Well, if you’re Chris Bosh, you come out and do what you have done most of the season: put the team on your back and hope they feed of your energy.
Bosh took a lot of heat pre-game for saying he didn’t speak during the 45-60min team meeting earlier in the day, claiming he had let his feelings be known a few times earlier in the season and he, quite frankly, wanted to hear what others had to say. No matter where you side on that, when the guy comes out and plays as aggressively as Bosh did last night he gets somewhat of a pass. 31points, 16 rebounds with 9 of them coming on the offensive end and a few stare downs after dunks were all the flashpoint to what became a 109-107 Raptors victory in overtime against the Wizards.
DeMar DeRozan came out and continued his great effort that he showed against the Hawks. He’s working hard to make himself available for the ball, as opposed to just camping out in the corner and he’s being creative in doing so. The rook still suffers from defensive lapses, but just as we saw with Bargnani in the past few years, it takes the kid getting some confidence to work through it. This is obviously best treated by more court time and Triano did the opposite last night by sitting DeMar for the entire fourth and the extra frame. The one good to come from it, though, is he’ll be well rested and probably jacked to play Chicago tonight.
Hedo Turkoglu did what you’d expect a Raptor to do this season: excite and disappoint all in the span of about a half hour. Triano stuck to his word, ignoring a hot Bosh, and had the ball in Hedo’s hand to possibly win the game in regulation only to see Turkoglu take a horrible off balance shot that had no chance of going in. Much to Triano’s relief the eventual game winner did come from the hands of Hedo on a slightly less difficult shot from the corner that was probably willed in by every Raptors fan watching the game.
Was the heart and hustle a result of the meeting earlier in the day? I’m sure it had something to do with it, but a chat doesn’t result in that effort and such a quick turnaround. We’ve seen these Raptors play this well earlier in the season without an all-team chat, so you’ll have to excuse my belief that this is a new trend. Stats such as 17 turnovers (7 by the bench in the first half), 16 fastbreak points, only 11 points from the bench, the continued disappearance of Marco Belinelli and some very questionable sub patterns by Jay Triano magnify the fact that but for Bosh stepping up, DeRozan playing a great game and a little Hedo luck, we would be in a much deeper darker place this morning.
Still, this makes up for one heartbreaker this season. Now lets work on making up for another one.
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