RAPTORS: PUTTING DOWN THE KNICKS

Quick talking points after the Raptors' 104-94 win over the New York Knicks:

• The glass half full take is that the Raptors have found that gear where they can turn it on and off, put together one dominant quarter and put away a weak team. Even without Jose Calderon for half the game, they were able to get out and run and not let the Knicks slow down the pace.
• T.J. Ford gets 18 assists -- is he that good or is the Knicks' D that bad?
• Remember that scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack's character imagines his ex-girlfriend having sex with another guy? That scene pretty much describes the state of ectsasy Raptors fans of all genders and persusasions were in whenever Isiah Thomas appeared on screen during the Knicks' inevitable third-quarter meltdown.
  
  Watching Isiah scream at Eddy Curry for leaving Andrea Bargnani open to hit successive three-balls was especially rich. If Isiah's going to get mad about lazy defence, he should take it out on the front-office guy who traded for Eddy Curry -- oh, wait.
• Interesting postscript from 82games.com: The Knicks' differential when it comings to drawing and committing offensive fouls is among the NBA's worst. The Raptors are near the top of the league in this stat thanks largely to Jorge Garbajosa and Anthony Parker, but they were better in this area last season than you'd expect from a 27-55 team. Sam Mitchell is not a great strategist, but they do get guys to take one for the team.
• Cool Standings believes the Raptors can nose out the Southeast winner for the No. 3 seed in the East. That would likely mean a first-round matchup vs. whoever finishes second between Miami and Washington.

Nash vs. Nowitzki:

• Steve Simmons, the Sun Media columnist, looks especially prescient for his recent sugguestion there should be a Phoenix Suns game of the week on Canadian TV. Unfortunately, the Suns-Mavericks double-overtime epic, which ended with Nash rebounding Dirk Nowitzki's last-gasp fadeway and Mark Cuban shoving a cameraman in disgust, wasn't broadcast in Canada. (The Score gave updates during a boring Blazers-Pistons game, and that was riveting enough.)
  
  So people didn't get the full gamut of what Steve Nash did to help Phoenix end Dallas' 23-game home-floor win streak. The real Stevie Franchise put up 32 points, 16 assists and somehow made a clutch save with 31 seconds left in the second OT, tipping the ball away from Jason Terry along the sideline and throwing it off the Mavs guard's knee to get possesion for Phoenix.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.