-They came, they saw, they kind of concurred. The Miami Heat visited Toronto for the first time in their "Super Friends" format this season, and came away with a 103 to 95 win thanks to 76 points from LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and of course Chris Bosh.
-Bosh was the focal point in this one obviously as it was his first game back in Toronto as a member of the Miami Heat. He led Miami in scoring with 25 points, but hardly dominated the way another Raptor-villain, Vince Carter did, in many of his returns to TO.
-However he and the Heat did just enough to escape with a victory, in what was actually a fairly close match. The Raps played from behind from mid-first quarter on pretty much, but repeatedly pulled within 3 or 4 points until the Heat finally put things away for good with about a minute left in the match. Andrea Bargnani put on an offensive clinic finishing with 38 points on 15 of 26 shooting, but again, he didn't get much help. DeMar DeRozan was a solid second-fiddle with 24 points himself, but after that, the next highest scorer was Ed Davis, with a measly 8 points off the pine.
-This game could easily have been an OT fight to the finish had TO knocked down just a few more shots. However Jose Calderon, Sonny Weems and Amir Johnson, Toronto's other three starters, combined for a beautiful night of 4 of 21 shooting, and the club just didn't have enough firepower to pass the Heat by the time the buzzer sounded. The Heat were missing Mike Miller, so weren't quite at optimum strength either, but they got 16 points off the bench from Eddie House and Erick Dampier.
-And what about the booing? The atmosphere? The venomous chants aimed at Bosh? Frankly it was all a little overblown as while fans came out strong, booing Bosh and even throwing out a few attempts at "over-ra-ted" and "Ru-Paul" heckles, nothing much caught on, and the arena just didn't have the intensity of Vince's return, or even a playoff game.
-A win would have been nice now to take into the All-Star break, but the Raps will have to head into the break with visions of Bosh blowing kisses to the crowd and Toronto losing its 17th game in its last 19 attempts.