General Catchup and Raptors show some heart

Sorry for the super-long delay, I had to catch up with some university work. I have been around the net recently and found a few great sites. They are:

Raptors / NBA

Raptor Republic: http://raptorsrepublic.com/blog/
NBA roundtable: http://nbaroundtable.wordpress.com/

Arsenal

The Arsenal Column: http://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/
7 A.M. Kickoff: http://7amkickoff.wordpress.com/

These are all quality blogs and will be added to my blogroll for future reference.

Raptors came off an emotional and hard-fought battle against the celtics yesterday. The Raptors were up most of the game by around 10 points, but the Celtics made their huge run and led by three with 14 seconds left. Jay called a timeout and ran a weak play where Parker ran off a soft screen and throw an off-balance three. It obviously missed (its parker and late game) but Bosh showed some heart by outjumping Garnett for the rebounding and tipping to an area close to parker, who threw it to Kapono. Kaps saw Bargnani beside him and the italian sensation nailed it with 1 second left on the clock. In overtime we quickly fell behind to a six point lead and could never recover.

Rather than give an intensive play-by-play update, I am going to provide some general observations I made and couple that in with some thoughts from across the web.

• Bargnani is really starting to find his role on this team. He has displayed great confidence and is playing with a consistency he has not experienced in his career. He has averaged 21.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.5 blocks and 1.8 steals over the past 8 games. He rebounding numbers have increased to 8,9,8 over the last three. These are quality stats for Il mago and he has complemented bosh very well. Both players have a perimeter game which allows the other to have space in the paint for their post move.
  
• Graham is really starting to get it in the league. He realizes that he should play tough defense, and always drive to the whole. This new-found aggression is much-needed for the raptors and really helps space out the floor and create favourable match-ups for the rest of the team.
  
• Bosh still needs to show me he can go to work on the elite defenders. He made a nice move when Baby tried to play him too close, but his offense was almost non-existent against KG. He has to get into the post and develop a few post moves, at the very least this will put pressure on KG and he may foul more.
  
• I did not like the fact that Rondo set up Powe for an alley-oop 'and1' style with the game out of hand and with one second left. It was completely unprofessional and only increases my hatred for the Celtics even more
  
• Dave Feschuk's article about the game yesterday provided some insight from the players. Jay Triano replied to the team commitment by saying,

"I liked our fight,"

I appreciate the fact that Jay is trying to implement a new system and we are playing with more competitiveness than last year. This is not his fault but we need some additional depth at the wing positions to make any system work. I will be addressing this in my next raptors post.

Chris Bosh said that the team "shot itself in the foot" last night by over providing on help defense and leaving players open for easy shot opportunities.

• In Doug Smith's blog, he mentions that no one should expect Bosh to do well against Garnett, to be happy with the fight and that Roko should be the primary backup to Calderon. Okay points, but he sounds way too content to be in mediocrity.

Overall, I thought it was a good effort, but I think the Raptors should be able to pull the game out. They were ahead by 10 the majority of the game but they do not have a player who they can throw it to and have them create. This is the crucial player the Raptors need to become an elite team in the Eastern Conference and to finally challenge Boston toe-to-toe. Hopefully we can wipe that ugly smirk of KG's bony face the next time we face him, he deserves it.