After last night's loss to Boston, the HQ wonders if maybe there's a slight silver lining in the Chris Bosh injury situation...
Sonny Weems shouldn't be your best player.
That's not to say I don't like Sonny, as most readers know, he's my favourite player on the team.
However a sophomore who was barely retained by Bryan Colangelo after he was acquired, shoudn't end up leading a team in scoring in a big match like last night's. No, one would have to argue that other players like Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu should have taken over that role.
Of course, for those of you who watched last night's 115 to 104 loss to the Boston Celtics, you know that wasn't the case as indeed, Weems was the team's leading point getter with 21 points, while the aforementioned Bargnani had but 17, and unfortunately those points came on a putrid 8 of 22 shooting night.
It was the same sort of movie for Toronto fans last night; team gets close near the end but defence can't give them the final boost they need, and end result is a loss. Minus Chris Bosh, the Raptors shot only 12 foul shots on the evening as opposed to 33 for Boston, a major factor in the end result. As well, without Bosh, Boston won the battle of the boards, and despite solid efforts from the likes of Antoine Wright (who wasn't even expected to play) and Jarrett Jack, the C's were simply too much.
In my books now, this can go one of two ways.
With four games remaining, Toronto wins enough games to secure a playoff spot and gets Bosh back in time for the first round, although faces the Herculean task of beating Cleveland.
Or.
The team loses most of its final four matches, misses the playoffs, Bosh therefore doesn't return, and that's all she wrote.
I really don't want to see the Raptors go out like they would in the latter scenario, however admittedly it might have one hidden benefit. If Toronto can't get the job done minus Bosh, and ends up missing the playoffs completely, perhaps that's the push Bryan Colangelo needs to realize that the club as presently composed, "ain't workin'." Without Bosh, and playing for their playoff lives, this next stretch is indeed a good gauge of just what fans might be able to expect next season over 82 games from a Bosh-less Raptors group.
Last night showed that the effort at times could be there, but the talent certainly wasn't sans-Bosh.
And forget beating the Hawks and Bulls, it's certainly going to be interesting to see if this club as presently composed can even beat Detroit and New York. As mentioned to start this post, if players like Weems are your top guns down the stretch, this doesn't exactly reflect well on your team's chances.
After all, Hedo added another chapter to his Raptors' legacy by bumping heads with Tony Allen late in the first quarter, sustaining a "nasal contusion."
No word on how long he'll have to stay away from Yorkville for...