A Win Required On Basketball Night In Canada

The big question in this one for the Raptors will be if Kyle Lowry will be in the line-up. He did not practice yesterday so that is not a good sign. That said if he is Alvin Williams like don't count him out to play tonight. The Sixers come into Toronto on a high after winning 106-100 in Boston. Jrue Holiday was on fire in this one with 21 points and 14 assists he was paired the the backcourt with Evan Turner who led the team with 25 points. The win put the Sixers over .500 at 3-2 with still no sign of Andrew Bynum in their line-up.

As you may have heard yesterday, Landry Fields in seeing a hand specialist. He has been having pain in his right hand for a few weeks. I would say something was wrong too if Aaron Gray was averaging more points than me. There may well be an issue as Fields as looked awful and missed even some very simple shots of late.

If Andrea Bargnani is ever going have a bounce back game tonight might be the night to do it. Sixers really struggle to have anyone that can match-up with him on this roster. Maybe I am just being overly optimistic. I am sure Andrea would say something about needing to be aggressive. As the kids use to say...Don't Sing it....Bring It.

I am going be in the house for this one. The Raptor home dates are few and far between for the rest of the calendar year. 

Dwane Casey has been talking about his team's lack of defense. The Raptors with far less talent were playing better defense last season than currently. What Casey doesn't mention is the level of competition so far which has been pretty high. In addition Casey is suggesting changes to the starting five could be on the way. It may be as simple as Anderson replacing Fields depending on how things went with the hand specialist. I never even knew their were hand specialists.

If you expect something dramatic like Bargnani being sent to the bench you are expecting to much I think, at least at this point.

Thaddeus Young, Evan Turner and Jrue Holiday all played 40+ minutes last night in Boston and the Raptors need to take advantage of being the rested team in this one. Can't afford a slow start in this one.

Raptors badly need a win in this one already in the Atlantic Division basement as this is the Raptors 2nd game in their division this season and first at home at the ACC.  It is a rare Saturday night of basketball in this country. They use to play some other sport on Saturday's, can't remember what was though. Oh well who cares let's hoop it up on Saturday night.

Update 11:15am: Josh Lewenberg of TSN 1050 and my partner on This Week In Raptorland reports that Kyle Lowry will not play tonight vs Sixers Via Twitter @Jlew1050. This will make a win tonight much tougher as I discussed in the preview. 

Additional news Landry Fields will have more tests on his sore right hand and it would appear will be out for tonight as well. Linas Kleiza is back from a personal absence for a family matter. This all come straight from the Raptors PR Twitter account and Jim LaBumbard.