First things first: join me in wishing RapsFan a speedy recovery. He’s going through a heck of a bad streak on the health side of the ledger and I’m betting some good vibes his way will be well received. In the meantime, enjoy the sponge baths dude.
The “who said hard work doesn’t pay off” edition
Bargnani – had one of those nights where you audibly moan since some of his shots were, well, stinkers. Still, he hit a few that ranked up there with “man, we needed that”s and 3 or 4 times actually put up a defensive stand.
Bosh – should he even be going to Phoenix or should he be hanging back and continuing treatment?
Calderon – another game where he was due to go head to head with an (actual) allstar and, lo and behold, he wasn’t fit enough to play. Guess the turnstile needed some oil. Same time, turns out we were better without him. Microcosm for the season?
Graham – played a few minutes and then pulled up lame. Amazing how things have changed in that an injury report with respect to Joey a) makes it as an in-game news item and b) some actually probably went “ah, man…he isn’t coming back?” and meant it.
Humphries – telling that he is the fifth name in roll call and only 1 so far has played the whole game.
Jawai – now we are at six. Almost daily now I see another player in the NBA being sent to the D-League and I have to wonder why Nathan isn’t on his way. If we are desperate for big men but he can’t get into any of the past few games even for Jake-type minutes, why not send him down to get his heart pumping?
Kapono – think the green light he has been given is responsible for his hot play of late or is he just in his yearly cycle? Still love that cutter into the paint he breaks out every few games. It obviously catches opponents off guard and it’s a shame that Jose, especially, seems to look him off when he runs it.
Moon – close to a double double and the kind of game we like to see from him, save a couple of his bonehead quick jumpers early. I long for the fantasy of having Oakley on this team and just seeing him grab Moon by the collar and shaking him like a straw-filled doll.
O’Neal – Couple of nice passes, but in the grand scheme of this game, was about as important in this victory as, say, Doug Smith. Tired? Come on, really? You can’t play good minutes in a back-to-back? Suck it up. Thought you were 100% coming into the year? Hmm?
Parker – called into last minute action when Jose felt his balls in his throat. Personally kind of surprised he didn’t perform better. I truly thought he would see Parker in his sights and just lock in. He didn’t, but he did a fair job in spreading minutes between what is quickly becoming a full-time multi-position gig.
Solomon – if Nathan is a minnow on the depth chart of this team, I’m thinking Will is seaweed.
Ukic – beautiful game from Horseface Killah. Won’t call it a break out game as I don’t think it is, but he certainly was the X-Factor that gave us the victory and deserves most of the credit. Still was TJ-Ford-type-frustrating at times where you could tell he was looking for his own shot. Today it was falling, though and he deserved to call his own number.
Voskuhl – not often you can go 0 for 2 and have all zeroes in your box score and still be +5 against a team like the Spurs, especially playing for 7 minutes. A Voskuhl/Bonner one-on-one would have been sweet to see.
Driving The Bus: Roko Ukic
Under The Bus: Jermaine O’Neal (although nobody really deserved to be)
Game Theme: don’t want to piss off big brother, so if you want to see the theme, feel free to head over to AltRaps.
49 Raps
We should let Ukic, Kapono, JO, Bargs, Graham and Parker ring up max minutes for the remainder of the season since its all about improving the projects (Ukic, Bargs, Graham)and showing off the trade bait….
Maybe we dont have to trade JO if he just opts out of his contract… he’s a nice guy right?
Whatever you say pretty boy. A game where Ginobili scores 32 pts, T.parker 22 and Duncan goes for 20 & 13 .. and Spurs loose to some crappy bench team cuz of some “non-atletic, horseface, turnover rookie” heroics is certainly not a break out game.
I thought JO handling Duncan single-handedly had a lot to do with the in. TD only had 3 fourth quarter points, that’s rare.
make that “lose” and not loose”..what a douche i is
Roko’s make was the first time I had seen the Raps convert on a late-game set play with a drive. It made me feel good (or how portland feels every time they see roy perform his magic)
Good win today, extremely satisfying
JO was massively important to this win
because?
“Horseface Killah”….a little unneccessary? VL, HO, etc…. really starting to hate reading this site.
third time I’ve used it. Guess you haven’t been around long.
been around on Arsenalist’s site from way back. Its more likely because I don’t normally read your crap posts.
So just new here then, huh?
No need to start reading now, friend. No skin….
If I’m new here or not is irrelevant. It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t like to read your posts.
whyarewecalledraptors has been a reader forever.
Whyyouwasteyourtime:…then don’t read them. The world won’t end, trust me.
Arse: then he would have seen the other times I called him horseface killah. Either that or his attention was taken away by the new episode of Ugly Betty.
It’s Roko Cop…get it right. y’all.
That was a work of art from the Rokoko period.
Roll the “ar’s” … Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroko
love the horseface killah name
I’d keep using that name through Ukic’s entire career, if it can light a fire in his ass forever and play like this.
