New Jersey...the land in the swamps, where attendance stinks as much as the atmosphere, an NBA franchise is veering close to possessing the league's worst-ever season roster, and where a team can only be winning 7 games.
Yes, that's right. The Raptors defeated the Nets 100-90 on Saturday night to improve to 34-34 while still holding on to 8th place in the East, leaving the Nets with still only 7 wins in the season. (The worst-ever record for a season was made by the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers, with a 9-73 mark.) This game was a fairly nice effort by the team, and Chris Bosh has started to show signs of finally shaking off the after-effects of the sprained ankle he had suffered earlier this month. CB4 (as Raptor fans have taken to calling him throughout the years) scored a season-high 36 points in the win, but was struggling early, committing 5 turnovers in the first half of the game. He did, however, score an unbelievable 15 points in the 3rd quarter, including a vicious reverse dunk in that same quarter that helped to turn the momentum in Toronto's favour. The team held the Nets to an ugly 39.8% shooting percentage, and faced little pressure from New Jersey in the win. One more note about the game...apparently one of the Raptors' reserve players (small forward Antoine Wright) lit into Bosh about his uninspiring and lackluster play of late since coming back from the injury. He got after Bosh for his bad play and helped to motivate the big star towards a big night. Wright did follow his own pep talk though, and backed it up with a solid 11 points, 4-8 shooting, 2-steal, and 2-block night in 22 minutes of playing time. It just goes to show what accountability can do for anyone, especially big athletes and celebrities. Although I must say...Bosh needs to be careful that this doesn't develop into a habit, especially since Raptors fans are familiar with what former star Vince Carter went through with the franchise. He was legendary among them for not always giving a 100% effort in every single game, and often needed teammates, media criticism, and/or special games to motivate him to show his all-star talent. A word of warning to Bosh...DON'T pull a "Wince Carter", whatever you do! Also too Chris, if you want to leave, be completely honest with us about your intentions, and PLEASE tell the fans and the media about it all, even after you do finally leave someday, whenever in your career that may occur. All right, let's move on...
Following that game, The Raptors flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota to take on the Minnesota Timberwolves in order to climb above the .500 mark and establish a two-game winning streak. It was an up-and-down night for CB4, who struggled to find his game in the 1st half (remember my "word of warning speech" earlier in this post?) and once again turned it over 5 times in the following quarter. However, Bosh again was huge in the 3rd and scored 9 points for the team, going a perfect 4-4 from the field in the process. It led to a respectable 21 points and 10 rebounds on the night, giving him a team-record 44th double-double. He did have assistance though, from Jarret Jack, Hedo Turkoglu, and Antoine Wright, as the Raps were successful in knocking off the gritty Wolves, 106-100. One more note...did I mention that Jarret Jack, the Raptors 6'3" backup point guard DUNKED against the T-Wolves in the game? Yes, it did occur. For the first time in my life, I have seen him dunk a basketball, which was surprising since I had never seen him do it this year for the Raptors. Of course, he is getting older now, and there's no telling how many dunks he may have performed earlier in his career. All in all, it was a great night for Toronto, as they are now 35-34 and still hold an 8th-place spot in the Eastern Conference. The team has won 2 important games, and the task continues tonight, as they battle the Utah Jazz at the Air Canada Center. Start time is at 7 PM, with the broadcast on TSN2. I'll come back later and speak about the London Knights. That's all for now!
*Update: I'm going to update you on the Knights now...on Tuesday, the team played Game 3 of their Western Conference quarterfinal round vs the Guelph Storm, and it proved to be a wild affair. The two teams were scoreless until 7:44 was left in the second period, and then the two teams scored 3 goals each in that period. Goals in that period were scored by: London Knights - Jared Knight (two goals), and Colin Martin; Guelph Storm - Peter Holland (two goals), and Michael Latta. So, the score was 3-3 after two. The game picked up again with scoring from Z. Mitchell from Guelph and Michael D'Orazio from London and the teams were again tied, this time at 4. It all ended, however, because Nazem Kadri took two bad penalties within the fianl minute of the 3rd. He committed a dirty check to the head, which automatically gave him a game misconduct for his behaviour. Guelph promptly scored on the winner from Taylor Beck with 36 seconds remaining. As I said, it was CRAZY!!! The Knights now know that they have to tighten things up and become more disciplined if they wish to defeat Guelph and move on to the Western Conference Semi-finals. Guelph has finally showed their true game and made the series a dogfight. Their next game is tomorrow in Guelph. The start time is 7 PM, and the game can be heard on AM 1290 CJBK or online at the Knights' official website. So, that just about ends the updating.
One more thing...the Toronto Raptors were massacred yet again at home tonight with great performances by Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer who led the Utah Jazz to a 113-87 thumping. The game was SO horrible that I can't even blog any more about it. So now I am truly finished! The Raps' next game is Friday at home at 7 PM, with the telecast being aired on TSN2. So, have a good and splendid day!
*Here are the recaps for all of the games I blogged about in this post: Game 3 Knights vs Storm, Raptors vs Nets, Raptors vs Timberwolves, & Raptors vs Jazz. Have fun cheering and goodbye!
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