Tuesday December 2, 2008 - This is your Raptor Rant!
Only 3 games played since we last spoke and the Raps came out 2 and 1. Last Wednesday night at the ACC the Raptors squaked by a young, athletic Charlotte Bobcats with a 93-86 win. Friday night the Hawks were at the ACC to try and defeat the Raptors for a second time this season. Toronto had some big leads but for some reason history tends to repeat itself. In the end the Raps pulled out a 93-88 victory over Atlanta. Toronto is now on a 3 game road trip, which started in Los Angeles to take on the mighty Lakers. The final score, 112-99, doesn’t really give justice to the dominating performance the Lakers had. Kobe Bryant had 23 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, in 29 minutes. He didn’t need to be on the court in the fourth quarter. This game also showed the importance on Jermaine O’Neal. His inside presence on offence and defence helps CB4 in so many ways. Chris was forced to guard a pure center in Andrew Bynum, which tired him out when it came to scoring.
This upcoming week doesn’t get any easier, with the Raps in Denver tonight. The Nuggets are 12-6 and 1st in the Northwest Division. The are especially strong team at home. The trade for Chauncey Billups has given them a true point guard and someone with championship experience. The downside to the Nuggets offence is that they can shoot themselves out of a game if they get too trigger happy. The Raps need to keep them on the perimeter and defensive rebounding is going to be a huge key in this game. The Raps then hop on the plane to the land of Mormons to take on the Utah Jazz. This Jazz will be the 3rd team in as many games for the Raps, that are atleast 4 games over .500 and are continuing to surge. They are firing on all cylinders as Deron Williams and Mehmet Okur are back after missing a few games. Sunday, the Raptors are back at the ACC for a game to take on the Portland Trailblazers. The Blazers are off to a strong start this season and are proving their young talent are for real. At 12-6 and challenging Denver and Utah in the Northwest, I couldn’t imagine what would happen with a healthy Greg Oden! All in all I see the Raps winning 2 of the next 3 games IF, and a big IF, JO is healthy and playing solid minutes. They will need him in order to compete with these strong teams from the West.
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