What DON'T They Get!!??

The ESPN NBA page headline for this game reads:

"Duncan, Parker injured | Spurs top Raptors"

What more did the Spurs need to do in order to give us an even better chance of taking this game? Ginobili catches Rabies? We knew Parker wasn't going to play, which was a blessing. Then Duncan was announced to be out as well - that's a Godsend. Seriously, its like the heavens went out of their way to give us a dream scenario - win in San Antonio and be 2-1 in this road trip, and the real plus is that team morale would be up after getting blown worse than a porn star in Dallas. But of course, the Raptors, in their classic style, had a meltdown in the fourth quarter.

I stayed behind in school instead of hopping on the long TTC ride home because I wanted to watch this game live - this road trip includes stops in two of my favourite players' (Ginobili, other being Nowitzki) town - so I plugged in my laptop and sat on a hard bench that made my ass sore, probably what the Raptors are feeling right now, at least they should be.

So, my two favourite players - Manu and Dirk, and this is how the Raptors handled them on this trip:

Dirk Nowitzki: 29 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 block.

+

Manu Ginobili: 36 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists, 1 steal, 4 blocks.

=

FAIL

Dirk got his points so easily it wasn't even funny, and lets not forget he sat out most of the fourth because the game was long done. So lets fast forward to tonight's game. Fourth quarter, close game, who should the Raptors guard!??? Well...Duncan is out, Tony Parker is out...so of course its Ginobili!! Now its much easier said than done I know, and Manu is one of the game's best closers, but you'd think they'd be able to at least bother him somewhat or not give him easy shots - the Spurs announcer, after Manu hit that last dagger three that pretty much wrapped it up, said "Manu Ginobili is torturing your team...and what do you? Leave him WIDE OPEN!!!??"

While Ginobili was being aggressive; driving, slashing, kicking it out to teammates, the Raptors go into the fetal position and start taking horrible jump shots. Belinelli was on fire, but everyone saw that bad jumper coming - he shouldn't have taken that shot at that instance in the game, unless he was wide open. The only guy I'll give credit to down the fourth is Bosh - he tried to be aggressive and drove hard - it worked once, he got the call, the other time he tried to draw the call but didn't get it and ended up shooting a bad off balance jumper. I mean, the guy had 32 and 10, you can't ask for more. Bargnani stats wise was good too - 17 points on 7 of 13 shooting, but the four boards is ugly. And he should've attacked more - nobody out there can guard him.

• Is it just me or did Hedo look...kinda old in that fourth quarter? A couple of plays it seemed like if the ball is two feet from him he can't get it without collapsing to the ground.
  

• Matt Bonner drove and dunked on us - how's that for a sum-up of the game?

• The Raptors scored 124 points...and gave up 131..131!!! We've finally completed our transformation into Phoenix North or Phoenix East, whatever you like.
  

• No seriously, we really Phoenix now - the Spurs announcer said during the game "the HIGH-FLYING Raptors!"

• As much as it pained me to watch the Raps suffer another excruciating loss, watching my man Ginobili explode on them was amazing (and painful). This guy doesn't get enough credit for how great he really is.

• Antoine Wright has been (in a Barkley voice) TURRI-BUL on offense. I get against Dallas he wanted to show his old team what they gave up (which he really didn't), but this cannot continue.
  

• Jarrett Jack needs to practice shooting..like now. Especially if he's still vying for the starter's job, when Calderon has found his stroke. Even though no matter what Calderon will always be the starter, and deserves to. Even if Calderon struggles now and then, Jack hasn't done enough to warrant it.
  

• Belinelli was doing his best Ginobili impersonation out there...until the fourth quarter of course, when we really needed, when Ginobili was being himself.
  

• Fuck this loss sucked.
  

Rok-A-Fella: Roko leads Raps to a gutsy win over Spurs

Look at it anyway you want, but that was one hell of a win by the Raptors. Let's face it, no one realistically expected the Raptors to beat the Spurs, and even more so, no one could've predicted Roko Ukic would be the clutch performer down the stretch to lead Toronto to that win. Especially without Bosh, Calderon, or Graham for that matter.

Even though we were up around 6-8 points most of the game, us Raptors faithful knew the lead would vanish in the fourth, but we couldn't even hold on that long - the Spurs came out halftime focused and disciplined and led in the third. And we started out the fourth quarter missing 8 of 10 shots. Yet somehow, we found a way to come back, and guys like Bargnani, Kapono, and Ukic stepped up big time. Bargnani may have shot 8 for 21 but when it mattered most he was huge, finishing with 23 points and 8 boards. You've got to love this guy's confidence, he started out in a slump but kept shooting and never hesitated. And he started out the game with a couple of strong drives in the post on Tim Duncan nonetheless. Kapono was given the green light to fire at will by Triano, and he did just that, scoring 21 points - a significant amount of them actually included him dribbling the ball and even driving.

Finally, of course the player of the game - Roko Ukic, scoring a career high 22 points. This kid has great potential. He's figured out his niche - driving the ball straight at his defender and dropping floaters or getting layups, something Calderon used to do last year. As frail as he looks, he's got good size at the pg spot (6'5") which gives him a good advantage and he's wiry with some long arms. His most impressive asset are easily his handles - they're just smooth, and look so natural - add that to his quickness, and you've got a potentially superb point guard in about 2 years. It's almost a good thing that he can't shoot well yet because that forces him to drive and we all know how much of a dire need that is on this ball club. That clutch 3-pointer he hit was just pure confidence, and must have the shocked the hell out of Spurs fans, and probably Raptors fans as well. But of course it was his next bucket that was the dagger. You'd think the ball would be passed around to Bargnani, O'Neal, Parker, or Kapono, but instead Roko saw single coverage and had the balls to do it himself; dude just TOOK it to Parker. He almost travelled too, spinning and almost losing his footing but was able to put up the shot and it rolled in. That drive reminded me of a lot of the one he did on Jameer Nelson against the Magic which was also the game-clinching play.

