"I had some personal issues I had to attend to," said Ford. "I don’t think that’s going to affect (the game), though. I’m good."
What issues? He wouldn’t elaborate. But while Ford has said publicly he is comfortable with Jose Calderon as the starting point guard, he hasn’t exactly acted as though he’s at peace. Calderon got the job when Ford went down with injuries that have kept him out of 31 of the team’s 60 games; Calderon has remained the starter in the month or so since Ford’s return.
If his body language in the couple of games before last night had been translated into words, you’d have shielded your kids’ ears. Tuesday in Orlando, non-plussed he’d been hooked from the game, Ford made a 20-foot walk to the bench look more like a procession to the electric chair. It wasn’t the only outward expression of his discontent.
"T.J.’s a good guy. He’s a good person," said Darrick Martin, Ford’s fellow point guard. "He’s just working through some issues and he’ll be fine."
Perhaps drama was inevitable. It was said in this space and others that Toronto’s point-guard platoon worked last season and at the beginning of this one largely because Ford was the starter. His ego, it was surmised here, wouldn’t take well to being a No. 2. And that wasn’t necessarily a knock against him.
Still, it’ll be difficult to upturn the batting order now, because Ford isn’t necessarily the guy the Raptors are worried about ticking off. Calderon, playing awfully well in the first five, is heading into a summer in which he’ll be a presumably-coveted restricted free agent, and the Raptors have repeatedly asserted their desire to keep him. Ford, locked up through 2011, might have to live with the status quo.
Last night he played 22 largely scowl-free minutes, scoring 13 points while racking up five assists and three turnovers. He acknowledged his behaviour was drawing the wrong kind of attention from certain superiors, but he didn’t exactly apologize for it.
"I guess that’s the knock against me, man," said Ford. "I think I’m an emotional person. But I think people look at me like I have a problem sometimes, when I really don’t. I’m fine."
Seven Raptors had nine points or more last night with none surpassing the 16 Rasho Nesterovich put up.
Four of the Raptors’ starting five were in double figures with the nine points from Calderon the low-water mark on the unit. He more than made up for that with a 13-assist night his best game in at least two weeks.
How long? Not even Bosh can say for sure.
"Shoot, when I’m pain-free," he said. "I think it’s too early (to pinpoint a return date). I’m still waiting for it to start progressing. It’s the same old."
Bosh has been down this road before, waiting for an injury to heal and knows that outside of getting his treatment only time will do the healing.
"It takes time, but I’m used to these things taking time," he said. "I just have to be patient and make sure I do the right things so when the time comes I’ll be ready."
Garbajosa is on the court daily with the team, not yet running, but walking without any aids and is putting up about 200 flat-footed shots a day.
In the pool, he’s able to work on strengthening the muscles in his lower leg which have not been used since his second surgery back in December.
X-rays on the cheek were negative. There were no signs of a concussion, although he probably will need some dental work today as his left front tooth was moved in the collision. He will be reexamined today in Miami.
"That’s the way we’ve got to play basketball – play like a team," said Calderon.
"The thing I talked about today was, without Chris, to just remember how we play," said Sam Mitchell, the Toronto coach. "Not one guy trying to go out and do too much. Not one guy feeling like he’s got to score 30 points for us to win. Just trust each other."
No one’s sure if Agent Zero is going to travel here with the Wizards tomorrow night. Just in case, you might want to make some signs to, um, welcome him?
It will be interesting to see how Jose plays. The Jose I know loves challenges in his own little under-stated way and I’m pretty sure he’ll have a big game. Don’t let his relatively calm exterior fool you, that dude is a competitor, he takes losing maybe harder than anyone in the room not named Bosh and if he’s extra hyped to play the Wizards and show his stuff, he’s gonna go off.
"We just played well," Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said. "We just talked to our team about how all teams go through highs and lows. It wasn’t that over all we were playing bad."
Last night’s victory wasn’t all easy going for the Raptors, as forward Andrea Bargnani could confirm. After the game, he talked through a swollen mouth and had a bruise on his left cheek.
