Raptors: Smitch sterminated

If withdrawal in disgust is not apathy, well, there was a reason for taking a pass on last night's Raptors blowout loss in Denver.

Sam Mitchell, the "lovably batshit coach" (Deadspin, Apr. 20, 2007), as you know, has been released of his duties by the Raptors.

This will be picked up in detail later. This would have to happen on a night where I have hockey tickets. No irony there.

Scott Carefoot over at Raptorblog (way to pimp theScore.com Sports Federation, Sags) is a good go-to.

Related:
Raptors fire head coach Mitchell (Posted Sports)

Monday night snark ...

Type your summary here

Via From Deep: "Sam Mitchell. Is there anyone who doesn't want this guy fired right now?"

Slap Shot 3: The Junior League will be in stores tomorrow ... it's a good thing Paul Newman is already dead.

New rule: Anyone who purports to be some guardian of baseball but who spells Cal Ripken Jr. "Ripkin" and prefaces his oh-just-slightly-xenophobic rant by saying "Let me say right off that I have nothing personal against Indians in general," isn't worth a rebuttal.

(The Pittsburgh Pirates signed the two pitching prospects from India, righty Dinesh Patel and lefty Rinku Singh, which is awesome.)

Charlie Weis' record after Notre Dame's game at USC this weekend will be 28 wins, 21 losses. That's if they lose.

Strange, is it not, that Patrick Roy had his sweater retired by the Canadiens last Saturday and there was precious little in the media about his son Frédérick Roy viciously cross-checking a player during a game on Friday in Montréal (and getting suspended).

Snark break...

Roberto Luongo was injured in the Canucks' game today. I never saw an entire team get helped off the ice before!

More great ledes that cannot be written: "It was classic Vince Carter and classic Sam Mitchell last night."

The New Jersey Nets would win the NBA championship if Carter could face the Raptors 82 times a season. All you need to know is that Carter is the worst kind of person for claiming these games against the Raptors don't matter -- it was five years ago -- and then acting like he won the Olympic gold medal and NBA title on the same day when his team beats the Raptors.

Honestly, Raptors fans have moved on, or would have, if the Raptors could hold an 18-point lead or find a way not have Jose Calderon guarding Vince Carter in the endgame. They blew 18-point lead, couldn't deny Carter the ball twice on sideline out-of-bounds plays at the end of a quarter, that falls on the coaching. They also ran a last-second play for Jamario Moon instead of Chris Bosh, which seems, well, odd. RaptorsTalk is already speculating that Dec. 17 is the "over/under" on Sam Mitchell's ouster.

You have to love this bit of arrogance from NHL second-in-command Bill Daly: "God bless the Canadians. The fact that they love hockey so much is great for us, and great for our business." Our business? Which country's fans are keeping this league alive ... just wait until Jim Balsillie gets his hooks into the Nashville Predators.

Pro Football Talk is up in arms over a video that shows a NFL executive celebrating after Brett Favre's Jets beat the Patriots in overtime. The NFL openly rooting for Favre? Never.



(No word of a lie, I was watching this episode with a family member who does not follow the NFL, doesn't know Brett Favre now plays for the Jets. Even he laughed.

Snark Break ...

ESPN's John Saunders referred to the Buffalo Bills as "Canada's Team" during The Sports Reporters on Sunday.

A couple friends, through the magic of secondary ticketing, scored tickets to the Patriots-Bills game in late December for $75 US apiece. They're in the corner of the end zone, seven rows up from the field. In Toronto, 75 bucks US won't even entitle you to drive by Rogers Centre on Dec. 7, the day the Bills "host" the Dolphins.

Raptors coach Sam Mitchell is swearing off cursing. His next bit of self-improvement will be swearing off coaching, but that will come involuntarily.

The Seattle Mariners said over the weekend they'll be "color blind and gender blind" in their GM search -- instead of merely talent blind. (Seriously, Kim Ng will be the first female general manager in a major pro sport. How is awesome is that?)

This is what the Oakland Raiders have come to — trying something that only works in a video game if you have the right Madden cheat card. Raiders coach Lane Kiffin allowed Sebastian Janikowski to try a 76-yard field goal.



The Spokane Chiefs held a ceremony to commemorate their Memorial Cup championship. Kingston Frontenacs GM-coach Larry Mavety denied

Paul Newman was a kick-ass philanthropist, won an Academy Award, served in the Battle of Okinawa, made Richard Nixon's Enemies List and all some of you lot will remember him by is Reggie Dunlop ... you're selling him short ... Absence of Malice was a pretty damn good movie too.

(Epic Carnival, by the way, has a new look.)

Snark break...

• This is how far former Vikings star Daunte Culpepper has fallen off the radar screen, four years after he had the fifth-best passer rating in NFL history. 
  
