Raps Lack Man Power To Finish On The Road.

It was the Raptors last Road game of the season and they were mighty thin in this one with just 8 healthy bodies and it was not looking good. But they would give a game effort as it turned out. Here is my audio re-cap of the festivities in Milwaukee.

Here is the boxscore if you still care about such things at this point of the season.

Scrappy But A Loss For Raptors

I covered this one for The Score so if you want a blow by blow account of this one head over to the link to the liveblog on The Score. It has been a rough weekend for me battling a cold and trying to stay healthy. Raptors have been battling to do the same in terms of getting people healthy. No Bayless, Weems or Bargnani today. I will just offer a few thoughts on this one that was a Celtics win 93-79.

First thing for me in this game was how would DeRozan do?

Coming off a career high going against a player in Ray Allen who has caused him fits in his young NBA career. The answer was pretty good scoring wise with 27. He should have had more in terms of he missed 3 free throws and should have got more calls then he did. He had 5 turnovers which is not good but he was looking for his team mates and not just focused on getting his. Celtics are very good on D and against a lesser team a few of those turnovers would be assists against bad teams. The defence has a long way to go. But even with some of the greatest stars in this game the last thing they developed was strong defence. He did have 3 steals in this game and as he learns can really be effective when he learns how jump the passing lanes when opportunities are there. I said at the beginning of this season the most important thing this Raptor season would be the development of DeRozan and I still believe it. The signs that he can become very good are growing and he is a guy that works very hard. I am confident that Demar can be very good in this league.

I am Sorry Jay Triano....

I admit that I am starting change my opinion of Jay Triano. This team with all it's injuries could just roll over and die and no one would be surprised. However this team is playing hard for Jay Triano. That is one of the things I respected the most about Sam Mitchell, he demanded his team play hard and if they didn't he would place your butt on the bench. Jay Triano's team is playing hard for him. This team did not do that with Chris Bosh. Is it Bosh's fault or Jay's for not being as demanding as he is now when Bosh was here. Jack Armstrong said to me when we were talking about Triano that you can't coach on egg shells. Well this year Triano isn't and the team as a whole is better for it. The difference in 3 games vs Boston has been eye opening from this season to last season. In the games last season Boston basically punked the Raptors and they knew they could go out and push them around. This season the Celtics have had to earn everything and no longer seems like a bully of the Raptors. Toronto is the only team in the Atlantic to beat Boston. I may never be the biggest Jay Triano supporter. I still have some issues. But if this team will give this effort then I will live with my issues about Jay. At the end of day the record is not good but if Triano carries on in this direction the Raptors can be a team that with better talent both through development and adding new players can be successful under him. I was not convinced of that in the past. Is he the answer to win an NBA title or coach this team when the day comes they are a legit contender? Not sure on that. But for the moment he is getting the most out of the team more often than he doesn't

Little Moves Work Well For B.C....

Joey Dorsey had 13 points and 13 boards and was a late season pick up for Colangelo. 30 NBA teams could have had him. Bryan took a shot and has found a decent player that will battle on the glass and fill a role for you. B.C kinda missed the boat on Marco Bellinelli but in true B.C fashion he did not take long to correct his mistake. Julian Wright got off to a bad start as a Raptor. But he is quickly gaining respect for his effort energy and hustle and many Raptor fans want to see Julian Wright get more minutes. B.C has always done a solid job at finding role players for the Raptors roster. It is the big moves that have been the problem. I am not sure Kleiza is considered a big move but I remain unimpressed with his play. Granted he has picked it up with Weems out. I still just think he forces his game at times and is not as good a 3 point shooter as he thinks he is or this team thinks he is. Barbosa struggled today but I liked that move much more as he unloaded another mistake in Hedo Turkoglu. B.C next big moves have to be right. This off-season once the CBA is sorted out is going to define the Raptors future for the next 5 years. If Colangelo misses after setting himself up with cap flexibility with the Peja contract and Bosh Trade exception that will be the final straw in terms of Colangelo.

Raptors Getting Some Warriors....

Amir Johnson and Jerryd Bayless have shown toughness that we have not seen since Alvin Williams wore a jersey and not a suit for the Toronto Raptors. Bayless could not go today likely because he pushed it to hard to try to play. While Amir with a bad back has played through the pain and played like a champ while doing it. Even Jose Calderon today I will give some credit for sticking with it and playing through pain. When you have guys willing to pay the price and play through pain it makes it hard for anyone else to not do the same. It can be a fine line between being hurt and injured and I would rather have a guy that pushes that line to the limit than a guy like Vince Carter.

This Team Can Rebound....

