Tip-In:  Efence

Only good news: Nets stink too. The Raps are back to either winning the Atlantic or missing the playoffs altogether, so forget the Heat, Magic and Pacers--they'll be long gone by April.

It's Raps vs. Nets vs. Knicks. Four games up with 21 to go. Hopefully Mitchell's boys (watch out Sammy, you could still get fired . . .) can win around 6-8 of the remaining games. That would mean the Nets/Knicks need to go about 12-9 to make the playoffs.

Remember a few years back when the Raps were 25-25, got a few injuries and tanked the rest of the year (8-24 to finish)? We'll have to see if these guys have any heart--if they don't beat both Memphis and Seattle, you can kiss your playoff tickets goodbye.

Personally I think backing into the playoffs os the worst thing that could happen. It would mean a quick 1st round exit and leave a bad taste in everyones mouth. Not to mention the fact that they would be giving up their draft pick.

They need to go into the playoffs on a high to make that first series at least competative. If they can't do that Id rather they missed all together and Colangelo can go to work with some extra building blocks this summer.

I disagree Dan. The team needs to learn from the whupping they are going to get in the playoffs. This will help the team progress next year and the year after. Championship teams like Miami last year which come out of nowhere are rare. The reason Dallas, SA and Phoenix are so good is that have lived through the playoff cauldron where every shot matters, every stop counts. The Raps are a young team and do not need any infusion of draft talent except some free-agent rebounding. The more these guys play with each other the better they will improve defensively. But they have to go through hell together first.

Just for the record: Franchise wanted Joey to go somewhere WAY further than out of the NBA, and the use of Bold lettering actually doesn't do justice to how he felt watching last nights game.

My,my....What is going on? Sam's got back that losing look on his face again.

Missed layups. NO d. No rhythm....

Why are the raps pressing or trying to trap way up above the 3 point...I seen twice that players were going hard man to man but it was way up between the 3 and half court but the point is, why are they chasing the guards around way up there?

Anyways...even a win tonight wont have me feeling better. It only keeps the record building but these blow outs are bad....

Mo Pete, has that pissed look again....

peace

My my my....Let's take a little recap just for fun...

Bosh out, team weathers storm and TJ shows why he is to be reckoned with.

TJ out, team actually excels and others step up huge!

AP goes out, we play like CRAP and seem to forget the previous 2/3 of the seaosn where we made others take notice.

Have we evolved to a point where we can't beak a zone? What happened to the high-low with dumps off to Rasho, or the crisp passing that we had not ot long ago???

Basics boys, stop trying to do it all at once. I agree I hope Sammy gave the boys a whole lot of "what fors" and "what was that?" after the game cuz WE STUNK! I turned it off after Agent 0 hit his 3rd or 4th trey. By the way, who was supposed to be guarding Antonio Daniels?? Cuz they made him look sooooo good.

The double B's (bargs and Bosh) gave it a good try but they too seemed to suffer from "I don't want to guard him, you guard him..." syndrome like the rest of the team.

Happy Birthday Derek Martin, 36 and still in the "L" looks f=good for us aging ballers.....

I'm out!

Fresh 1

Just an abysmal performance, there's no other way to put it.

I'm getting real tired of TJ not running the offence then driving recklessly to basket before chucking one at the rim. He must lead the league in missed layups by now. Seriously, it's nice that he's so quick, but it looks like he's too quick for himself as well. Bottom line, I think if he starts out like that tonight, you're going to see Jose play 30+ minutes....because we CANNOT win with that type of PG play.

Chris Bosh shouldn't be commenting on anybody's defence or rebounding at this point. Jamison abused him last night. Don't let the rebounds and blocked shots fool you....Chris Bosh is one of the worst defenders on this team.

Joey's an idiot....what more can you say. He didn't even look like he knew he was did something wrong after he fouled Arenas. He's gone at the end of the season.

My fear is that Parker comes back too soon, seeing how brutal his teammates are playing without him. He needs to be held out until he's 100%, because if he aggravates his ankle injury, WE ARE SCREWED.

I'm a little annoyed with their performance as well....don't know if you could tell.

Franchise, i think you're blowing this way, way out of proportion. Look at who we've lost to:

Bucks: they finally healthy and they're hungry. They were kicking ass before redd went down, they have a solid team that's been together a few seasons. Raps next year.

