard, but that's far besides the point. The reaction, or lack thereof, after Pierce throws down a thunderous dunk on Bosh all the while Pierce's knee strikes Bosh's stomach, is pathetic. Pitiful. And to add insult to injury, Pierce stood over Bosh and stared at him = taunting him. I don't need to go through all the details again, just want to put in my two cents about this predicament.

This was THE DEFINING play of this fresh season for your Toronto Raptors. I think Arsenalist of Raptors Republic summed it up best:

"So far, so pussy."

Of all the defensive struggles and the inabilities to give 48 minutes worth of effort on the court, the one thing that irks me - and YOU - is how soft the Raptors are. Mashed potatoes soft. Campbell's soup - ready in a minute - soft. And the Celtics brought out the worst in us, with Paul Pierce nailing the hammer. How the FUCK does nobody other than the Toronto coaches react after such an insult? The dunk itself was fine, a heckuva basketball play, but a player standing over your FRANCHISE PLAYER and taunting him while he's clutching himself in pain?

UNACCEPTABLE.

SHAMEFUL.

We've seen this too many times, hell even with this same opponent. From the infamous KG-Jose confrontation, where Mr.Nice Guy himself, Calderon started talking back to the douche-bag that is KG because nobody, including Chris Bosh himself would stand up for Jose.

So let's fast forward to this event now. Triano and his minions were the only ones to get upset and do anything about it.

The players all get a big F+ for Fail, especially Jarrett Jack because he is supposed be one of our 'tough' guys. And he's Bosh's boy - for God's sake - they room together don't they? Jack claims he didn't think the play was dirty. The dunk itself wasn't dirty - okay, it was 'dirty', but just in the slang sense, as in it was amazing whether you like to admit it or not. But, it wasn't dirty, as in, it didn't look like Pierce intentionally threw out his knee to hurt Bosh - it was just bad luck. The only aspect that was truly dirty was Pierce taunting Bosh after the dunk while Bosh is there lying on the floor in pain. Jack saw that, hell the whole world's seen it by now, and that should've compelled Jack to at least do SOMETHING - ANYTHING, other than just to continue playing like NOTHING happened, like your boy/franchise player didn't just get his ass handed to him!!!

A lot of stupid commenters are saying things like "Bosh shouldn't have jumped, Pierce was already in the air, it was a surefire score" and other insidious comments like "next time, don't jump" . Wow. Yeah, that silly Chris Bosh - it's his fault for TRYING TO PLAY DEFENSE!!??

I know the game was pretty much already decided, but you have to appreciate that the man at least still tried to contest the play, he just ended up on the wrong end of it - reminds me a lot of Garbajosa's epic injury when he chased down Al Jefferson on the breakaway in a similar game - took place in Boston, and the game was already pretty much over.

But what Bosh COULD'VE controlled is his reaction after he got up. He claims he didn't even see Pierce towering over him and taunting him because he was in so much pain he was "pretty much looking at the ground." Fine, even if that's truth, didn't he realize what had happened from the reactions of the coaching staff? Didn't he find out once he went to the bench?

And laughing on the bench with Marcus Banks? I think that's Bosh trying to show he wasn't affected much by the play; as in like he's trying to show I'm past it, look, I'm not intimidated or anything, it doesn't even mean anything. Which, course, made it ten times worse. I think Bosh was so embarrassed and humiliated, he tried to play it off as if NOTHING happened.

I can't help but imagine how much we needed Reggie Evans on the floor last night, if only for that one play. Speaking of Evans, Rachel thinks he's done for the year and the Raps are just trying to cover it up. I that's extreme and far fetched, or at least I hope so. But that's another topic for another day.

I told my friend Rubin before this game that Bosh has been putting up monster numbers this season, but that how he plays against Boston will be the ultimate test since he always gets his panties tied in a knot whenever he faces KG and Rasheed Wallace. Well, he put up 20/13, which is more than respectable, but his lack of reaction after he got kneed and taunted is an EPIC FAIL. It's much worse than him having a bad game statistically against his tormentors. The fact that he didn't even have the balls (no pun intended) to go after Pierce - in the very LEAST - confront him speaks volumes about him, and ultimately this team as NOBODY did.

Even with that, YOU'RE the FRANCHISE PLAYER. If anyone stand up for you and lead by example, it's GOTTA BE YOU. I'm not deflecting any blame off the other players by any means - it was a shameful exhibition of lack of pride and toughness around the whole circle - but the main guy on the team's gotta take charge, even if he couldn't right away as he was trying to gather himself on the floor.

Steve Nash is tougher than Chris Bosh - remember the way Nash went after Robert Horry after he got body checked into the stands. So you can't say Bosh was hurt, lying on the floor. Yes, he was, but he should've chased down Pierce after the way Nash confronted Horry.

Antoine Wright is talking a lot of the right stuff, but it's all talk anyway - and even Chris Bosh admitted that. Let's see if anything changes, but we as Raptors fans know better than to hold our breath. Next time we face Boston, Bosh has got to play mean and try to rip the rim off. The mindset has got to be "There Will Be Blood" with Bosh playing the leading role.

I'm almost glad this happened, as weird as that may sound - hopefully this pushes the whole team over the edge, lights a collective fire underneath their asses.