  A column that's sympathetic to the unemployed QB, refers to how his college team, Central Florida, would "love to unfurl his ol' No. 9 jersey and invite him back to campus for 'Daunte Day.' " One problem: Culpepper wore No. 8 in college.
• The CBC's new channel, CBC Sports Plus, will have an "emphasis on amateurs." Doesn't Hockey Night in Canada already do that enough with the Leafs?
  
• White people aren't very fast, unless they're pointing out that a Jamaican track and field gold medallist is showboating, eh Bob Costas?
• Ken Griffey Jr. finally hit his first homer as a Chisox today, and he rounded the bases all by himself. (Does it count if it's against the Mariners?)
• It's been almost 6 hours since Duane put the question out there and no one has nominated how J.P. Ricciardi has managed to keep his job as the greatest sporting accomplishment they've ever seen? Disappointing doesn't begin to describe the feeling.
• Zinger via Windsor columnist Bob Duff: "Don’t tell Gary Bettman this, but I haven’t seen a single sign of any National Hockey League paraphernalia anywhere in Beijing. It appears the NHL is just as popular in China as it is in the United States."

The stuff you might have missed:

• Rollins' Belleville Bulls have signed a member of the U.S. under-17 national team development program, Bjorn Krupp, a defenceman just like his old man, Uwe Krupp, the long-time NHL defender. So he's got a Scandinavian first name, a German last name, and he's going to play for the Frontenacs' geographical rivals...
• Word is that Six Nations lacrosse star Cody Jacobs is going to play for the reigning NCAA champion Syracuse Orange.
• Raptors coach Sam Mitchell is a fashion plate.
• Canadian ballers Junior Cadougan and Mangisto Arop are both in the Rivals.com top 100.

(Seriously, if CBC Sports is looking for a young it-getter — OK, not that young — who knows the CIS cold, they know how to call. 

LAZY AFTERNOON LINKIN LOG...

Looking like a cab with all four doors open...

• If it wasn't so ghoulish, there would be justification to run a pool on who gets ousted first: Raptors coach Sam Mitchell (near right) or Blue Jays manager John Gibbons (far right, with an unidentified former player).
  
  Dave Feschuk's column in the Toronto Star published ahead of Monday's season-ending loss pretty much said once the Raptors are done, the next domino to fall over is Mike D'Antoni in Phoenix. As for Gibbons, so much has been said already. Good men, by all accounts, but both have been on the job in 2004, which is an eternity in pro sports.
• The best advice for when you want to get your screed on is to wait a couple days for Dave Zirin to say it with more credibility and eloquence. He pretty much laid into all the media types who kept repeating the word "character" ahead of the NFL Draft -- like the Evanka Osmaks of the world have a screw's clue of what Darren McFadden has had to overcome just to live this long, let alone be a first-round draft pick:
  
  

  "McFadden's story is a case study in the kind of character a typical 'draftnik' couldn't hope to comprehend. Here is someone who comes from a neighborhood in Little Rock where gangs and random killings are a daily fact of life. Instead of being seen as an indication of the remarkable character and perseverance it took to make it out of a home with eleven siblings, with one brother a Blood and another a Crip, his origins become just another strike against him.
  
  "This is someone from a neighborhood with an incarceration rate that exceeds the graduation rate, but who has never been arrested. OK, so he's been in a couple of bar fights, but imagine if entertainers were held to the same standard. What if Sean Penn couldn't get a movie role because he's been in a fist fight or two? What if any actor who has ever smoked weed or made an ass of himself was somehow deemed unworthy? It's a ridiculous double standard driven by general managers who fear they will lose their jobs if they can't predict the future.
  
  "That's the difference between Hollywood and the NFL. In Tinseltown, celebrities who act out for the paparazzi and our US Weekly fix are
  mainly white and largely forgiven for their wildness. Future NFL players who get poked and prodded like prize horses at auction are almost all working class and predominantly black."

• Point being, it's hard out there for the bleeding-heart sports fan to pick up a newspaper and see a headline, "Wanted: Players with character." The use of wanted is a little too ominious (obviously, whoever was on the copy desk didn't sit around listening to her/his parents' old Richard Pryor records.)
• Junior hockey rumour off a message board that has to be repeated for sheer silliness: Erik Gudbranson, the big defenceman from Ottawa who's expected to be a top-5 draft choice on Saturday, only wants to play where there's a French-language high school.
  
  The Kingston Frontenacs are picking fourth and the city does have French instruction at Regiopolis-Notre Dame, which used to be where the players attended high school. Just saying. Fronts followers would also be well-advised to brush up on the new rules that cover what happens when draft picks refuse to report. It has happened in the past.

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

KNOWING BETTER THAN TO EVEN ASK...

