It's been nothing short of a roller-coaster ride for the Toronto Raptors this season, and Wednesday's home game vs the New York Knicks was a bittersweet moment for the team. They crushed the Knicks 131-113, but the Chicago Bulls defeated the Charlotte Bobcats 98-89 to guarantee themselves the 8th and final Eastern Conference playoff spot. Yes, that's right...the Raptors will NOT be going this year: they finished the year 40-42 in 9th spot. New York was largely apathetic and unmotivated in the game, and Toronto outscored the Knicks in every quarter. There were a few moments in the 2nd quarter where the Knicks tried to make it close, but the Raptors kept on pulling away from them and went on to display a superb exhibition of shooting. They even built their lead to 21 points at one instance in the game; the Knicks played that bad! The player of the game was rookie shooting guard DeMar DeRozan who scored himself a career night. He earned 24 points and tied a career mark with 9 rebounds and field goals, all in 38 minutes of playing time. It didn't start out good for DeRozan who scored only 6 points in the first half before heating it up in the 2nd half. He scored 18 points in that half on an incredible 7-8 shooting clip. There were plenty of fantastic statistics provided by the two teams in this game. Some of them are: shooting 65% in the game, scoring a team-history high 131 points in regulation play, and an unconscious 62-28 edge in points in the paint, which tied a season high. New York attempted a crazy 33 3-point field goal attempts and Toronto earned a season series sweep of the Knicks (winning all 4 contests against them). Over his last 4 games, Amir Johnson has shot a terrific 69% from the floor (making 32 of 46 shots) and this season marks the 6th year that the Raptors have won 40 games or more (the other five of these seasons were ALL playoff ones, the only playoff years to date: 1999-2000, 2000-2001, 2001-2002, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008). This season provided us with record-setting statistics as well. The Raptors scored 8,534 total season points, they earned a team-high 104.1 points per game, made a record 3,199 shots, shot a team-history field goal percentage (48%), and put out a record number of free throw attempts (2,118). Overall, it was a bittersweet victory for the Raptors: beating New York, but not making it to postseason because of the Bulls winning in Charlotte.
What's next for Toronto? Well, the offseason of course. The biggest question mark to be answered is the future of Chris Bosh as a Raptor. He is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer which means that it will be EXTREMELY difficult for Toronto to keep him if they don't grab him before then! My prediction: Bosh will leave Toronto and the Raps will start rebuilding all over again. I wish Bosh all the best; he gave us consistency almost every night and seems to be an all-around great guy. See you next year, Toronto fans!
Here's the recap: Raptors vs Knicks
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