Mugsy's First Raptors Game

All I can say is that I enjoyed my first NBA game so much more than I thought I would. I have seen one other "pro" game, in 1994 in Hamilton for the World Championships. Dream Team 2, baby. But that was a long time ago. This time, it is the Toronto Raptorials vs. the Miami Heat. So, anyway, I have side prime tickets, which are about twenty rows back from the floor seats. Great tix. Great game. 22 lead changes after 3 quarters. D-Wade is dunking everywhere. J-O is blocking all shots. Bosh is Bosh. Calderon, is, well, sitting out with a pulled hammy. That was the only downer about the game. But on the bright side, I bet my buddy that Bargs would outscore Jose. Cha-Ching!
The highlight for me came when Jermaine blocked a lay-up attempt by I believe it was Mario Chalmers, and Ukic ran it down court, flipped it to Kapono for a transition 3-pointer. The crowd went nuts and that capped a 15-2 run. Game over. Free pizza too.

Compare this to my first Maple Leaf game of the year, last night at the ACC. We got tickets against the glass!!! Ten seats from the players bench. Pretty fucking crazy. Got 'em from the scalpers at 67% off pretty much. Great game, lots of hits, one fight, and good action end to end. BUT, everyone one around us was a corporate suit. I guess that's what to expect with such expensive seats. We were by far the loudest, most obnoxious people in our section. Every time we tried to start the "Go Leafs Go" thing, the suits looked at us as if we were high on the dope. It was demoralizing. Some arseholes behind us were even talking about mergers and profit margins or some shit during the fight! Totally unacceptable in my book. So we decided to get progressively louder and drunker. We paid pretty good cash the the seats, and if the jerks behind us don't want to stand up, they can sit down and stare at my fat ass. They actually asked us to sit down during the last minute of the game, when the Leafs had multiple opportunities to score. The shame. The worst fans in the league, no doubt. So at the end of the game, I decide to climb against the glass for a picture opportunity. I fell into the first row of seats, then rolled out onto the aisle way. We got kicked out. Well, not so much kicked out, but as we were leaving and yelling at the ushers(whom we called bouncers for some reason), they were yelling for security. Then we proceeded to make fun of a Bruins fan with a mullet, and I flicked my cigarillo(quit smoking regular smokes) at him.
One observation- Raptors fangirls are waaay prettier than Leafs fangirls, for whatever that is worth. and much more knowledgeable about their respective sports.

Doug Smith: nihilist

On Prime Time Sports tonight, Stephen Brunt floated absurd rumours that Vince (He Who Shall Not Be Named) Carter might return to Toronto through a trade.

In discussing Carter's ugly departure from the Raptors, Toronto Star beat writer Doug Smith said: "Everything always ends badly everywhere."

Is Doug Smith goth?

Some thoughts on 2.5 quarters of the Toronto season opener

First, and I cannot stress this enough, the departure of the reprehensible Chuck Swirsky is the best thing that has ever happened to Canada. EVER. Matt Devlin is energetic, has a great network broadcast voice, and most importantly, actually understands the game of basketball. Swirsky isn't good enough to call games in the Filipino league. The Bulls hired Scott "You make me wanna PUKE!" Skiles, so I guess that explains why they hired Swirsky.

I love 76ers fans. Early in the second half, Sam Dalembert gets the ball off a pick and roll and is sensibly left wide open by the Raptors. Dalembert fakes a shot and the whole arena (about 11,000 people) yells "Noooo!" (UPDATE: The Globe's Michael Grange attributes this howl of protest to Philly point guard Andre Miller. Since Grange was actually in the arena, I'll defer to his version, but I still think some of the crowd was yelling too.)

Toronto's positional defence looks good, but their defensive rebounding still leaves something to be desired.

Good Joey Graham came out and brought that nice little spin move in the paint. Muggsy Boz shits himself with rage.

Chris Bosh is playing out of his mind, Jermaine O'Neal is doing exactly what they got him for and Jose Calderon looks like a 10-year pro. With 3:50 left in the third, Bosh and JO have 32 points and 17 boards. Nice.

Bargniani does look stronger and in better shape. He's still missing some shots, but he's playing aggressively, which was his main problem last year. If he keeps this up he'll be okay.

Plenty of ball movement for TO in the third quarter. Largest lead of the game so far for TO. Plenty of ball movement for me too, but I attribute that to the boxers. What?

Theo Ratliff just destroyed a weak layup attempt by Roko Ukic. It looked like a volleyball spike. Ukic comes back and makes a stupid foul. Rookies.

Reggie Evans is rocking a razor-bald top with a shaggy beard. I think I might give it a try.

Holy shit, did Jason Kapono just block a shot? I'll watch myself though because he's been shooting the lights out tonight.

Jermaine O'Neal and Elton Brand playing volleyball for a rebound is a beautiful sight. Brand's been pretty quiet tonight though.

Kapono drains a three with 1:41 left to give Toronto a 93-82 lead. All 30 people left in the stands go to watch the Phillies-Rays game. This looks like the type of game the Raptors braintrust had in mind when they traded for O'Neal. Good (though not great) team defence, terrific ball movement, and contributions from the role-players to take the load off the big three. They also made a much-hyped Philly team look pretty pedestrian. The janitors waiting to clean up at the arena booed the Sixers pretty heartily.

That's all for our first liveblogging adventure of the season. The jokes were okay I think, but maybe we'll try adding Boz and some beer. Probably the result will be more dick jokes.