..unless you are one to, you know, be uptight 24hrs a day, like say, the poster above.
Andrea rules. You guys are way too hard on him.
I’m a few games from starting the Il Mago petition again.
hey altraps you bitch.who hit 3 straight buckets for 7 of his 9 4th qtr points to get us from down 9 to down 2 with minutes to play and a chance to win the game?…keep moaning bitch.
same guy that couldn’t buy a bucket and looked disinterested in the first half?
Game is 48 minutes last I checked.
You’re an idiot! Bargs played hard the whole game , made some great driving buckets over Duncan, missed a few at thhe rim by a little bad luck, and made the clutch shots in the fourth to give the team a chance at a victory. Get over it! Bargnani is almost two years younger than Bosh and with playing time will be better in two years than Bosh as he can do way more.
hit me up when Bargs gets MVP consideration or is placed on the AllStar team.
I’ll wait.
And what that had to do with this one game is … well, it didn’t. But thanks for coming out.
http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/teams/raptors/rgi6-090211-spursgi6.asx
check the 4:33 mark of this video for the turning point of the game and reason #472 why i love jermaine o neal……he sees the cross court pass from jamario to bargs and bodies tony parker to give andrea just enough time to hit the 3 that got us within 2….damn i love jo.
no chris botch 4th qtr = hope 4 a w.
From a Spurs blog game day thread, immediately after Ukic’s 3 put the Raptors ahead in the 4th quarter.
– i’m getting tired of hearing “(insert scrub name) having a career night against the Spurs”
– are you kidding me?
– Who the hell is this guy?
– you gotta be kidding
– My god…that was such a fucking lucky shot.
– Ukic. Unbelievable.
How many time has he pulled that spin move and got stripped, turned the ball over or missed the shot badly. Damn right it was lucky it went it.
I still can’t believe it. Nor can I believe he made that 3.
Whatever. It’s going to take more the one game before I start even remotely believing he’s capable of it. Games in the playoffs, you know, where it actually matters, would be nice too.
spurs rarely lose when big 3 gets those kinds of numbers.
“Bargnani – had one of those nights where you audibly moan since some of his shots were, well, stinkers. Still, he hit a few that ranked up there with “man, we needed that”s and 3 or 4 times actually put up a defensive stand.”
last game u say: “trade him”
today I say: “trade Altraps”
I believe last game AltRaps mentioned trading Ukic as well. Any chance the guy’s secretly Rob Babcock?
Altraps: and you thought I was bi-polar?
;)
Nah man, you’re cool. You have years of well written stuff behind you. Much more than some guys that only come out of their gopher holes when we win.
I’d still trade him if someone was willing to take him as part of a package. Acie Earl held the scoring record for the Raptors at one point. Did that make him a valuable piece to hold on to?
If you want to hang your hat on one performance and deem him a commodity we can use down the road, so be it. I don’t. At best he will be a good back up and is probably a third stringer most nights. Will he improve? Yes. Will he make you groan more often than cheer? Yes. If we can package him this year with someone to get something back that fills our needs down the road, should we do it? Yes. Nobody on this team, in my opinion, should be deemed untouchable. Nobody.
oh, and you mean the same Babcock that drafted Ukic?
O’Neal – Couple of nice passes??????????????????????????????
MoneyCarlo,
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spurs rarely lose when big 3 gets those kinds of numbers.
——————————–
Which should tell you what exactly about the outcome of last night’s game?
khan. once in a blue moon..takes a perfect game from opponents
MoneyCarlo,
——————————-
khan. once in a blue moon..takes a perfect game from opponents
——————————-
Agreed.
Well, a few people have been saying Bargs should get it late in the game.
maybe thats the combo we need, a pass first point guard and a shoot first point guard. or maybe im just full of optimism right now. anyways horseface killah aka thorougbred sparks was hilarious.
Are you serious, JO had Ten Boards , six Blocks, shut down TD in the fourth, got a piece of that parker shot…You really seem desperate for a quick laugh…
hey, blondie, read what I wrote….nobody deserved to be. It was even in bold. Can you really be that dumb? Did you get here from a Google link?
Wow.
While I have your (obviously short) attention, let me know what HO did in the first half of the game that helped this team stay with the Spurs.
“but in the grand scheme of this game, was about as important in this victory as, say, Doug Smith. Tired? Come on, really? You can’t play good minutes in a back-to-back? Suck it up.”
I’ll stand by that. He didn’t exactly exert effort the entire game. Still unsure why he can’t play back to back games of 35min if he came into this season 100% healthy and didn’t start playing after his “injury” until he was back to full strength. Suck it up.
I Read this blog Daily too
whyarewecalledraptors – agreed. Arse is to RR what sugar and cocoa are to chocolate.
isn’t cocoa a form of chocolate?
unsweetened chocolate is better for you. A little bitterness makes you sit up and take notice.