-Well, if you thought the Hawks' game was bad, you were in for a real treat tonight as the Toronto Raptors lost to the Boston Celtics by a score of 100 to 64. Not much to say in this one except that the Raptors just didn't show up. One of those nights? More like one of those nights again as first quarter woes sunk them early, and that was all she wrote. The Raptors were outscored 29 to 16 in the first Q and the C's never looked back, going up by as many as 40 points en route to an easy win.
-Paul Pierce led the C's with 17 points but Boston got double digit nights from Avery Bradley, Brandon Bass, Ray Allen and JaJuan Johnson. Johnson in fact, with 11 points, outscored every Raptor except Jerryd Bayless. Bayless had 14 for Toronto, but it was on 5 of 12 shooting, and there wasn't exactly a multitude of efficient options outside of him either. DeMar DeRozan had a measly eight points for Toronto on 3 of 12 shooting and Jose Calderon continued to struggle with his shot, blanking on all five lowly shots that he took
-There just wasn't much to take from this one in terms of positives and the hope is that the Raps can put the loss behind them and prep for an easier foe in Washington this Friday. Aaron Gray's near double-double of eight points and nine rebounds was a flicker of light, and Ed Davis' legit dub-dub of 10 and 12 offers some respite.
-But not much. The team got out-rebounded, out-shot (Boston hit 50 per cent of their 3's) and completely outworked in the loss. Even the category they won, free-throw attempts, ended up being a loss as Toronto connected on only eight of their 18 attempts.
-But hey...Solomon Alabi played five whole minutes!