The fact Game 1 of the San Antonio Spurs-Phoenix Suns playoff series wasn't being shown on one of the three Canadian sports networks didn't even sink in today.

C'est la vie, if you live in Canada, appreciate all sports and believe that TSN, Hockey Night in Canada and all 807 or so hockey panels are suffocating the life out of hockey like women have with romance and Simon Cowell has with pop music. It was a given

San Antonio won in two OTs, 117-115, after the Suns, taking a page from Raptors coach Sam Mitchell's playbook, graciously accommodated Tim Duncan stepping outside his role and didn't foul intentionally before he hit a tying three-pointer to send the game to the second overtime.

There's nothing unique to say ahead of tomorrow's Game 1 of the Raptors-Magic series. Orlando, at this writing, still has 600 tickets available for a playoff game. What is this, Ottawa?

BATTER UP: TORONTO BLUE JAYS

It's baseball season, that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a team for six months, knowing full well they won't win. Here's a starting nine for the Toronto Blue Jays.

1. Compensation that has nothing to do with losing free agents: The Jays' flaw is not having a flaw, if that makes any sense. The dollar-store psychology explanation is that GM J.P. Ricciardi is so thin-skinned he subconsciously tries to make sure his team is average to above-average at all the major spots so the cynics can't actually say much more than the typical weak, "The Jays suck."
   
   A team can do a lot worse than John McDonald or David Eckstein being its worst regular. The '92 Jays did do worse than that -- remember Kelly Gruber and his park-adjusted OPS+ of 72 at third base. The next year they were able to get Tony Fernandez back at shortstop and won again; get the drift?
   
   Point being, the Jays have a glass ceiling; all that's debatable is how much of this owes to being in an unfair game that puts them in a division with the Red Sox and Yankees and how much of it is pouting on the sidelines that causes them to be less than the sum of their parts. There's no big holes to fill and no real way to fill one since the farm system is barren and Ted Rogers will only spend enough to maintain a pretense of wanting to win. The Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers are breaking the bank to bring in top amateur talent; the Jays aren't likely to do so any time soon.
   
   Still, it's a wonderful six months ahead before the Leafs resume sucking.
2. Two wild and crazy guys: Known it-getters Mike Wilner and Ken Davidoff of Newsday have each tabbed the Jays to win the American League wild card. Never say never.
3. Roy vs. A.J.: For what it's worth, The Baseball Prospectus 2008 projects A.J. Burnett to have a lower ERA and WHIP than Roy Halladay. Dustin McGowan is solid No. 3 starter on almost any team. there's reason to be wary about Shaun Marcum, who was a little lucky last season.
   
   Casey Janssen's season-ending surgery slid off like water off a duck's back. He was likely to take a step back, anyway, and now Brandon League has returned.
4. Someone, please, get a freaking hit: It's reasonable to ask if too many Jays got sucked into negative learning last season and that's part of why they went backwards, from seventh to 10th in runs scored. This team seemed to lead the world in warning-track flyballs with two out and runners on.
5. McGlovin' it: Hardball Times rated the Jays as the best-fielding team in the bigs last season. The big lynchpin was Aaron Hill, whom all the statgeek cognoscenti said was the best-fielding second baseman around, so naturally all the talk focused on McDonald on the other side of the infield.
6. Radio Free Wilner: Last season's breakout star wasn't a pitcher or a hitter, it was Mike (Awesome) Wilner of The FAN 590, a true mensch and oasis of intellect in an acrid desert of asinineness about all things baseball. Wilner shepherded the weak through a valley of "fruscination" last season with the way he used wit, logic and charm to knock off the endless parade of puckheads who call in to the post-game show to spew their hockey hullabuloo about grit and heart and ask why the Jays don't bunt or steal bases or go for other low-percentage offensive gambles.
   
   (Oh, and the whining about Reed Johnson getting released so the Jays could go with Shannon Stewart, who can actually hit a right-hander if one laid down in road in front of him? So sad.)
7. Thanks for the visual: Reading that 40-year-old bald guy Matt Stairs has the arthritis conjures up the unshakable image of him and ex-Jay David Wells sitting in a steam room comparing various maladies like a couple of much older men. It's best not to go into this.
8. Need-to-know: You know where I stand on John Gibbons; not a fan of how he handles starting pitchers or his fetish for leaving playing hunches with second-line relievers and leaving his better ones in the bupplen (case in point: Brian Wolfe). This is a make-or-break year for him, you know it already. The Jays will need a new manager for 2010 or 2011 when they've rebuilt around Hill, Rios and Travis Snider.
9. All is well: Those who read the Deadspin preview have already received the words to live by, "They'll probably finish third again, but I won't lose any hair over it I wasn't set to lose already."
   