Spurs: duh. raps in three-four years.

Cavs: solid team that went deep in the playoffs last year. Raps next year.

Washington: see cavs, plus they were killing it before antawn got hurt, now he's back. raps next year.

If you were a fan of any of those teams, you'd be super pissed if the raps can throw a team together and be kicking their asses this late in the season.

This is a tough frickin' stretch, without AP, who is one of the few guys who's played under pressure even remotely comparable to this.

Also, when bosh and tj went out, it took a few beatings, some against worse teams than these for the raps to adjust.

If we make the playoffs in any way which I think we will, I'd consider it beyond expectations.

Anyways, just playing devil's advocate. Dissapointing losses, but not some huge catastrophe or sign of a suddenly bad team, or even poor effort. Just outplayed compounded by some terrible calls.

My biggest complaint is when was the last time we scored of a stop or a turnover? That's the most painful.

Remember when the Raptors were a good rebounding team? Remember Antonio Davis?! This team is lacking a critical player like that to anchor the defense (another e.g. the Piston's Rasheed Wallace). For the money Rasho is getting, he is a bust. Colangelo better pick up a quality PF/C who isn't a soft and pasty European (Darko...).

Some Disturbing observations:
1)I agree that all teams go through slumps, and that a sign of a good team is how hard they fight to get out of the slump. The Raps have been blown out 3 games in a row. How hard are they trying to get out of this slump?

2)This team has always worked hard, and effort has never been an issue. This is why these 3 games bother me so much. I can't remember in the past 2-3 years if the Raptors were ever so completely destroyed 3 games in a row.

3)Bosh: 1 rebound??? There were a few replays that were shown on TV where there were a few Wiz players going for the rebound along with a couple of Raps. But in all of those plays Chris Bosh was nowhere in sight. This makes me think, is he tired or just sick of not getting any help on the boards?

4)I was all for giving Joey time to develop but there is zero improvement in his game. Winning or losing, send him to the NBDL.

5)Finally, I'm confident this team can reach the playoffs. What better time to lose than when the Nets are in Texas and the Knicks....well they're being the Knicks. But I've got a gut feeling about this losing streak....there's more to it than meets the eye.

Wow. No Offense PayMoPete but you couldnt be more wrong. With the exception of the spurs, none of those teams are really that dangerous. The Cavs are being carried by a disinterested superstar with no point guard no real second option on d yet Toronto was never really in that game. They lost to Milwaukee who even if they have a full squad would have been lucky to make the playoffs. They lost to a wizards team who are better than the other two but who Toronto has dominated in their other games(yes at home but still). Since the AllStar break teams have focused on taking Bosh out of the game and it is working. Guys need to make shots and the Raps need to play d if they want to win games where their Star is not getting it done. That isn't happening. Now it looks like TJ has regressed offensively to the Mike James style of PG play by looking for his own shot first and only tossing it inside when he feels like it and Calderon is playing like he did at times in his Rookie year. When Juan Dixon comes over in a trade and looks like your second best option Offensively you know your team is in trouble (no offense to Juan). If I didnt know any better I would think the Raps have finally figured out that Mitchell isnt going to be back next year and are tuning him out and doing what they want. The only good thing that might come out of all this is that we will see how close they really are as it is easy to be close when you are winning but true colours tend to shine through when things start going wrong. If they pull together and work it all out without a lot of simmering hatred behind the scenes then they will be better off in the long term. If the wheels fall off the cart then BC will have to start from Semi Scratch.

Patience people, Rome wasn't built in a day. We may be underperforming now, but we did probably overperform in February too, it should balance out.

AP's injury has been quite a setback (they didn't choose him Euroleague MVP twice for nothing), but i think both the poor PG play and Bosh post-allstar performance are quite a factor too...

However the Raps season is still quite good overall, and i am optimistic this is just a little slump in the way and the team will get back on the right track soon.

The Raps have played crappily lately but y'all act like they're in last place. This team has character and WILL turn it around soon. Why am I so confident? Leadership.

Answer me some questions people.

Are the Raps on the verge of winning their first division title?

This team is NOT going 8-24 and missing the playoffs. CB4 isn't the best defender but has anyone ever had to question his work like ol' what's his face VC?

Joey Graham does not have the B-ball IQ of a Juan Dixon but why call people idiots? We're supposed to be their fans right?

dkmo has a point - in general the Euro players are more about finesse not athletic ability and overpowering strength but who would call Rasho, Garbo, or Slokar soft?