One of the many concerns I had heading into this season was could this team compete on the boards night in and night out. The answers appears to be yes they can. Andrea Bargnani still might not be rebounding it and being injured he really won't. But Johnson, Dorsey, Davis are all working hard on the glass. It is rubbing off on others too DeRozan had 6 today...Kleiza had 9. Raptors have becoming when they are playing at their best a scrappy team that will battle on the boards. They lost the game today but won the battle on boards. Also they are getting after it on the offensive glass and getting points out of it.

At the end of the day the Raptors will not be a playoff team. But they are showing more of the intangibles it takes to be one than a team that fell a game short of post season last year. It seems easy to stick the blame for that all on Bosh. But in reality it is also how others acted in relation to him that was part of the problem. Nothing was stopping people from stepping up and doing the right things. I will give you an example from the Raptors past. Vince Carter was injured and out for the rest of the season. The Raptors playoff chances looked bleak. But Antonio Davis would lead this group on an incredible run and make the post season. They were minus Chris Childs meltdown almost able to upset the Pistons winning in 5 games....back in the old days before 7 game first round series. No one stepped up when Bosh went down and did that for that Raptor team. Now with him out of the picture some guys are stepping up and some are expected and others are not.

Ok so that didn't have a lot to do with the game today. But they are some important observations sparked from watching today. Also you have to give it to Raptor fans with a sellout for a team that is 11-21 prior to today's tip. Granted I am sure a lot of Celtics fans helped make that happen, but still the Raptors continue to draw fans in what is a challenging season at best. Raptor fans are some of the best in the NBA and they deserve a winner.

Raptors Visit The Magic Kingdom

Vince Carter has a beard. It is comical, what isn't is the Raptors of late. Also no laughing matter is the lengthy injured list. The Raptors last practice had only 10 healthy bodies on the court. Barbosa was left back in Toronto and is out for this entire road trip at least. Jack sat out practice as he is still dealing with a sore knee. Andersen still has the flu listed as questionable. Linas Kleiza is also at less than 100%. He is listed as doubtful and Triano has said if no Kleiza that will mean Sonny Weems starts. Reggie Evans has a sore hip as well. Ed Davis is still not ready, coming back from knee surgery prior to training camp. It is a banged up group of Raptors facing two of the best teams in the East on a back to back.

The Basics: Orlando 5-2 ( 2nd in the East ) Toronto 1-7 (0-4 on the Road)

When Last We Saw Them: The Raptors coughed up a hair ball and the basketball and lost to the Bobcats. Raptors had a 5 point lead heading into the 4th quarter only to have that flipped and lose to the Bobcats by 5. Raptors had 17 turnovers in the 101-96 loss but none more costly then the one late in the game by Andrea Bargnani.

Key Match-ups: Jay Triano promises we will see a lot of Joey Dorsey matching up with Dwight Howard. It is always a key match-up when you face the Magic. Dwight is starting to expand his offensive game a little bit and has a few new tricks in the tool box. Demar DeRozan had an awful night vs the Bobcats. He had a good night vs one of his idols in Kobe Bryant earlier in the year. Well he also is a Vince Carter fan and will match-up with him. Air Canada vs Heir Canada and it should be fun to see if Demar can answer the challenge. Vince is a contract year and off the a decent start for the Magic. It isn't a match up but against the Magic if you do not defend the 3 point line your dead dead dead.

Other Things of Note: The Magic have a new arena (Amway Center) this season and this is the Raptors first visit. They have a 10-16 record all time visiting Mickey and the Magic. Stan Van Gundy will be into his team after they blew a huge lead to the Jazz and lost. On his staff is the first ever Raptors head coach Brendan Malone. Magic are the worst team in league from the free throw line early in this NBA season shooting just 65.5% at the line as a team.

In Case You Missed It: Chris Bosh and his Heat lost again and he was the focus of the Raptor Twitterverse. All based on in his latest apparent slag of Toronto. Under protest I decided to weigh in on Bosh and twitter circus. If you are like me and Boshed out you still might want to check it out and just scroll to the end.

Raps Perfect Summer Season

So the Raptors finished off their Summer League schedule with 2 wins. On Friday they took care of the Kings 88-82 then on Saturday beat the 0-4 Hornets with no DeRozan or Weems 101-93. So the Raptors end up finishing summer with a perfect 5-0 record. They opened a lot of eyes and were on of the best teams in Las Vegas playing a very exciting brand of basketball. Demar DeRozan in 4 games had the 3rd best scoring average in the Vegas league with 21 points per game. Only John Wall and Reggie Williams were better. Wall lead the Summer league averaging 23.5 per game.