   The Jays will probably straighten up and fly right about the time that yours truly grows up, finds the right girl and settles down. Neither is happening between now and 2017. What did we do to deserve this -- oh, right:
   
   

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

RAPS: THREE WORDS... SALARY CAP SPACE

Staying sanguine over the Raptors after their latest fourth-quarter Smeltdown — that's a combo of Smitch and meltdown — is a bit of test.

For the most part, it has seemed best to zip it about coach Sam Mitchell this season. It's not like no one saw this coming; one fantasy mag had the Raps pegged for a 43-39 record and first-round playoff exit and that sounded about right. They're 35-35 after today's 109-100 loss at home to Denver, who made 6-of-8 threes in the fourth quarter. Plus, looking over what was said about the coaching during the playoffs, it seemed so obvious  the coach was an issue that to point it out over and over across 82 games would have got really old really fast. 

Andrea Bargnani continues to have days that will drive you nuts (16 points in the first quarter, zero in the last three). He wasn't on the floor in the fourth quarter when the Raptors needed someone to help space the floor so Chris Bosh could go to work. Jamario Moon does some good things, but he ends up taking a must-have three-point shot inside of 30 seconds when there's about four other guys on the team who you'd prefer to be taking it.

It's all a test. It's always darkest before the dawn and Bosh isn't back to full strength yet. 

RAPTORS: GARBO'S A GONER, BUT THEY SHALL CLAW BACK

Reacting to all things Raptors:

• So it ended up being a 2-2 week, with close losses stemming directly from Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James turning in star-and-then-there's-superstars efforts to bring their teams back on their home floor.
  
  The 15-point win over the Bulls, that was catered to the Raptors. Chicago has a case of crooked jumperitis and was ripe for the taking. Even when the Bulls closed within two points early in the fourth quarter, Leo Rautins said they were "on the verge of collapsing," and sure enough, they did.
• The really bad news: Word out of Spain is that Jorge Garbajosa is done for the season with the bad ankle. To quote Bill Murray in Stripes, Garbo is like the big toe of the Raptors, at least in the fans' minds.
  
  Will this force GM Bryan Colangelo's hand to find a stopper, a glue guy, on defence? Right now the Raptors don't have one, and teams who do have one don't like to give them up. Jamario Moon offers some potential, but he's so new to the league.
  
  It already feels like whenever they're behind 5-6 points with three minutes left, there's little hope, since they can't shut a team down or buy a rebound in the final minutes.
• It still feels like Sam Mitchell, et al., contrived to leave the Cleveland game out there for LeBron James to take it, as any true killer usually will. Staying with the matchup zone (or whatever that defence was) for far too long as Cleveland went 13-of-29 on threes? Kris Humphries and Darrick Martin on the floor together? (Note that Juan Dixon ran the point on Sunday.)
  
  Andrea Bargnani seemed to be neglected in the second half, and not getting a better look at a three-pointer to tie the game with 17 seconds left was more grating than those Rogers commercials with the five friends who are impossibly close but somehow don't know the names of each other's parents.
• Occasional associate blogger Neil Acharya had a question addressed by Toronto Star basketball writer Doug Smith a couple days ago: Has the dinosaur logo officially been replaced by the claw? It says here, keep both logos, as a test to see which media outlets are with it.

Related:
Doug Smith's Toronto Raptors Blog (thestar.com)

RAPS: AFTER THE SHOUTING AND SWEARING

Gut reaction to the Raptors' collapse in Dallas:

• So that's what it looks like to be surprised you're beating the Dallas Mavericks by 24 points on their home floor.
• The reality the Mavs needed a true star effort by Dirk Nowitzki (32 points, including 18 during the decisive third quarter when the Mavs wiped out the last of that big lead) to win makes this easier to swallow. Now that that's out of the way, would it have killed Sam Mitchell to call timeout during that run of four threes late in that period?
• This is a fragile team, so nights like this are going to happen. It might have been just something seemingly insignificant, like having Rasho Nesterovic or Jorge Garbajosa available to help with the rebounding, that might have turned the game, or at least slowed down Dallas.
• Is it bad form to hope T.J. Ford, who got shaken up, sits a bit and Jose Calderon takes over as the starting point guard? Calderon does seem to get it that the job is all about making everyone better on the floor.

Related:
Yahoo! video highlights

RAPS: JUST ANOTHER FRANTIC HUMPHDAY

Gut reaction to the Raptors' 92-88 loss to the Utah Jazz:

• The lack of execution in the endgame was hard to take, but it is Nov. 14, not April 14. Between being caught napping on that inbounds pass under the basket with just more than a minute to play, and T.J. Ford forcing a well-off-the-mark tying three in the closing seconds, it was bad, but there's a lot of ball yet to play.
• Think positive. At least the Raptors are showing their depth when Carlos Delfino, Jamario Moon and Kris Humphries play big-time minutes. It's going to help in Jan. and Feb. when some teams will have a killer combination of injuries and illinesses.
  