Miami forward Alexander Johnson was charged with a flagrant foul after colliding with Bargnani with 9 minutes 57 seconds to go in the third quarter.
As he went to the hoop, Bargnani was hit by what appeared to be Johnson’s elbow — "I don’t remember," Bargnani said — and went down beneath the basket and appeared to hit his head on the floor.
Bargnani was down for a couple of minutes while being attended to by team staff. After he made two free throws, he went to the dressing room for further treatment.
X-rays were negative and there was no sign of concussion. But despite his wearing a mouth guard, a tooth was shifted and will require further treatment. Bargnani left after scoring 12 points.
"I was conscious," Bargnani said, adding his vision was fuzzy for about 30 seconds.
"Tonight we rebounded, our defence was solid like it had been for the last couple of games and we made some shots," Mitchell said. "It was important that we got off to a good start. Andrea hit a few shots early, it got him going and kind of got our team going."
"We just have to relax and play our game." Nesterovic said. "We’re a good team with or without Chris [Bosh]. Obviously, we are much better with Chris."
"I don’t know what happened the last three games," said Jose Calderon, who had nine points and 13 assists. "We just didn’t play our best basketball.
"We talked this morning at the hotel and everybody was ready to play."
Do you like that Bargnani can put it on the floor and come very near to making a difficult double-clutch reverse lay-up as he did on that one drive in the first quarter? Or is more significant that he didn’t dunk it on the front side of the rim when he had the brief opening? That’s Bargnani in a nutshell. Just talented enough to make you crazy.
"It’s like this warm weather gave us a little bounce. We got to tell them to turn the heat up in the ACC [Air Canada Centre]," Mitchell said after Toronto’s 108-83 win. "Rasho [Nesterovic], I told him, if he can shoot like that in the warm weather, we got to re-create this atmosphere."
Nesterovic was indeed impressive. Starting in place for the injured Chris Bosh for the third straight game, Nesterovic scored 16 points on 8-for-12 shooting. He added 10 rebounds.
"Any time a guy leaves his feet and takes a hit and a fall like that, you’re concerned. It seems like he’s going to be OK. He’s a little dazed," Mitchell said. "He’ll get tomorrow off, and hopefully he’ll come back [Friday] and be ready to play." For his part, Bargnani said he did not have a clear recollection of the play, but he remained conscious through the whole incident. He did say, however, that his vision was fuzzy for about 30 seconds after taking the hit.
He was wearing a mouthguard. Bargnani guessed that he might have lost a few teeth if not for the protection.
The Raptors’ starting front line outscored the Heat’s 42-7, making 19 of 33 shots while their Heat counterparts were 3-of-13.
And all this without All-Star Chris Bosh, who missed his third straight game with a sore right knee.
A downtrodden Wade expressed frustration following the lopsided loss but was more guarded when asked about whether he could sense bad attitudes.
”I’m not getting into that, these are my teammates and when you’re losing a lot of people have attitudes at different times,” Wade said.
Riley lamented that it was ”hard to watch” his team and that also seems to be the sentiment of fans. Despite an announced crowd of 19,143, there was a much smaller turnout, something Wade couldn’t help but notice.
He said: “Rightfully, so.”
"Just a lack of effort and a horrible attitude," Riley said after his team fell to 11-47. "The attitude they showed, I should write a check to each season-ticket holder.
"I should write the check and not even them, because I can’t get them to play hard."
A 16-0 Raptors first-quarter blitz, the longest run of unanswered points against the Heat this season, set the tone. The previous longest drought by the Heat had been 15-0 three times, with the Raptors adding a fourth with a third-quarter 15-0 surge.
The Raptors handed the Heat its most lopsided loss the last times the teams met. That 114-82 loss on Feb. 4 at least came with Bosh closing with a dominant 24 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
This time the Heat found itself down by as many as 32 to a mostly anonymous group that seemingly seized control at will.
The game marked the second appearance of former Heat forward Jason Kapono since he left for the Raptors as a free agent in the offseason.
