Low Expectations: 13 point deficit now means "The Raptors are IN IT!"

I know it hurts to look at the Raptors
these days, so look at her instead.

I'm not going to bother re-capping that ugly mofo of a game, I'll leave that pain to Raptors Republic and all the other faithful Raptors blogs out there. I put up more of a defense while playing NBA2K for the first time against Adit than the Raptors did in Orlando, so there's nothing really new to say there.

Instead I'll just point out something I found so funny yet so sad. With the Raptors behind by 13 points, about, oh what, the second quarter(?), Leo Rautins was enthusiastically stating something like "The Raptors shouldn't get too down on themselves, they're right in this game!" Now, I must point out that I actually like Leo Rautins - probably the only guy out there that does. But at this point, we're like the abused wife who's about get beat up by her abusive husband yet again and we're clinging on to positives like "well...I only have ONE black eye so far, this isn't SO BAD!"

So really Leo? We're right in this game? Are we even "hanging around"? How do you "hang around" when you can't get a single, simple stop? We were killing ourselves on offense, earning almost every bucket out there, while the Magic looked like they were barely trying.

Has the bar been raised so low now that anything less than a 20 point lead for the opposing team is seen as a positive? Can you just picture an upcoming game, a commercial break takes place in the fourth quarter and Matt Devlin joyously shouts "Don't go anywhere folks, it's only a 22 point game!!!"

Low Expectations

It just dawned upon me how surprised I was that the Raptors won last night in Chi-town. And that makes me feel even more pathetic, the fact that I get excited over one game which wasn't a big showdown or anything against a top-tier team. I know we just won and I'm not trying to be a downer, its just feels so...revolting to feel excited about ONE win. We just ended a seven-game losing streak - holy shit how the hell did it get to that? SEVEN GAME losing streak! That's expected from the Thunder, or maybe the Timberpups. It's just a big laugh now that some analysts pegged us before the start of the season to challenge Boston in the east. Here we are, around the half-way mark, fighting for the 8th spot, just hoping to squeeze into the playoffs to be mincemeat for whether Boston, Cleveland, or Orlando.

Does yesterday's win seem like the start of a winning streak, or does it feel more like we just stopped the bleeding? The realist side of me says the latter, but the dreamer in me can't help but feel and hope that we can finally start something (good) again. There was the little streak against Houston and Orlando but all that seemed to be a fluff. But we do have Jose back, and O'Neal (whatever that's worth), so there IS hope, and there's still plenty of time left. But one thing's for sure, after the inflated expectations coming into the season, most of us Raptors fans, who are still sane, have low expectations for the remainder of the year. And maybe that's what we need so we don't keep disappointing ourselves as the losses pile up. After all, there's nowhere to go but up, right? ...Right????