  The shooting was ice-cold (it happens), but the defence was solid for about 85 per cent of the game. Utah had to work for every bucket.
• One of the coaches needs to figure out why the Raptors always seem a step slow coming out timeouts and quarter breaks. It's been a huge problem for a while. Utah had that alley-oop with 70 seconds left, plus it got an easy backdoor layup on the first play of the second half. It's so frustrating to see that. Granted, the Jazz have the tenured professor in Jerry Sloan coaching, while Sam Mitchell is kind of like a grad student with teaching duties. Mitchell's lectures would definitely be more interesting.
• It is odd how the jump shots don't go down when you're setting for jump shots.
  
  On the plus side, the lousy shooting was well-timed. Yours truly's team in the Rockhard Fantasy League, the drolly dubbed GoodEnough4Odessa, is playing someone this week who has Chris Bosh (5-for-12 tonight) in his lineup. Good friend Neil Acharya, of the not so drolly dubbed Neil Acharya's Team, also has Andrea Bargnani and his 1-for-11 line, so it's all good.
  
  So much for never being that guy who roots against his team's own players due to fantasy league implications, but something had to be salvaged from this night.

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

RAPTORS: IT'S AN ENDING, THAT'S IT

Feel free to file the Raptors' 105-103 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday night under the heading of "for now, this will have to do."

Chris Bosh still isn't there physically, but turned in a superstar effort with some tough rebounds, a big block, and by getting to the free-throw line. (It's the second game in a row he put the other team's best big in foul trouble.) This time, Sam Mitchell played a hunch right by putting Jamario Moon out for significant stretches of the fourth quarter. He's the new Matt Bonner.

The result might have flattered the 76ers a bit — how often is Louis Williams going to go off for 20 points in quarter, really?

RAPTORS: IT GETS BETTER

Reaction to the Raptors' 105-96 loss to Orlando:

• Take it away, Luba: It's just the storm, before the calm. (Hey, Adnan Virk of The Score not the only one who can make 1980s pop-culture references apropos of nothing.)
  
  At times it felt like Sam Mitchell got together over the summer with Jays manager John Gibbons to trade notes, presumably over a couple mimosas, on how to make it is hard as possible for a team to win. Smitch looked like he has no idea how to have the players ready to start a quarter, or how to make adjustments at the halftime and quarter breaks.
  
  It was 17-4 (no Raptors baskets) after six minutes. Orlando had a 10-2 run to start the second quarter, a 9-4 spurt to start the third and ran off the first 11 points of the fourth. Part of that was the matchup problem created by Dwight Howard going against a less-than-full-strength Chris Bosh and the Raptors having a poor shooting night, but don't the best coaches usually figure out how to get their teams some stops and some easy baskets early in a quarter ?
  
  Seriously, that's about 14 minutes of basketball that the game turned on. Play it even in those stages, and it's a decisive win. It was odd that they didn't slug the ball inside in the final 5:12 when Howard was playing with five fouls, but it's November. Orlando's Stan Van Gundy outcoached the hell out of Smitch, but a a coach who looks like Ron Jeremy's long-lost twin brother should be a crafty bastard.
  
  (UPDATE: At least they're addressing it -- Rasho Nesterovič is going to start at centre with Andrea Bargnani as the sixth man.)
  
• It's way too early to start calling for Smitch's head. The true sports city that Toronto might be one day (Step One: Stop playing Leafs and Raptors fans against each other) doesn't do that.
• Why Juan Dixon is Juan Dixon: He made a couple baskets during that game-tying 13-2 run in the fourth while Howard was on the bench. About 30 seconds after Howard returned, he tried to drive and missed. That was about the last time the Raptors went inside, and it came from their least physically imposing player. The ball has to go to Bosh in that situation. (Read that closely: It's not a diss on Dixon. Shooting guards in point guard bodies don't come with self-awareness.)
  
• Other than that, it feels like a calm has descended. On the plus side, Andrea Bargnani (16 points on 7-of-18, eight rebounds) played with some confettura, which he didn't do on nights as a rookie when his shot wasn't falling. He was right there in the third quarter with seven points on a 9-2 Raptors run, getting two rebounds on D and pressuring Hedo Turkoglu into a miss. He and Bosh played with some fire; now they just need some finish. It will come.
• Raptor Land, who is more of a baller than I am, pointed out Jorge Garbajosa was also a big part of a third-quarter push. He isn't getting the minutes he needs to make his team-oriented game work. They might have to go back to him playing major minutes or starting.

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

UP AT 6: NOW THAT'S A PIECE OF FLAIR

As you rushed outside to get the cake out of the rain...