The average Raptor has less than 3 years NBA experience with most of that concentrated in Rasho and Darrick Martin. How deep do you think this team will go into the playoffs with 9 new players? The 2nd round? Really?

Some of the Raptors have probably run out of gas. Any other team with so many players in the FIBA tournament? By my count there were 5 or 6 Raps. (Rumour has it this is why BC won't require his team to play in the summer league in 2007).

Realistically who near the start of the season expected such a young, inexperienced, new to each other team to make it to the playoffs? To win a division title? To have CB4 get talked about as an MVP? (No he's not a serious contender but he's defnitely an all star).

I expected the Raps to win about 37 games near the start of the season which I think they will make.

I'm just glad BC is in charge of the Raps and not the nervous nellies that say they're Raps fan. He'll get them some rebounding help this summer, guaranteed.

BC, CB4, and even Sam will turn this around. It's about leadership and the Raps got some.

I'll even stop posting if they miss the playoffs this year.

Peace

Raps have lost 4 of last 5. The one common thing about those losses is that you could tell shortly after tip off that they were going to lose. In the bulk of the season up to that point, the Raps had this feel that they can beat anyone. They were arguably the 2nd best team in the east and you could even argue would have put up a good fight against Detroit. They had this winning mentality and look of hunger in their eyes. You got the feeling they were toying with teams and can easily pull the game out. On offence, there was good ball movement, good sharing, lot’s of assists and minimal turnovers. There was fighting for position and attacking the rim. On defence, we seemed to focus on the key players, take away open looks, make them take poor percentage shots, minimize offensive boards. Everything was ticking. These were our new Raptors.

The San Antonio game changed all that. No longer were we in charge of the game, the game was dictated to us. We gave up on defence which brought the offence to a halt. We all recognize that team, that’s last year’s team. The old Raptors.

We managed to get by Huston and then right back to the old Raptors again. We have not been in control of the last three games. You could tell right from tip off of all these games that we were not in control and we would lose.

So what’s changed? How did we find the old Raptors and how do we lose them again?

1) I think it starts with Bosh. I don’t care how good the other team is defensively, Bosh needs to establish a low post position, TJ has to find him, and Bosh needs to be quicker and get a shot up before the double team gets there. There is no excuse for Bosh hanging out at the 3pt line late in the shot clock. The outside shot is something Bosh needs to go to AFTER he established his inside presence, not instead of.

2) Box out. It’s as simple as what they taught you on your high school team. Find a man, put a body on him and don’t let him get to the basket. All those Varejao put backs were from great positioning by Varejao. He had no business being that far under the basket once the shot went up.

3) Rotate defensively. Were there any poor shots taken by Washington last night? Time after time they were cutting down an open lane to the basket. The 5 on the floor need to rotate and take away the open lane.

4) Pick ‘N Roll. Our offence used to be that easy. TJ/Calderon would run a pick ‘n roll play with Bargnani or Bosh leaving either TJ/Calderon or that player open for a drive/shot. I don’t remember any good pick ‘n rolls last night.

So you want to save yourself 2 1/2 hours tonight? Here’s a hint. If the offense runs through Nesterovic, that’s a sign we haven’t executed our winning strategies and we are going to lose.

McGateway - Bucks were 16-17 before redd went out and beat dallas, detroit, miami and other good teams during that stretch. A damn sight better than the raps to that point. And both cleveland and washington have better records than the raps, so your stated argument that "none of those teams are really that dangerous" is weak at best. And saying lebron is "disinterested"?? He's upped his scoring average by like 8 points since the all star break and they're like 5-3 since, losing to dallas, miami, chicago and beating raps twice. Sorry bro, but even the celtics are dangerous on any given sunday and teams take the raps very very seriously nowadays.

Everything else you said, I pretty much completely agree with. The raps definitely have to step it up and only time will tell if they can make the neccessary adjustments or get sucked into a clippers-esque black hole of losing.

Erezona - I disagree about the raps always seeming in control pre all star break. There were many (most) games where I thought they were getting beat and they turned it on lateish and stormed back. We also had very few blowouts. These things combined means the margin of error is low to begin with. (Hollinger at ESPN's idea, not mine) I personally think staying close, conserving energy and trying to turn it on at the end is our best hope against tough teams.

