Should Pierce’s rim rattling dunk on Chris Bosh be called:
A: Canadian Club on the rocks
B: Dunk and doughnuts
C: Kneed… for Sheed
As is the habit of many dunkers who know they are going to be met at the rim, feet and/or knees are positioned to meet the defender and inflict a built-in penalty for trying. Of course, never done intentionally, (right?) such moves serve their purpose.
In this case, it caused a stir among the Raptor players, especially Chris Bosh, who wondered why no team mates rose in his defense.
The Raps hadn’t defended anything or anyone all game. To my way of thinking… why start defending anyone now…even their leader?
But here are some interesting accounts from the Canadian side of things. First from Mike Gantor of the Toronto Sun…
Twenty seconds into the fourth quarter he took a knee to the upper pelvic area on an impressive Paul Pierce dunk.
But with Bosh down, Pierce celebrated over the injured Raptor and that brought an irate assistant coach Alex English plus Jay Triano on to the floor. Noticeably absent from the charge were any of Bosh’s actual teammates.
Bosh didn’t see much of the initial reaction to the play.
“I looked at their bench and they were all up standing at half court and no one from their team was down on the floor,” Bosh said. “I think we can react better, be there for one another and react better.”
Truth is…that is the Raptors team. They are a very skilled club offensively. When Reggie Evans went out with injury, their whole toughness scale went with him. They register zero or at least not higher than the ‘Turkododo’ flop level, according to Rasheed.
But we knew this before the season started. While some felt the Raptors were headed for bigger things, and they may be, they won’t get anywhere until they learn to play interior defense and better defense in general. Andrea Bargnani is a skilled big man who can block shots, and hit three pointers.
Sam Mitchell lost his job there, in large part, because he wouldn’t play 7’ 0” Bargnani at center. Why? Because Bargnani doesn’t play like a center. He is soft as a marshmallow at the moment.
But that mentality extends to the entire Raptor team with few exceptions. Surprisingly, one of the exceptions might be new comer Antoine Wright. He exhorts Bosh to get tougher with his teammates. They are apparently eating and fooling around before games, and then getting blown out (by the Charlotte Bobcats). From Dave Feschuk of the Star.com…
Wright said he told Bosh, “‘Hey, you’ve got guys in here eating popcorn, joking around before the game. And we go out there and lose by 40. It’s a direct result of what’s going on before the game. Guys not coming in with the right mind frame.”
Maybe that’s part of the reason why the Raptors played strong ball for at least one half against the Celtics.
Wright called out uber athletic rookie DeMar DeRozen before the Celtics game….
“I think you’re going to see us come out with a lot of energy. You can expect (rookie starting guard) DeMar DeRozan to be crashing the offensive glass. You can expect (DeRozan) to be chasing Ray Allen like it’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final. You can expect him to dive one time,” said Wright. “He’s going to come out with a lot of energy and set the tone for us tonight. We’re riding our rookie.”
DeRozan, who was sitting next to Wright as those words were spoken, bulged his eyes in mock terror. A reporter asked the rookie how he felt about a teammate making promises on his behalf, but Wright interrupted DeRozan’s response.
“He don’t have a choice. You don’t have to talk to him about it. I’m going to answer questions for him today,” said Wright.
Chuckled DeRozan: “That’s my agent today. Y’all discuss it with him.”
In truth DeRozen did start strong and was very active early offensively and against Ray Allen. Unfortunately for Toronto, it wasn’t enough and it didn’t last.
The difference to Bosh…
“They turned up their physicality and we backed down.”
And no one backed up the Raptors franchise player when he was down, though Jarrett Jack didn’t see it quite that way…
“My first priority is going to see if he’s all right,” Jack said. “After I did that I saw Hedo (Turkoglu) go up there (towards the Celtics) by himself, so I ran up there as well. I think we all have each other’s backs. I think the majority of us more or less crowded around Chris just to make sure he was cool and just all right.”
The Celtics can get away with a momentary show of defence against a team like the Raptors, but they will need to get back to their dominating ways to become true contenders come playoff time.
Speaking of toughness, the Celtics can’t just stare and glare other teams into submission anymore. They need to display some energy and basketball toughness of their own. The funny thing is just 36 out of 48 minutes of solid basketball in most games will do.
In the meantime, one might wonder why it takes a role player like Antoine Wright to tell Chris Bosh to lead his team in the locker room…as well as on the court.
