Raptors lose as Steve Nash receives fellatio for 2 1/2 hours

Phoenix Suns 136, Toronto Raptors 123

Perimeter defense? Non-existent. Transition defense? MIA. Rotational defense? Zilch. Closing out shooters? Rarely. Result? 136 points allowed. But at least the fans got their pizza. There isn’t a team in the NBA that has had success trying to out-gun the Suns, so why Phoenix East thought that playing pedantic defense and trying to match the Suns’ offense was a good strategy is a little puzzling, especially a day after Indiana failed doing the same. Granted, it’s not easy to defend Phoenix but at least you could try? Right? Even the posters on RealGM came up with better defensive plans than what was showcased tonight. We did nothing to make life tougher for the Suns, it was almost like we approached the Charlotte and Phoenix games the exact same way and just thought we’d meet the same result.

There was a thought of having Jamario Moon try to guard Nash and maybe give him some space thus taking away his drive while still contesting the jumper. By no means does this guarantee success but it’s still worth a shot. It’s better than doing NOTHING because doing NOTHING gets you NOTHING and that’s what we got on the defensive end last night. Nash didn’t even break a sweat when he was blowing by Calderon, around Delfino, challenging Rasho and kicking it out Raja Bell for three after three. It was almost like the Raps were pylons in a practice drill. Phoenix doesn’t even care if you score because they know they’ll get those points back in less than 24 seconds and just based on the law of averages you’ll end up missing more than them.

Although it was evident that Sam didn’t provide much instruction or strategy about guarding their shooters, a ton of it is common sense. You can’t give Barbosa and Bell space when they’ve already hit 8 threes between them, it’s not that complicated. It would be somewhat acceptable if our strategy was to shut down Amare and let the shooters get theirs but that wasn’t the case either, Stoudamire was 9-11 for 25 points. So that begs the question, what area of Phoenix’s game did we try to defensively focus on? You can’t approach guarding Raymond Felton and guarding Steve Nash in the same manner, that’s suicide!

TJ Ford (27 pts) appears to be 100% healthy and playing like his old self, although his contribution had little effect on the outcome of things today, at least he got a good run in and hopefully can be a factor against Boston. Even Jose had a great offensive game with 14 points and 9 assists but it’s our PG combo’s defense on Nash that’s the talking point, not their meaningless scoring games. As alluded to before, you can only play defense if you have a defensive plan. One can’t just step out on the court with the order of “D him up” and expect success. So Sam finally played TJ and Jose together for a stretch in the third quarter and met with some success which made me wonder what the criteria needs to be for those two to play together. After some deep thinking it’s evident that the only circumstance which allows for it is being down 19 in the third against Phoenix at home. It makes sense because we’ve been playing teams all year where those two on the court could’ve create matchup problems but Sam has never resorted to it so why now? Another mystery yet unsolved.

But let’s put things in perspective, we’re missing Bosh and Bargnani and were destined to lose this game so there aren’t any surprises here. Let’s move on and talk about something more interesting.

I like Steve Nash a lot but can we not spend the entire 2 1/2 hours praising each and every aspect of his game – it gets a little sickening. Chuck Swirsky, Leo Rautins, Dan Majerle, Rod Black and Brian Heaney all took turns with Leo finishing off Nash after a highly invigorating climax. Even thought Nash is probably one of the most grounded and overall nice athletes of this generation, it’s still somewhat nauseating to see the love-fest while Raja Bell’s hitting 25 footers. BTW, what is up with Black and Heaney running around the ACC giving stupid little reports in different little sections of the arena? Who’s idea was that and why? Why???

I have another thing I’d like to get off my chest and it concerns the Raptors Dance-Pak. Overall a nice enough set of T & A with the exception of one girl, and she is Bianca. IMHO, not satisfactory. The official photo on the right has clearly undergone several rounds of Photoshop edits so don’t be fooled by it. You gotta see this thing live.

