blogsketball

Watching the clock wind down on the Raps’ latest loss, it was something that Chuck Swirsky said that’s going to stick out for me.

“With about 4:10 to go, the Raps had a 96–95 lead,” the Sandpaper Dink said. When he said this, the Raps trailed 107–98 or something. Things were going well for the Bosh-less Raptors. They had erased an 18-point first-quarter lead and had a shot at winning against a tough team on the road. Then two things happened. First, Baron Davis took the game over. Then TJ Ford, in response, decided to turn the game into a one-on-one battle. It worked for a little while, but when it got to the point that Ford was holding the ball at the top of the three-point line, waving the screens away and forcing the rest of the team down to the baseline, the game might as well have ended right there.

Take a look at the play-by-play of the fourth quarter.

Andrea Bargnani is leading the charge offensively with Carlos Delfino’s dunk making it a four-point game with lots of time left.

Jason Kapono and Delfino got the Raps to within two and then Ford decided it was time for him to save the day. Like I said, it worked for a minute, they held a short lead and then it degenerated into Ford forcing up a shot on every possession. Check the score as Ford starts forcing.

Note that when they’re down seven, Sam Mitchell takes Kapono out and puts Calderon in. At the two. While Ford ran the point and ran the game into the ground. It’s one thing if it works for them, but how can the coaching staff sit idle and just give TJ the green light as all of the work they put in for three quarters goes down the drain? It was infuriating to watch.