• This is the kerfuffle over Sidney Crosby's "lacrosse goal" from his days in Rimouski times about a hundred: The soccer world is a-twitter over the "seal move" 19-year-old Brazilian phenom Kerlon Moura Souza pulled last weekend, heading the ball off his forehead several times in succession. Not that we know much about footy, but if a guy has the flair and the skills to pull it off, good for him.
  
  
  
  Souza suffered a similar violent tackle after pulling the move in a junior match two years ago.
  
  
  
• Since crime and punishment vis-à-vis NFL players is such a hot topic, what does everyone think about good-guy Steelers wideout Hines Ward, MVP of the Super Bowl in 2006, is being accused of defrauding business partners? Thing is, people have such a blind spot to white-collar crime. (Link via Epic Carnival.)
• Apparently Minka Kelly's Friday Night Lights character, Lyla, is going to become a god-squadder. This means less chance of seeing the future Second Mrs. Sager* in a bra during the second season, eh?
  
  Booooooooo. Some of us have become great fans of Lights -- it helps masks the reality of being home alone every Friday night.
• Jose Mourinho, manager of Chelsea in the English Premier League, informed his players via text message that he was quitting. It's a far cry from 1977, when Eddie Stanky was manager of the Texas Rangers and called three players from a payphone to say he was quitting. Why only three? He probably ran out of quarters.
• After a summer of beating our head over the wall over John Gibbons with the Jays, it's good that Raptors' Sam Mitchell is back to confuse and confound us even farther. So Smitch had better things to do with his summer than watch his players at the EuroBasket, and we're surprised how?

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

AW, NUTS... I MEAN... AW, NUTS

The May long has started on a bit of a downer for us hoops-happy hosers.

Smitch not ditched: The endgame in Game 6 of the playoff loss in New Jersey where the Raptors couldn't even get off a last-second shot seemed like it would be a pretty fitting valedictory for Sam Mitchell's Toronto tenure, but so it goes. The upshot is that Smitch isn't dumb and will probably figure out a way to keep his public persona as the fire-breathin', butt-blistering' coach while duly acting like the best-dressed middle-management guy this side of Michael Scott. Bryan Colangelo, et al., wouldn't bring him back without some strict rules about how to portion out the floor time and whatnot. Mitchell either goes along and keeps his job, or becomes the NBA's answer to Grady Little, who screwed up a World Series berth for the 2003 Red Sox since he ignored what the smartest guys in the room had told him.

Suns go down: It was already over but the crying for the Steve Nash's crew last night after those Game 5 suspensions to Boris Diaw and Amare Stoudemire (and still almost winning). Even down 20 points in the fourth quarter, they were never done, and Nash led a near-comeback that had the game in doubt until the final 20 seconds. Leandro Barbosa , who shot something like 0-for-11 on threes across the final four games, bricking an open look that would have cut the margin to six with about 3:05 left. That was too much in the time/score equation for the Suns to maintain even a faint hope.

It needs not be said that if Shawn Marion leaves the Suns this summer, mark this down as the best chance Nash had to win a championship during his prime years. With the way his back bothered during him the playoffs, it's doubtful he would play for Canada in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifier in Las Vegas in August, but Nash has earned a summer of R&R.

RAYS-JAYS: SEO MUCH FOR A SWEEP!

Saturday -- Rays 2, Jays 1: The tipping point for Shaun Marcum was that ball first-base ump Charlie Reliford called on a 2-2 check swing by Rocco Baldelli with two out in the top of the sixth.

If it's a veteran such as Mike Mussina pitching at Yankee Stadium or Curt Schilling at Fenway Park, Reliford perhaps punches out Baldelli and the pitcher floats back to the dugout as the entire stadium flips out. Umpires are aware of playing to the crowd and the TV cameras too. Instead, Marcum needed 10 more pitches to complete the inning, losing Baldelli and Brendan Harris on full counts.

That was enough to convince the brain trust he was gassed. Marcum got Carl Crawford with off-speed stuff in the late 80s, so it was time to make the move. Then Jason Frasor happened. As for the itting, the Jays were doing their usual routine of being the team that a struggling pitcher straightens himself out against — Jae Seo was a lot better than the 8.82 ERA and 2.02 WHIP he brought in, and for a change his late-breaking change-up, which must be as tough to control as it is for North American umpires to call, was working.

(UPDATE: Apparently John Gibbons can't explain pinch-hitting John McDonald for Jason Phillips. God only knows what was behind that move — and She is shaking her head.

Gibbons-McDonald might be the Jays' version of the Sam Mitchell-Matt Bonner dynamic the old Raptors had. Bonner had to be traded to the Spurs just to keep Mitchell from playing him too much — and now he might end up with a NBA championship ring.)

