-The loss to the Los Angeles Lakers was tough to swallow, but tonight's drubbing at the hands of the Sacramento Kings was simply inexcusable. The Toronto Raptors got blown out in the second half en route to a 113 to 90 loss in a game that should have been wrapped up early as win number 33 on the season. Instead, it's loss number 31, the team's seventh in its last eight games.
-Lots of blame to be spread around in this one but let's start with Chris Bosh. Yes, he's probably not 100 per cent. But if you're that ineffective, either don't play, or do other things to try and get the team going. 14 points on six of 20 shooting and 5 rebounds ain't gonna cut it, and neither is 3 measly free-throw attempts.
-As mentioned though, this was an entire team failure tonight as Hedo Turkoglu was essentially invisible (six points on 2 of 8 shooting), Bargs was again only good in spurts (he had a team-high 20 points) and Toronto's point guards on the night were abysmal, both in terms of leading the team and in terms of setting the tone. Jose in particular got lit up all night by Beno Udrih.
-Yes, Beno Udrih. The same Beno who finished with 24 points and 8 assists, many of his points coming off of open drives to the basket. He got a ton of help in the back-court however as Tyreke Evans simply did whatever he wanted en route to his first career triple-double (19-10-10.) These two got a nice boost from other Kings like Carl Landry, Donte Greene and Jason Thompson and once Sacto got rolling to start the third quarter, they never looked back. How rolling? Well considering the Raptors gave up 43 points in the 3rd Q...
-From here, things could get pretty messy fast for Toronto. They still have two tough games left on the road trip out West, then have to face the Hawks and Thunder upon their return. Already they've tumbled in the Eastern Conference standings from 5th to 7th and another few losses could easily knock them out of a playoff spot altogether. Dare we say it but is it time for another closed-door meeting?