Now comes the revelation from franchise player Chris Bosh that he lost trust in his teammates.
As teams locked in on Bosh and forced the ball out of his hands, the three-time all-star admits he wasn’t exactly sold on his teammates stepping up when he deferred.
At least in the past two games, Bosh, when he reflects on the blown chances to put away Charlotte at home and New Jersey on the road, says he doubted shooters to make shots, which is understandable given the Raptors went a woeful 1-of-10 from three-point land in the final quarter on Saturday.
"I have to do a better job of trusting my teammates,” Bosh said yesterday
"I’ve lacked in that and I can be man enough to say I’ve made that mistake. I’ve talked with the coaches and they told me the same thing — trust my teammates."
With the post-season looming, Bosh was buoyed by the mood, and its tenor, at practice yesterday hopeful that his besieged team can regain its confidence.
The effort, intensity and execution, elements that have gone missing in games, were evident at both ends of the floor, Bosh said.
"We were up on guys,” he said. "Offensively, we were creating a lot easier shots. If we start practising like that, we can carry it over into games."
What impressed Mitchell the most about his team was how it practised, how determined the players were in correcting their problems and how close they became.
"Some were hugging each other so much, I offered to get them a room,” deadpanned the coach.
Defending, rebounding, running the floor, all three aspects were reinforced during a practice session Mitchell described as "great."
When they come with traps, not every player moves to the right spot. When they want to take away the baseline, some guys are indecisive.
In some cases, the screens players set aren’t good enough. Other times, players somehow forget to talk on defence.
In other words, it’s all the little things that get magnified when teams lose.
Above everything else, players have lost the confidence to shoot the basketball because not many are making shots.
"I want them to be loose,” Mitchell implored. "I don’t want them trying too hard and tightening up."
To the surprise of no one, the Raptors have waived forward Linton Johnson, whose 10-day contract expired following the game against the Nets on Saturday.
Johnson was brought in to provide a spark, but clearly his impact was minimal.
"We know, we have to be positive and look at the good things," coach Sam Mitchell said yesterday. "Since I’ve been here we’ve had tough stretches. My coaching career has never been one you can look back on and say it’s easy. We’ve had tough stretches and you learn how to deal with it.
"All of us are p–ed off that we haven’t played as well as we’d like to. … The only way you’re going to get better is come in and practise hard. I was proud of them, the way they practised today. It was good."
"Every team goes through a period in the season where they’re battling that, no matter how good or how great the season has been," said Anthony Parker. "It’s not the best that it happens near the end but it’s the same way you have to overcome it as if it was in the middle of the season. I think what we’re doing now is getting back to the basics defensively, rebounding and executing.
"But (it’s) not putting so much pressure on yourself … it’s about doing the right things to put yourself in a position to win. When you concentrate on those things as opposed to the scoreboard, the scoreboard takes care of itself."
With two days of practice before facing Milwaukee here tomorrow, Mitchell said there were few specifics his team could work on.
"Everything is still there in front of us," he said. "It doesn’t matter who you play … it’s how you’re playing. We just have to get back to playing. We haven’t made shots, we’ve had breakdowns defensively but all the mistakes we’ve made are correctable.”The players and the coaches know what’s at stake in the final five games of the regular season and however many playoff outings there are. They also know they haven’t lived up to their expectations, never mind those of their supporters. But Mitchell says the worst thing they can do is feel that all is lost.
"None of y’all’s expectations are higher than ours. Y’all act like you’ve got a higher standard for our basketball team than we have," he said.
"I think the fans and people think they hurt more. We live with this every day. This is what we do. We don’t sleep well, the food don’t taste the same but I do know this, you have to keep a positive attitude and a positive frame of mind or you don’t have a chance."
Confidence can be elusive when a team is struggling — especially in the final few minutes when the Raptors have managed to cough up some winnable games with some shaky performances. Mitchell is holding onto the hope that even a few minutes of decent basketball will have his Raptors back on a winning note heading into the post-season.
"My thing is, go grab the game, go take it," the coach said after Monday’s practice at the Air Canada Centre. "We had a stretch early where we were beating teams by 20 points, and we just took the game.
"Confidence is a fragile thing, it goes by minutes during a basketball game. One good quarter, one good half, a couple of shots go in, we get a couple of stops and we get back into the flow, all that can change."
The players were upbeat Monday, following what they claimed was one of their better practices in a while.
"Effort and intensity and execution," Chris Bosh said, summing up the positives he saw in practice. "We did a much better executing on defence and offence, we got a lot easier shots, we didn’t let any easy plays go.
"That’s how you have to play in the playoffs, you have to have that effort and intensity, and you’ve got to start practising for that now."
They’re trying to fake it until they make it, knowing, deep down, that they probably won’t. The sweat is dripping from their brows, figuratively, if not literally.
Fake that everything is going to be all right. Put on the brave face and emphasize the positive. Stick together. Stay strong. Stand tall, even if the foundation under their sneakers is shaking.
