Last Minute Thoughts...

Some amazing ball yesterday. Couldn't believe what I was seeing on the Duncan three, but I loved it. Think Mitchell would do that in a million years?

Thanks for the extra prep Franchise

Went to sleep last night with my jersey on wishing for good luck today.

Check out Patton Oswalt's take on the KFC bowl. Gold.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2kRdacnRT0

Stephen A Smith has publicly called out Chris Bosh.

Chris Bosh responded by attacking Stephen A Smith.

Although some of Bosh's comments didn't make a lot of sense but in general I agree that Stephen A. is an idiot.

He attacks Bosh for not making it out of the first round....comparing him to Manute Bol...calling him soft.

What an idiot....T-Mac has yet to make it out of the first round, carmello hasn't done it yet and same with a lot of other big time players.

Also perhaps someone should ask him to look at the raptors roster. How many teams in the playoffs only have one guy who has made an allstar team throughout his career?

Bosh made second all nba team, has played out of position at center and not complained, made 3 allstar teams and is still only 23 years old.

Also if you want to talk about underachievers and soft players.....look at how the "allstar" Michael Redd is doing...how did the "allstar" Joe Johnson's team do this year....look at how Ray Allen's sonics and Pierce's celtics were doing prior to getting together and adding KG....they were lottary bound

Chris Bosh has lead a team which has less natural talent than the Bucks, Bulls and Hawks to a 6th seed in the playoffs.

Stick to your cheese doodles stephen A.

Any chance that missile be able to wipe out credit ratings?

Yeah, if there's one thing I want to do in life it's join the US Army, you guys with me?

A "Raptor fan only" regiment to go smoke out the evil doers.

Go Raps, I'll take them in 6, why not.

Kill
Frail
Chickens

Why not toss a soft taco on top of there from Taco Hell, wash it down with some Lake Ontario mixed Cola.

Cheese doodles, LOL, what a moron.

go raps!

trading for b.wallace was idiotic, worst trade this year. cavs' lineup makes no sense now.

Well, that 1st quarter was the absolute worst case scenario for our start to this series. Anyone notice how well Orlando drives and kicks, thought that was supposed to be our game plan. It just gets so stagnant when TO turns it into a 2 man game every time on the offensive end. Well, looks like about 3.5 games till the off-season, lets go BC.

Going back to marking exams. Embarrassing.

Why do we seem like the most unprepared team in the playoffs? I am not expecting us to win this series, but a little competition would be nice or a play that actually works out of a timeout or calling a timeout when the other team is up 7 instead of 10... I don't think sam is a horrible coach but I don't see us ever getting out of the 1st round with sam as our coach. He depends to much on basketball pedigree and not enough on the fine details that actually matter in the playoffs. Lastly, maybe a little consistency would be nice, he is setting up bargnani to fail when out of no where he puts him in starting at the 3 when he has never done that all year and that just confuses everyone else as well...

WTF SAM MITCHELL

Agree completely with Oyster Boy. Only Sam Mitchell would change his starting lineup for the most important game....and only Sam Mitchell would make a change to play 3 guys who have never played together before.

The moron went for a homerun play and struck out quickly. Even if the raps lost this game.....it should be competitive so we have some confidence. Right now the raps will have zero confidence.

We need to bring in a second option...the only way we do that is if we ditch the "forderone experiment". Although from the looks of it, this playoff series will do nothing for their trade value.

Easy boys .. long game. We finished the half strong and no way will Orlando rain as many three's in the second. Thought TJ and Bosh played two man ball coming out, taking the team momentum.

Tinman, I know its a long game and the raptors could get streaky and win the game, but, that does not mean we should just rely on streakiness to get us wins. Sam needs no maximize the efficiency of the team not give away freebies/advantage to the magic by sporting an unprepared lineup and lack of timeouts in the first half (were you might as well use them all) that could have been used to kill momentum.

man, it just hurts watching stuff like this...another blown, missed non-timeout call by our favorite coach...they went from down 5 to down 13 in a blink.

argh

Lighten up and enjoy the game. Brought my family out early today for a walk in the Bluffs so I could sit and enjoy the game. Orlando just had a run and are up by 13 with 8 left. On my third tallboy and am OK with what I've seen. Home court advantage Orlando can out big. Ya don't think Sam had them prepared! Christ almighty!
Deal with coaching issues after season, don't give up after first half of game one.
Support your team.(Now were done by 14 with 6'n'a 1/2 left.

