blogsketball

Raps down 0–1. Now what?

The picture really says it all. A couple of thoughts on yesterday’s 14-point Raptors loss.

- That was the quietest 20-20 game I’ve ever seen a NBA player have. Howard had four points at the half and didn’t really come alive offensively until the fourth quarter. If his teammates actually look to him for an entire game, a 40-30 game isn’t out of the question.

- Take away the three-pointers in the first quarter…even cut the amount made in half, and it wasn’t that bad of a showing by the Raptors. I’ll stick my car keys in a power outlet* if the Magic come out that hot off the bat in game 2.

- I’m not one to blame people, but TJ Ford stunk. While the Magic were shooting the lights out yesterday,
Ford decided that the only way to keep up with four hot-handed three-point shooters was to try and do all the scoring himself. He started the first quarter 1-5 and was 1-8 in the second half before he started giving the ball up to Kapono and Andrea Bargnani.

- Props to Dr. Andrea. Dissed by many (myself included) for taking the soft man’s way out this year, Bargnani didn’t play all that bad yesterday. He went to the hoop and didn’t start looking for the three until the second half, when the team needed it. He hasn’t had a great year by any means, but in game 1 he did what was asked of him.

- You know/hope that the Magic can’t shoot like that for an entire series (this isn’t a video game), but can Jason Kapono keep his touch for the rest of the year? Kapono was great in the second half and looked like his old beginning of the season self shooting the ball.

-Something that really bugged me yesterday was while watching the Celtics-Hawks game, the announcers said that the C’s were in mid-season form. Shouldn’t they be in post-season form right now? Mid-season form works when it’s pre-season, November or December, but I think it loses its meaning when the point of the season that you’re referring to is 40 games behind us.

- Lastly, the Fleet Center in Boston had a great atmosphere. The first five minutes of the game felt like I was watching an old ’70s Celtics’ playoff game. Maybe I’m just noticing it for the first time, but all the white lines on the parquet floor seem yellowed from time. The announcer calling the game sounded like Howard Cosell.
It was a game that was over before the first quarter, but I would have loved to have been there.

*note: I won’t really stick my car keys in a power outlet.