For as much as he dominated the 3-point shooting contest during All-Star Weekend for a second consecutive year, Kapono remains in a curious slump, without a 3-point conversion since the teams last met and without a 3-point attempt in seven games.
Jamario Moon had a fantastic game for the Raps with 14 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 blocks. Jose Calderon was solid with 9 points, 13 assists, and 3 rebounds. Bargnani and Anthony Parker both tallied 12 points.
Andrea Bargnani took a big step in the eyes of many Raptor fans last night. I hate to admit this but there still is a very hockey influence to the Toronto Raptor Fan base. Those people have a new found respect for Andrea Bargnani now I would think. The guy took a shot picked himself off the ground spit out some blood and than drained to free throws. It was a watershed moment in the career of Andrea Bargnani. To this point he had the label of "soft" and was not thought to be tough. But this night will change some minds about that and it did change this blogger’s mind. I think even his team will look at Andrea with a new found respect after the events of last night. The major issue still remains the same for Andrea though he must become more consistent. However this display will allow him some space to grow with fans I would think. They have been very hard on him and so have I for that matter. But If he is willing to take a shot like he did and get up and show some grit I am willing to giving him a little rope as far as his development. Bargnani would have preferred to not have a shiner and loose teeth to gain this respect from everyone but he has made a major step in his NBA career. I don’t think he realizes how many fans he may have earned himself last night. But I am confident it was a lot. Andrea"Rocky"Bargnani? OK maybe not but he did show a little of the Rocky Character in him.
"I thought he was going up for a dunk, so I jumped and caught him off-balance," Johnson said. "I was not trying to hurt him."
"When you lack focus versus a team like Toronto and you have any slippage, you’re going to pay for it," Wade said. "They don’t miss open shots.
"That is what happened early on. We had a lot of slippage."
So what should’ve been by all accounts a 2-1 roadtrip ends up 1-2. Not thaat bad. I’m more pissed off about the Indiana loss more than anything. We got Washington and Seattle coming up before we start the daunting West coast swing. Washington got killed at home by Orlando and will be looking to bounce back. It’s imperative that we win that game and avenge the Seattle embarrassment, that way even if we go 0-5 in our West coast swing, we’ll still be 3 games over .500. I know, it’s loser thinking but it’s very possible that we go winless or at best 1-4 on that trip. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Consistency is the key element which is missing from the Raptors. We have some very streaky players who can’t be relied upon to provide anything concrete on any given night. Just contrast Moon’s game from today and yesterday, or take Delfino’s horrendous shooting slump, Humphries erratic play and then of course there’s Andrea Bargnani. Some might argue that consistency is developed over time once a player finds himself and understands what he needs to do in order to achieve and maintain success. I’m doubtful that come playoff time, any of our inconsistent players will have become any better at maintaining a level of performance. I think a lot of this is reflects on the coaching that’s being done on this team and how well-defined players’ roles are. One of my biggest complaints about Sam is the lack of a set rotation. There are arguments both against and for this idea but the main advantage of it is that it allows the team to get into a rhythm, manages expectations and provides a roadmap. We should at least have an 8-man rotation which we start off with and see how things go from there. I mean, why was Joey on the bench till garbage time but got in the game in the first quarter yesterday? What’s the rationale at play? Now injuries to Ford and Bosh have thrown this off but I hope that come playoff time, we don’t pull the same shit we did against NJ last year.
Okay the Raps got a much needed win and there were a lot of things done right but I am not going to get all excited. They whipped the worst team in the NBA. That is what they were supposed to do. The Raps torched the Miami Heat and had the game pretty much won in the second quarter. What might surprise you if you did not watch was who led the team in scoring.
Yes sir that scoring machine known as the Rasho-saurus poured in 16 points and had 10 board. Who needs Bosh!
Ok, the Raptors…they beat the worst team in the league, please forgive me if I’m not over ecstatic. Don’t get me wrong, I take this win, but if the lost…bad things I would have wrote padua. Not surprisingly, they shot 55% from the field, dropped 27 dimes and committed only 7 turnovers. My points of interest:
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