I wasn't even going to bother watching this game, but I did because I love Manu Ginobili, appreciate Tim Duncan to the max and admire Gregg Popovich. Ginobili is just a joy to watch - he looks awkward on his drives but just slithers through the lanes with great precision and has surprising athleticism. He dropped a season high 32, 15 of them in the fourth quarter.

Jermaine O'Neal deserves a shout out for his defense on Duncan; he didn't shut him down by any means (Duncan had 20 and 10), but he made it difficult and that's all you can ask. I thought Paul Jones had a good point on the post-game show on the FAN 590 : he said J.O., having been an all-star plenty of times and some juice to his name from previous years, got the leeway to play Duncan tighter than most other players would've gotten to (without getting called for fouls). Yes, he still finished with 5 fouls, but he would've probably been out much earlier in the game if he was just any other player.

• You've got to love Popovich's honesty and point-blank answers. When asked if his team wasn't ready or maybe looked past this game, he said "no, we were ready, we busted our ass out there, the Raptors just played better and earned that win" (I'm paraphrasing)
• That last play was definitely not what the Spurs wanted - a Tony Parker fadeaway with J.O. contesting, so we should actually credit the Raps for once on a clutch defensive play - hey, Pop even said so.
  
• Speaking of the last play, how many of you thought Roger Mason was gonna burn us with a 3?
• Parker almost blew it with that turnover, but did that 3 right before.
  
• I was scared as hell when JO was taking those free throws, not because I thought he was going to miss, but because I had no idea how he is with clutch free throws.
  
• Thank God Triano didn't pick Solomon to play the pg slot tonight.
• I was watching some of this game from a stream, and the live chat that goes on with it are filled with hilarious comments from users. Such as: "Chris Bosh looks like a malnourished alien."
  

Is leadership the question?

I could not help but think about the last few lines of the previous post. Is leadership really the problem, can we look at Bosh, or Jose and simply say they are not leading properly? After thinking about it, personally I don't think that its fair to criticize that. So many people tribute Boston's resurgence to KG's leadership, his intensity, leading his crew, but I find it hard to believe that KG learned leadership at the tender age of 32?


Being an avid KG fan in his Timberwolves day, I struggle to remember one year where the team as a whole showed the passion the Celtics showed last year. I quote last year because I don't see it as much this year. Even when they made it to the conference finals, KG was undoubtedly the leader, but his teammates did not show the intensity that he did, it was not visible that KG had a direct effect on "pumping his team up". That was a year where they just had a good mesh of talent, diving for those 50/50 balls was not the reason they made it as far as they did while for the Celtics, the hustle of Posey, PJ and Powe were deciding factors. I can't remember exactly but I think PJ Brown had a +/- of 20 something during the finals. I do think when you see the Celtics this year, you can see that void on their bench. The leadership of those two off the bench, their passion their leadership set the tone for their bench and I think once we hit the playoffs, we're going to really see how much they will sorely be missed. Similarily, I think it will be even more interesting to see the effect Ginobili, Terry, Odom and Kirilenko have on the outcome in the west.


Leaders of the teams get so much criticism because they are the face of the team, but I think it's more important to have a group of leaders, and personally I think the best teams have multiple leaders, different kinds, leaders who are your best player, leaders who are your smartest player, leaders who are your best bench player, leaders who are vets, but more importantly, I think they need PLAYERS who hold each other and themselves accountable. It's always easy to say, oh Chris should have driven on the last possession, but whose fault was it that the game was so close at the end? I think the most underrated leader is the leader of the bench. Having a quality seasoned player accept his role off the bench sends an example to the rest of the bench. I think being able to look at the bench and hold them accountable is important, but I think those players on the bench knowing they are accountable is perhaps one of the most important points in building a team.


Look no further than the spurs and you'll see. Yes, they have a superstar in Duncan and one of the best point guards in the league in Parker, but we also know their success depends on how far Ginobili can carry them. I don't think any Spur took it harder being eliminated by the Lakers when it was clear that him being injured and not having a great series was ultimately the deciding factor. I think too many team s underestimate the value of the 6th man. He's so much more than energy off the bench, he may be the most valuable leader on the team. Down the 13th man, they are the lesser stars, they are the ones who can look to that 6th man, making a sacrifice for the team, helping any way they can, but more importantly, by sharing that bench together, they can relate and learn.


As this is a Raptor blog, let me relate it someway. Looking at their roster, its clear, we are still pieces away, key pieces. In my opinion though, Oneal getting injured may be the best thing that happens to the team this regular season. Not only did we get Bargnani to see that he does belong, but having a former all star, a seasoned proven vet leading the bench, I cant' help but think he will be the example and leader that Joey, Kris, Jake, Jason and Ukic need. I think we didn't realize the psychological implications of the game. Having our 6th man early on be a unproven third year insecure player looking to prove that he belongs, I think that can be a bad sign. Do you really want your leader off the bench to be unsure of whether he even belongs? I think we can rest easy knowing that no matter how many times Azubuike destroy's Oneal's knee, he's going to know he belongs in this league. I think it will be very interesting to keep an eye on how the bench reacts to Oneal being the 6th man.


This was my first post on a blog in god knows so I would appreciate any feedback, positive or negative.


PS. I know its long, I tend to ramble!