-Lucky number 13. With a 100 to 87 loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the Toronto Raptors now finish the first 50 games of the 2010-11 NBA Season with a glorious 13 win and 37 loss record. It's not quite last year's Nets, but it ain't pretty, and tonight's loss to the Hawks was everything we've come to expect from the Dinos. Sketchy offense, abysmal defence, and a lack of talent that undermines spurts of solid effort.
-Where to start, where to start. How about Toronto putting up a decent fight, but again struggling to make shots (they shot 45% on the night) and of course get stops. They took only five 3-pointers, hitting one, and simply failed to get anything resembling a solid performance from anyone other than Amir Johnson. Johnson led the team with 20 points, 13 rebounds and 2 blocks, but aside from 16 from DeMar DeRozan, players like Andrea Bargnani (4 of 12), Sonny Weems (5 of 14) and Jose Calderon (3 of 12) threw up brick after brick.
-The Hawks were propelled by Joe Johnson who had 37 points and 8 assists. Johnson got lots of help from the likes of Josh Smith (18 and 11), and Al Horford, whose 12 points, 14 rebounds and 7 assists were three dimes short of a triple double.
-The one other stat that sticks out from this one big time? Toronto had only 14 fouls in the match. Did I want them to rack up 25 tonight? Not so much, but in a game where the Raps offered very little physical resistance to the Hawks, this number looms large. If the Raps want to stop this losing streak, they need to start doing these little things to try and gain an advantage. Unfortunately after Friday's match against the T-Wolves, games against the Bucks, Spurs, Blazers, Clippers and Heat mean that even successfully doing the little things, may not be enough.