I with franchise on this one. I have been sceaming at the TV the last three games.

Just a few notes on the poor defense. Bosh has been awful on D the last few games. Man he can get his points, but geeze! When you keep leaving your man and hang around in the paint, of course your guy is going to score.

I have always been glad that the guys like Sam M., etc. But I don't believe he and his assistants are the team to take us long range into the playoffs and championships. I do believe they need to go as well as tweak with a few player moves. We are seeing us being out coached on all most a nightly basis. We can not handle a zone defense. We never play a zone defense outselves. Our rebounding, our screen and roll coverage. It is getting brutal to watch some nights. And I don't mean just the last three games either.

I love wathcing college games, because the players/teams for the most part strive to play defense. The basics are played out so perfectly.

Let get to some real basics here how to play against a zone, how to guard a pick and roll, how to rebound and box out. It not being a strength by a player is no excuse.

I'm just wondering why everyone got all burned up when I was stating the Raps were getting overhyped? I thought you could see a lot of signs in our past wins that indicated we weren't as good as our record indicated.

But I still think the Raps have one of the best remaining schedules of any team and we should get into the playoffs. I'm hoping though that we go in with some momentum.

the team effort on defence was weak, to say the least. and the #1 sign that it was? bosh was getting abused, and nobody was helping. I mean seriously, I haven't seen him get so abused so convincingly in a long time. he implicitly blamed his teammates in the post game scrum for not helping him out, but he didn't look all that strong himself to me to be saying that kind of stuff.

and I don't agree with all the people saying that it's nothing to get upset about because of a, b, and c.

it's not the losses that bother me, it's the way they're happening. it's the lack of effort. maybe they're gassed, I don't know. and if they really are, my bad. but it's not like they're playing 90 games to everybody else's 82.

and do I really need to bring up the million$$$$ of other reasons they shouldn't be complaining about being tired?

If we lose to New York next wednesday (assuming we lose until then and AP is back) then I'll be getting really upset. Although Joey Graham is Dead to me already.

Aaron - Looking at the schedule, I'm thinking .500 ball from here on out is what we'll see. (and assuming bosh, parker and one of ford/calderon stays healthy) Just a prediction!

10 THINGS FOR ME TO SAY (in no particular order) about why the raptors are getting blown), from my observations...

1. As HQ pointed out, ‘teams are figuring them out’….so players have to dig deep, to counteract the ‘team-you-can’t-take-lightly’ attitude that ALL teams are going to be coming with…

2. They need to learn how to play with their backs against the wall…I want them to Panic, but Panic in the way that true ball instincts will take over rather than get flustered like I see the Euro’s get at times…Like how a raccoon will tear apart anything if it gets backed in a corner.

3. TJ Ford wants to win his way …He’s the ‘me first’ without the ‘Me getting my teammates involved’….And he’s not good enough yet to put this Team on his back…and the prob is that he doesn’t get it…

4. Sam Mitchell - in the area that he allows TJ to play ‘me’ basketball and does nothing about it.

5. Mo Pete is not happy because of the trade bait issue and Sam and him are not close at all…Sam doesn’t play Mo Pete like he preaches that Mo knows his role…he makes Mo do various things but I don’t think Mo likes the inconsistancy…and now Juan?...

6. Parker is out and he is the true workhorse, player, role model and warrior of this team...Him recovered will bring back true humility and poise.

7. Chris has been stunted by the "being the man' bug...to much pressure on him and opposing teams study him to make him frustrated…he’s gotta overcome.

8. TEAM CONFIDENCE……The TEAM is best when they play TEAM BALL...TEAM BALL IS THEIR STRENGTH....

9. Rebounding….the only thing that will keep at least 3 big guys under the hoop is to Use the ZONE more...it will help rebounding...

10. Garbs has hit the mini-wall, but, he wont be down for long….unless injured and Remind Jose and Garbs they're world champs... and to play like champs....

And no excuses about being tired …I’m tired…..‘yo ball! Game on son"

peace

Reading through all these comments, the common consensus is that the Raps have to get better at rebounding the ball and playing defence. It got me to thinking that perhaps Babcock's biggest mistake was not the Vince Carter trade, rather the drafting of Araujo over Iguodala. Iggy's a solid rebounder and a lock down defender to boot.

No use is crying over spilled milk, I guess...