Repeat over and over again the mantra: "We are a playoff team. We are a playoff team. We are a playoff team."
"You can have that open dialogue, but you have to watch what you say," Bosh said. "Instead of saying, ‘You’re not doing this.’ You have to say, ‘I think you can do this better.’ … You have to change up your words sometimes, because some guys take it the wrong way."
What’s going to happen when they find out that only one team gets a trophy at the end of the season in this league?
Clearly, the Raptors are feeling their way along here.
For 50-something games, they were operating under the assumption that they were a very good team just waiting to hit its stride. The foundation upon which their complacency rested was unshakeable: Bosh was capable of leading them to LeBron James-like heights, Andrea Bargnani was a player on the cusp of great things, and T.J. Ford, for all his high-maintenance schematics, was worth the effort.
It’s hard to imagine anyone — fans or management — swallowing that assumption as wholeheartedly as they might have six weeks ago.
They met the challenge of playing 10 games without Bosh in the lineup by losing eight of them. In the 10 games since Bosh has returned, they’ve lost six, counting wins against the Charlotte Bobcats, New York Knicks, Miami Heat and the short-handed Detroit Pistons — their only win against a team of substance in 25 games.
Two weeks ago, the Raptors’ brain trust gathered over lunch on an off day to come up with a strategy to light a spark under the floundering team. Hard-working journeyman Linton Johnson was signed to a 10-day contract; Ford and Rasho Nesterovic were made starters. Messages were sent.
Someone forgot to turn down his headphones, apparently, because the message wasn’t heard as the Raptors are 3-4 since.
Jamario Moon Alone with Jim Rome
Hi, Toronto? It’s the Playoff Race calling. You know you’re supposed to participate if you’re here, right? Don’t be that team that just craps the bed and watches everyone fly by. So next week, maybe try doing better than 1-3, especially when two of the losses are to teams you should be beating (Charlotte, New Jersey). And, yes, just because you beat the Bobcats earlier in the week like you were supposed to doesn’t excuse the follow-up loss.
Last Tuesday, for example, Parker had to watch his sister Candace, the University of Tennessee star, dislocate her shoulder in the NCAA women’s regional final. Twice.
And then came America’s love of the gruesome. The highlight of Parker’s shoulder popping out of its socket was in regular rotation last week on ESPN.
"That’s just disgusting," Parker said at Raptors practice Monday. "Why do we do that? Why do we like showing that over and over again?"
"When she did it the first time, I was like, ‘If this is dislocated, she’s pretty much done for the season, whatever they have remaining,’ " Anthony Parker said.
Not quite. She came back just minutes later, without any protective gear on the shoulder. Accordingly, she popped the shoulder out of place again when she came back.
"When she came back the first time, I was like, ‘Wow, let’s see what happens,’ " Parker said. "And then the second time, I was like, ‘Please put a brace on this time if you’re going to come back.’ And she finally put the brace on. But it was just painful to watch."
Seriously though, the Raptors have hit rock bottom and need to find positives anywhere they can. If Joey Graham manages to pee straight into a giant urinal somebody should give him a high five. And such. Really seriously though, Sam Mitchell’s wondering what happened to the earlier success this team was having when they were winning games by 20+ points. I can answer that one for you Sam: The games have started to count and the Raptors have pulled a disappearing act, it’s much easier to play in meaningless early season games against unmotivated opponents who are in neutral than to play against hungry opposition who are fighting for playoff positioning. The Raptors have failed to shift to the next gear while others have. And don’t let 20+ point wins against the likes of the Bulls fool you, even earlier in the year we were getting killed by the legit teams.
Maybe it’s the fruity alcoholic drinks talking, maybe it’s the twirling paper umbrella distracting my thought process, but maybe, just maybe, Sam Mitchell is a genius.
Jamario Moon may not shoot the ball like Kobe Bryant does or penetrate the lane like LeBron James does but he has the heart of a true winner, a champion. He is not a dominant player in the NBA and he might spend the rest of his career as a role player, but he is a true living example that hard work pays off.
The Raptors are not playing as a team and the logjam at PG has a lot to do with the problem. Calderon is trying to be the team player by checking his own ambitions and letting TJ Ford start but that experiment is not working. Whether it is a chemistry issue or a de-railing a winning formula, TJ Ford seems to be the unwanted man in this town… this off season, Ford has to go unfortunately.
Toronto’s Jamario Moon is one start away from passing Damon Stoudamire’s Raptors record of 70 starts by a first-year player, which was set during the team’s inaugural season in 1995-96.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for the Indiana Pacers, the team was told that shooting guard Kareem Rush would rather watch his younger brother Brandon Rush, of Kansas, play in the NCAA finals Monday night then be with the team.
Rush, now a reserve on the Pacers, was once a rising star after playing his college basketball career at the University of Missouri. He was drafted in the first round, no. 20 overall, by the Toronto Raptors and he also made it clear to the team that he is willing to pay any fine handed down.
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Now that’s the way to get your career back on track and confound the haters, Kareem!
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