Worth reading to increase one's understanding of baseball finance: The Star looks at the Jays' decision not to take out insurance on the salaries for injured high-dollar stars such as Halladay and B.J. Ryan. (Found via Ian Bethune''s Sox & Dawgs.

Saturday -- Jays 5, Rays 4: By all accounts, Jeremy Accardo is a reasonable facsimile of a closer, for one day at least.

C'est la vie and que sera, que sera for the Rays: Vernon Wells, with some astute coaching from Brian Butterfield, scored the winning run from first base on a single after uber-prospect B.J. Upton lobbed the ball back to the infield with all the alacrity of someone playing fetch with an older dog. An inning earlier, Royce Clayton's game-tying two-out single was the type of hit that looked like it should easily be enough for a reasonably fast runner such as Aaron Hill who was running on contact to score standing up. Upton threw a did-you-see-that strike to the plate that pegged a sliding Hill right in the chest.

Figure that out. One inning Upton — a terrific player with a position to be determined later — almost makes a near-impossible throw; the next he got caught off-guards and couldn't make a simple throw which ultimately cost Tampa Bay the game. That's why it's always worth tuning in when the Rays play the Jays.

Friday -- Jays 5 Rays 1: The speculation among fans over the past 24 hours has proven founded: Jays ace Roy Halladay has landed on the 15-day disabled list with appendicitis and will miss 4-6 weeks.

Since it would have been too cruel for the losing to continue, A.J. Burnett was able to go out and zap the Rays in an easy win, shutting down Tampa Bay after a first-inning Elijah Dukes homer. That figures.

Doc had not looked quite right in his past two starts, which led to some conjecture over whether or not he might be hurting. This is entirely random, of course. The Jays still have questions about the other three pitchers — Gustavo Chacin, Brandon League, and B.J. Ryan — who have all developed arm problems in the past year.

(Victor Zambrano doesn't count, since it's his first year in the organization.)

WORST TAILSPIN SINCE... ?

The worst losing skid the Jays have had since -- well, it couldn't be that long, the franchise only began playing in '77 -- came right on time.

Think about it. In pre-season, the bandwagon teemed with 25-to-34s, plus a few of later vintage, who were gung-ho to get back into the Jays for the first time in oh, 13, 14 years since it looked like they might quote-unquote "do something" this year. (So Halladay winning the Cy Young Award and Carlos Delgado hitting four homers in a game in 2003 wasn't "doing something," we take it?)

The nine-game losing streak, with John Gibbons serving as a clueless version of Drill Sergeant Hartman, might have been designed to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to cheer for our beloved Blue Jays. It's acceptable to want Gibbons and J.P. Ricciardi fired (they got it coming), but the test is here is whether people hunker down for the long haul of a bad (and long) season, so you can say I was there.

In '88, when the Orioles lost 21 games in a row to start the season, they had 50,402 fans out for their first home game after they finally got a win. Think about it. More than 50,000 turned out to see a 1-23 team that would go on to more than 100 losses face the Pete Incaviglia incarnation of the Texas Rangers.

Essentially, this tailspin has been a baseball boot camp. The Jays fielding has supplied enough boots for everyone.

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

RAPTORS: CHINS UP, ONWARD AND UPWARD TO NEXT YEAR COUNTRY

Thoughts after the Raptors' season-ending 98-97 loss to the New Jersey Nets:

• Failing to even get a shot off in the endgame coming out of a timeout, that's another exhibit for the plaintiffs in the case against Sam Mitchell .
  
  UPDATE: Devoted reader Dan Rowe was on hand and has a good eyewitness account of the endgame situation — check the comments.
• The losing play is never that obvious. The Raptors' failure to score on their penultimate possession when they had a chance to go up three might have been the real killer. (That was right after Vin Weasel bricked a three when New Jersey trailed by just one.) True, José Calderón "threw a line drive when he needed a lob" as Dave Feschuk so aptly put it in the Toronto Star, but pound for pound he was Toronto's best player in the series.
• So, chin up: The sun still rose today. Paris Hilton is going to jail. The New York Yankees scored 11 runs in a game last night and still lost and the Raptors will be back.
• Vince Carter did not beat Toronto. He had 21 points last night, sure, but shot poorly (6-for-19, some characteristic missed free throws) and pulled the chute down the stretch by taking two ill-advised threes and throwing the ball away for a costly turnover.
  
  Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson, Boki Nachbar with his outside shooting and Jason Collins and Mikki Moore with their defence in the post vs. Chris Bosh (pictured) were each bigger reasons that the Nets pulled it out, along with Lawrence Frank outcoaching Mitchell across the first four games.
  