The Raptors as a team in Summer league averaged 98.8 PPG while giving up only giving up 84.8 PPG. Keeping in mind at Summer League they only play 4 Quarters at 10 minutes a piece. Basically the same totally game time as in the NCAA. Along with DeRozan his fellow Young Gun had a nice summer league. Sonny Weems averaged 17.5 PPG and had some amazing hi-lite dunks along with DeRozan. Weems has talked about wanting to work on his 3 point shot and based on Summer League still work to do going 3-13 ( 23.1%). DeRozan was great from the field shooting the lights out at 58% and was all about getting to the hoop and getting to the line (38 times in 4 games). Weems also was good in that regard getting to the line 24 times. Both need to do a better job in finishing it off with DeRozan making 24-38(63.1%) and Weems just 13 of 24(54.1%). But overall 2 thumbs up for the Young Guns performance.

Ed Davis the Raptors first round selection averaged 12.6 and 6 rebounds in 5 games of action. Davis had a brutal second game getting just 4 points and 4 boards. He also had a big defensive outburst with 5 blocks vs Sacramento which inflated his blocks average to 1.8 per game. I don't remember what Chris Bosh did in summer league. In fact, Summer League was not the huge deal it has been built into by some today. In terms of Davis he had good moments and bad moments. Which even though it is hard to remember I am sure was the same with Chris. But for anyone to expect Ed Davis to grow into another Chris Bosh you are hoping for far to much. He is a different type of player. He likely is ahead of Bosh at same point on defensive end. But his offense is far behind and likely never catches up. Still to make conclusions on this kid, good or bad, based on Summer League is just wrong. The fact he is playing for pretty much his first competitive basketball he has played since his wrist injury at UNC. So the bar should have been set low. I think he did more than what you might have realistically expected.

Solomon Alabi after his first game looked on track to be a star for the Erie Bayhawks the Raptors D-League Affiliate. That still could end up happening. But he did showed improvement along the way in his summer league. He ended up with 8.2 points with 5 rebounds per game. He unlike DeRozan and Weems was very good at the line making 15-16 at the line. He also averaged a block a game. He still looks pretty raw and that is why playing in the D-League seems to be in his future. If he doesn't get time with the Raptors he is better served being there at points during the season. Will see how it works out, but being 7ft 1 he could develop into a shot blocking presence, something the Raptors have always lacked.You can't teach height as they say. He like many from Africa looks at Hakeem as an idol and someone to be like. While Raptor fans memories of Hakeem are no dream, there is no denying that if Alabi could be half as good in his career as Olajuwon everyone would be thrilled. That being said Demar DeRozan's Idol is Kobe, admiring someone and being them is 2 very different things.

Others that made an impact for Raps in Summer League were Joey Dorsey who lead the Summer League Raps with 9.8 Rebounds. Dorsey was brought in late last season and should be on the roster for camp in the fall. The other guy that stood out was Bobby Brown. The basketball player not the guy that married Whitney. There was nothing cruel about Brown's performance as he looked good working with both DeRozan and Weems at the point. He averaged 12.4 points and 4 assists(tied for team lead) and 1.2 steals. If it was my prerogative, I would love to seem him get a shot and be brought in, if Jose Calderon does get moved. Here is all the stats on all that were a part of the undefeated Raptors in Vegas.

Some other things of note:

Mark Ivaroni has decided to take a job with Vinny Del Negro with the Clippers as reported by Doug Smith in The Star. The former Bulls coach has brought him in to work on his staff. With the addition of P.J Carlesmio it is really not a huge loss for the Raptors. Ivaroni was suppose to have been in charge of the defense for the Raptors in his one season on the job. Clearly he did not have much, if any success, good luck to him with the Clippers. Job security in Clipperland is never that good. If not for the hiring of Carlesmio the optics of this would look bad. To move to the Clippers from Raptors for basically the same job. But it is safe to assume, his role with the Raptors would be less with Toronto.

While some former Raptors have rejoined the Atlantic Division in the coaching ranks. Sam Mitchell the former Raptors head coach and former player Popeye Jones have joined the staff in New Jersey. Sam joining New Jersey had been reported awhile ago. While Jones has been an assistant with a number of teams over the years. Happy for both and they both should be great additions to Avery Johnson's staff in New Jersey.

Still a long way off, but Raptors Training Camp may be heading to Vancouver after a couple years in Ottawa. A clear sign this may in fact be the case is the Raptors will play the Suns in Vancouver on October 6th. The Nash Cup? The Hedo Bowl? Not sure what you would call it, but the Raptors vs Nash is good business. Suns were in Vancouver last year and packed the place for Nash and the Suns. It was a sell out. Note to NBA how is that team in Memphis drawing? Not sure if this will be a home or road game for the Raptors in Vancouver. Raptors like to call themselves Canada's team, but Nash is B.C's own (British Columbia not Bryan Colangelo). In any case should make for a fun environment for a basketball game. Cheer Nash Vancouver but BOO HEDO!!!

Good to be back at it. Sorry, I had a bunch of things to take care of and did not get a blog to you on Friday. It is the summer time so things are a little different for both me and for you as readers. But we will keep things rolling all year long.