Sam Mitchell will not be the coach for the Raptors come september 2008. I can already see that there is a rift. BC gives players that he thinks are helpful and Sam is going 'Man, you're crazy, these players aren't useful' so Sam will get canned.

Good job on starting Bargs at the 3! Not! Bargs is a bust. This is the playoffs. You don't start one of your worst players at the 3. Start Moon, Mitchell, it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

Dwight Howard is the best center in the league. This game is only one example of how he can take over the entire game. Raptors players ran into Howard to get Howard into foul trouble, but the Raptors found that there shots were just blocked!!

This Raptors team is pitiful right now. I don't see CB4 being on the same level as Howard, Lebron, or Amare on talent level. I see CB4 on the same level of talent as Antwan Jamison.

The Raptors need a lot of help, and in the offseason, I don't see TJ Ford with the team or Mitchell.

One more note, we were supposed to have the advantage with the PG, but that never happened today. It better happen next game and for the rest of our series because our team is built around the PG. And if our PG is not working, we can kiss this series goodbye.

what happened to our PG advantage? Nelson/Dooling raped Forderon. No perimeter D, coupled with no shot blocking presence is what the Raptors are about, and the Magic exploited these weaknesses to perfection. Magic in 5, BC get us a REAL coach..

Tinman, I agree we should all support our team and I do in fact do this by watching every game.

The only problem is that if I feel that there is a way to correct the problem then the team should do what they can. BC is not an idiot. He provided this team with players that are currently being underutilized with Sam. Sam is coaching the team as if it were the regular season still. Sam is a decent regular season coach because he is not too intense on his players during the regular season and prevents players from tuning him out. However, the playoffs are a whole new ball game where attention to detail is the most important thing - no wasted plays are allowed.

This team is wasting away. Players don't know their roles and don't collectively understand what plays they should be running. Coaching 101 states that if a player like Kapono is hot tonight then keep giving him the ball until they stop him. Once they do stop him then he can pass to other open players and thus facilitates the offense and allows for easy buckets. BC understood this when he got Kapono, but somehow Sam did not get the memo. How is it that the players are not on the same page? Everyone should have tried to use Kapono to their advantage but no one looked for him unless he was wide open. I blame sam for that. Not for this game but for not helping develop the teams Bball Iq during the regular season. I am positive that if we had Popovich as our coach we would be a far better team because he would have instilled playoff mentality in his players during the second half of the season. Oh well, I hope they prove me wrong.

Although it was a questionable decision to start Bargnani instead of Moon, I don’t believe that contributed to the flurry of 3’s that rained on Raps since our perimeter defence had been suspect season long and Orlando exploited it.

The regular season, I don’t care what Mitchell says, is important in developing team awareness and confidence and the Raps simply do not have it. The Raps should be a finely tuned offensive force but instead they are in a state of discovery. The playoff is not a time for discovery.

Any hope of recapturing their offensive flow was lost when they decided to go back with TJ Ford in the starting role after too long an absence. Some one should be held to account for that in the off season.

I called for bargs to play sf early in the year, but it seems like a desperation move now.

He really worked hard though, never seem him sweat like that before.

Too bad about the loss but it seems like it's just our time... yet

uhh, "not" our time I meant

This is what happens when you let an unhappy player become the de facto coach of the team. The Raptors are suffering with TJ at the helm. Did anyone else notice his pouty body language (before the Rap's were down a lot)?

Sam is in a bind now: Starting TJ will bring more of the same. Starting Calderon will invite chaos.

Also, now is a GREAT time to start integrating Kapono into the offence! There was no need to try that DURING the regular season, at which time the offence could have been honed.

Coaching....
Magic...10,threes....Sam is shaking his head !!!!!
Raps...2,threes....Van Gundy blows a brain vessel & goes ape shit...
I guess their shats were falling...
Bargs sweat like a pig !!!!I guess!!! when you have a horse on your back.
Bosh getting called out,I felt for him....but that being said prove Smith wrong...

