Game 26: Raps vs. Thunder - Post-game
Well, that didn’t look too promising at all. The Raptors put on their uniforms and that was about it tonight as the Thunder was loud and clear for the boys in red. When I was a kid, I was terrified of thunder and seeing some of the Raptors playing tonight, I had some flashbacks to being stranded in the middle of a baseball diamond, hearing the thunder getting closer.
The part that bothered me the most about tonight’s loss wasn’t so much that they actually lost to the worst team in the league, because honestly, the Raptors haven’t been playing very well lately and it wasn’t unreasonable to think that this game could get away from them. What bothered me was that they were down the whole game.  It’s bad enough that they have been blowing leads all over the place, sorry, blowing double-digit leads all over the place, but when you’re down wire to wire against the worst team in the league, then you have to start wondering about heart.
A few weeks ago, I was talking about swagger. The Raptors clearly have none. They don’t have a guy who is going to step up and light a fire under anybody’s butt. They don’t have an Oakley. I know, he’s the last name you want to hear right now, but he’s exactly the kind of grit the Raptors need. Somebody who can do the dirty work on the court and when he’s not on it, he’ll get in your face if he doesn’t see the same kind of effort.Â
While we saw Mason and Durant dunking over JO and Moon tonight, those were clearly some half-hearted challenges from the Raptor end (although it looked to me like Mason used his left arm for a clearout on the dunk, but whatever…if you’re hoping for calls like that at this point, wow). When you are going up to try to block a guy going for a dunk, you had better mean it or else you could wind up getting hurt. Oh wait, JO did leave the game with a shoulder injury, right?
Losses to bad teams happen. It’s part of the game. That’s why the cliche goes, “That’s why they play the game.” It wasn’t like this came out of left field, like the Raptors were rolling along and then suddenly had a wheel fall off. This was a case of the Raptors already driving a broken down car on its rims and hitting another in a series of potholes. But it’s the lack of passion that is disturbing. You can’t be behind in a game like that and not take it personally. Those are the kind of games when you get back to the hotel and you have to stand in front of the mirror and take a good look at yourself. You have to ask if you gave everything you had that night or whether you quit.
The good thing for the Raptors is that they have now officially hit rock bottom.  This is their chance to say, “It doesn’t get any worse than this, we have to turn things around right now and take some pride in the effort we put out on the court every night.”   Otherwise, Jay Triano is going to be drawing X’s and O’s for his own enjoyment. You can draw up the plays, but you can’t paint passion into somebody’s heart. If the Raptors don’t have any pride, then the rest of the season could be ugly. If they do, then there is still plenty of time to turn things around.
4 Comments
Doc on December 20th, 2008
Ugh …. glad I missed it Jay. 
Jay on December 20th, 2008
U-G-L-Y.
Doc on December 20th, 2008
Mooooommy!!!
The AltRaps Blog » Blog Archive » Toronto Raptors Linkage for December 19th through December 20th on December 20th, 2008
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