It’s Boston next and Bosh looks doubtful for the game so to expect something out of that one might be too much, but the Raps have surprised us in the past. Thanks for reading, grab the feed.

It’s gotten so bad that any offense we get out of Bosh is considered a bonus

Golden State Warriors 106, Toronto Raptors 100

So much for the 10AM PST start time and so much for the Warriors blowing big leads and so much for Baron Davis having a bad game and so much for the Raptors getting any shot they want against the much maligned Warriors defense. It all amounts to nothing if you allow their best player to go one-on-one on the most crucial possession of the game – much like how we allowed Garnett to eat Bosh alive in OT earlier this year. Three weeks later and we haven’t learned a thing. Make no mistake, this game was there to be had if only one of a few things had happened and they are 1) Bosh has an average offensive game 2) Kapono hits half of his wide-open shots 3) Biedrins is somewhat contained and doesn’t lay an ownage on the entire Raptors defense 4) Our coaching staff recognize that the Warriors are a 3-pt shooting team and take them without any conscience. The only coaching the Sam Mitchell did this afternoon was to make sure that the fans got the free pizza but it doesn’t make up for an offense so predictable, stagnant and inconsistent that all the Golden State Warriors had to do was put Stephen Jackson on Bosh and let TJ Ford get his in order to shut us down when it mattered – the fourth quarter.

Don’t you just love it when Chris Bosh is reduced strictly to a defensive presence and anything you get out of him on the offensive end is considered a bonus. It’s come down to that as another poor offensive showing from Bosh sends the Raptors to a home L an onto the road to Dallas where a Raptors win is about as unexpected as a good out-of-timeout play from Mitchell (the one late in the fourth was just laughable). The way Stephen Jackson shut down Bosh was unbelievable, not unbelievable as in he played some unbelievable defense on him but unbelievable as in “How f***in unbelievable is it that Bosh is incapable of getting good post position against a smaller player and just back him into the rim, it’s not like they’re even doubling him!!” 4-12 FG, 11 points and two big FT misses for Bosh who’s starting to make it a habit of getting shut down by slower and smaller players. Contrast this with the play of Andris Biedrins who made it a point to exploit whatever the defense gave him and outplayed Bosh and our entire frontline singlehandedly. Is he a more skilled player than Bosh or Bargnani? I don’t know but I don’t think so. What he does have what both Bosh and Bargs lack is a clear idea of what he wants to do on the floor and how he’s going to go about doing it.

Sam is acting like a stubborn mule who thinks he knows whats best for the team. What is the reason that Garbajosa who played 24 effective minutes against Indiana didn’t even get a chance to play some defense on Croshere, Harrington or even Azubuike. Is he not even worth of a minute, maybe just to see how he can handle the players that nobody in our lineup had success against in the post? Is he that unworthy of even being given a chance in a matchup where he had 18 points and 11 rebounds a year ago? Please explain this incestual logic Sam?? Wait, you can’t because you believe that this is a team where the lineup is dictated by the “current matchups” and while that is true nobody takes it to the extreme of benching players for games at a time without ANY reasoning.

We lost this game because of poor production from Bosh/Bargs and subpar games from Kapono and Parker. If it weren’t for TJ Ford carrying us yet again while everybody else was laying an egg, this would’ve been a blowout early. Chuck and Leo (almost unbearable to listen to) can make all the excuses they want for Bargs but you can’t help but think you’d get more out of Humphries if given the same PT. Yeah, our future center is coming off the bench but wait, it’s not a demotion, Maceo Baston is just a better fit. How f***in ridiculous does that sound? We barely deserved to win the Indiana game and definitely didn’t this one. Don Nelson called enough pick ‘n roll with the right people to put his players in advantageous matchups and there was nothing we could do but watch as Monta Ellis, Kellena Azubuike and crew did enough cutting to the right places where they found themselves so wide open and got so many shots that they were bound to start hitting them sooner or later.

I’m out for now, probably will spew more shit later. Grab the feed.