the bitter

Well, things couldn't look much worse. Bosh is out, seemingly indefinitely. There's whispers that TJ has grown a little uneasy with his second string status. Winning against non-contending teams (or anyone for that matter) is hardly a given anymore. The first of five games in 8 days in the west start tonight against the NBA's best team, who, earlier this year beat the Raps by 20 at the ACC the day before Gasaul came to town. It seems everyone has written them off the Raps off for the next week or so, clinging only to the fact that the Eastern conference is so pathetic that they can expect to still be in playoff contention even if they were to loose all five games.

So where is the silver lining? As I've mentioned before I believe that in sports just when things seem certain, when everyone is betting against you, when the chips are so incredibly stacked against you, that the exact opposite tends to occur. See NY Giants vs. NE Pats. Call me the eternal optimist. Call me a homer. These are the times when a team is defined. Players need to step up, emerge and shine in the opportunity that Bosh's absence and the stage that is the Staples center provides. We've seen it before, TJ goes down, Jose steps up, so well he's considered to play on the all-star team. In amongst the negativity has been Andrea stepping into the fold, playing with confidence and dare I say... grace..? I believe that the player on the floor with the greatest opportunity is Anthony Parker.

The Raptors have no stars. Lebron James would destroy this team as it stands. The Celtics or the Pistons would be embarrassing. If there ever was a time to make a statement this is it, tonight is the night.

Buy low, sell high.

Buy, Buy, BUY!

WTF?

After a strong stretch winning five of six, and facing the Pacers and Bobcats over the weekend the Raps were in a prime position to get to 10 games over 500 and build on a seemingly developing respect around the league as demonstrated by John Holligners piece on the "Mighty Raptors" and Gilbert Arena's half assed apology. But, on cue, the Raps took a rather ugly step backwards loosing in two rather uninspired performances. They made Mike Dunleavey look like the white Michael Jordan, even Joeys stupid brother had a good game. And the Bobcats game was not better. I don't understand how Sam can't make lineup adjustments when they're getting ridiculously outrebounded and they're scoring like a million second chance points. I'd really like to see bigger lineups, perhaps Rasho and Brezec (and maybe even Andrea) on at the same time to at the very least clog up the lane and hopefully pull down a couple more boards. And whats with this small-ball Jose and TJ at the same time? This went on for a while in both games, they're already small enough, they need to REBOUND THE BALL.

Obviouslly Bosh sat out with a tweaked knee, but this is a team game and I think its a poor excuse, especailly against two bad teams.

Bah!

...the picture shows me at the game with my folks by the way.