I read the HQ preview before i went to bed last night and I thought putting Bargs at the 3 would be a good move before I went to sleep. I'm glad Sam agreed with me.

If I were the Raptors, I would feel pretty good about this game. Today was a statistical anomaly. Superman was money from the line and the Magic couldn't miss in the 1st. I thought Andrea and Rasho did a pretty good job on D.

Both PG's needed to play better defensively. Jameer Nelson had stats he has no business collecting.

If PG play improves and the Raptors continue to get to the charity stripe, I predict a game 2 win.

nice...I see we've taken coddling Bargs to a whole new level when we give him props for sweating...

Oyster Boy, Old School speak the truth.

What in the hell was that out there..

I don't think Colangleo will let his career be defined by this clown coaching any longer.

As weird as is it seemed a few years ago, Jay Triano is gonna be the only carry over...again, which is fine by me.

Oh...Kapono can shoot? Someone could have passed that memo along.

Raps in 7.

Watching the Sixers play - even though they will likely lose - i noticed that they do things in there offense that we never do which would explain their great year:

1) They use the fake pump, draw and drive to perfection

2) They shoot lots of midrange jump shots (high percentage)

Considering we have two point guards that can penetrate we should have plenty of options to do the same. The difference is that TJ and Calderon don't draw their defenders in enough with fake pumps to disturb the defense and make the offense easier. They also rarely spot up for a midrange shot - its either go to the rim or shoot a 3. I think this is another example of Sam's deficiency as an X's and O's coach and his lack of strategy for game preparation.

I have to agree with Wrecko on this one. I'm usually all doom and gloom, but I saw enough positives to think that we have a chance to take this series.

The Magic shot a ridiculous percentage in the first quarter and Howard was making his free throws, which is unusual. Yet, the Raptors were pretty much in the game after that porous quarter and actually made a game of it. The Magic played their best possible game, yet many of our guys struggled. I actually liked Bargs play on Howard (if he could only make an easy layup).

The fact that the Raps let everyone and anyone drive the lane with ease makes my head want to explode. They really need to work on their D...it is absolutely atrocious at times.

In addition, I have to give Sam SOME props for actually utilizing Kapono effectively. You could actively see Raptor players trying to pick his man in order to help him create space. Hopefully we improve on that next game. I would have liked to see more of Moon, especially because it is his first playoff and he must be really psyched.

At the end of the day, Sam made an effort to try something different and even called a nice play out of a timeout (the play to Parker), but all in all, he is in way over his head and I am pretty confident that BC will make the necessary adjustment this offseason. He still waits too long to call a timeout and it took 10 first quarter 3 pointers before he made any adjustments.

I am curious to see how this series plays out. I think that today's developments may end up favouring the Raptors if they play the next few games with that same second half intensity (until they fizzled in the fourth).

My honest prediction...Raps in 6...and no I don't do crack!

The Raps horrendous perimeter defense was exposed once again.

So much for Sam's comments that the only regular season goal was to make the playoffs. The regular season is about improving and developing a style of offense and defense. The last 25 games exposed the team's weaknesses.

It was amazing to see Bargnani start at the 3 when he only played 20 minutes in the last regular season game. I'm not sure how they will guard Turkoglu or Rashard Lewis. Moon can't guard Turkoglu nor can Bosh guard Lewis. Garbajosa would have been the perfect defender on Turkoglu.

As for the PGs, both were expoed on defense but especially TJ. Jameer Nelson went by TJ when ever he felt like it. With TJ's speed he should be able to stay in front of his man but he plays lacksadaisical defense and got beat today every time.

uh oh...bosh is now calling out sam. the boy is doing a little too much talking these days and not enough stepping up. even if he's right for calling sam a dummy. (for trying to change the line up, and apparently throwing a whole bunch of new plays at them.)

things could get ugly folks.

Papa where did U get that info? tks

I just read on Michael Grange's blog the entire episode of Bosh undermining Mitchell. This kind of stuff should not be aired for public consumption. Bosh 100% should have let his feelings been known privately to Mitchell.

BC will no doubt have to get involved now, although we will likely not be privy to what happened, because BC knows how to control the media and take care of things behind closed doors.

Here is the link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/wbbasketball