  According to e-mails a couple readers sent along, Vince looked every bit like he couldn't wait to be excused from the post-game press conference. It was like he'd got away from something.
• Fan sorrow over this loss has a very short shelf life, although it understandably hurts for the players, coaches, front office and members of the Axe Raptors Dance Pak. (Although if Minerva or Courtney needs a comforting shoulder, I'm right here.)
  
  Bottom line: the Raptors were a young team in their first post-season and spotted New Jersey at least two games, which put them in a tight spot last night that they damn near escaped from.
  
  With the Bryan Colangelo-Maurizio Gherardini-Wayne Embry braintrust, this morphed from a Mickey Mouse outfit into one of the NBA's best organizations less than 15 months. The foundation is there for a 50-win season and a deeper playoff run in '07-08.

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

RAPTORS: SANS JOSE & T.J., THERE IS NO WAY, BUT WE'RE IN A GOLDEN STATE

The safe assumption that will keep us from getting our hearts broken is that neither José Calderón or T.J. Ford will be able to go for the Raptors in a do-or-die Game 6 vs. the Nets at the house of horrors that is the Cont.

Until either José (pictured) or T.J. appears on the court tonight in Jersey -- where the Raptors have yet to make a decent accounting of themselves this season -- that's the attitude. The practical reality is that this season has already been a great success. The Raptors might be winning more converts south of the border than in Canada (outside Southern Ontario, at least) with their style of play, but there is new blood coarsing through the veins of a franchise that had been flatlining after you-know-who stuck a knife in its back.

The true Raptors fans might get a bit a squirrelly at times, but never lost hope of getting a winner. Bryan Colangelo will have some salary-cap room this summer to add a scoring small forward (likely from Europe) as an upgrade on Mo Peterson. Jorge Garbajosa will hopefully be healthy again and Luke Jackson might be able to contribute after being picked up late in the season. What about Sam Mitchell continuing as head coach? Don't ask.

Besides, the way Don Nelson's Golden State Warriors just manhandled the Dallas Mavericks in that first-round upset everyone is talking about down in the U.S. today (see Deadspin) is more proof the Raptors are prepared for where the NBA is headed. There's not really much more I can add about the Warriors' win, but it showcased how much the style of play has improved in the NBA over the past few years. The Warriors' crew of good all-around players -- Matt Barnes, Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson -- took away the time and space Dallas needed to run clearouts and isolations for one star scorer, Dirk Nowitzki, and used all five players on the court to create open shots on offence. That's a much better brand of hoops than walking it up and running screens for Kobe Bryant 40 times a night. (Someone else noted the Warriors' win probably would not have been possible if the NBA hadn't legalized zone defence a few years ago.)

That kind of game, based on quickness and good defence, is what the Raptors played when they peaked in February. So the future is bright, even if they lose by 40 points tonight.

Related:
Calderón could be back on point for Raptors (Canada.com)
Injury report on Ford takes another twist (Toronto Star)

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

LIVEBLOG: GAME 5, RAPTORS 98, NETS 96

FIRST QUARTER

9:26, Raptors lead 7-5: The small-ball look has the Nets off-balance, but New Jersey knows it's knitted themselves a fairly thick security blanket and very well could be laying back. Andrea Bargnani, the cursed gifted one, has scored all seven points from the centre spot, on three different moves.

7:23, 13-5: Are we sure that's not the Raptors still in red? New Jersey is settling for faint-hope shots from outside and head-down drives to the basket. Chris Bosh has come up with two blocks, and the Nets for a change are the first team to burn a timeout.

7:06, 13-6: Just like that, Bosh gets his second and sits down (Vince Carter went 1-of-2 at the line).

Here's why people take issue with Sam Mitchell's coaching style: The Score just put up a graphic showing a quote which begins, "No one ever got me ready to play." That's all well and good, but since when is every player the same? Coaching basketball, where you have a near 1:1 ratio of support people (coaches, etc.) to players, means dealing in personalties.

4:30, 20-6: Yes, you read that right. The Nets look disinterested and Bargnani seems to have worked out his issues -- he's got 10.

3:27, 23-11: Carter is the only player the Nets have going, other than Jason Kidd. He's scored eight of 11, and no doubt he got a good laugh out of one courtside fan's Wince Farter sign. Strange how he plays well on the road when his team's fallen way behind.

2:30, 28-11: Sweet monagoose, what is happening here? Bargnani just pump-faked a Net into press row, and calmly canned another three. Since Bosh sat down the Raptors have been on a 15-5 run.

End first quarter, Raptors lead 33-13: Other than T.J. Ford being shaken up in a collision with Carter while going for a loose ball -- and throwing the ball out of bounds on an ill-conceived kickout pass moments later -- the Raptors are making all analysis redundant. The Nets are a smart, veteran ballclub and can adjust to this, but 20 points is a lot to make up against a team who's playing on adrenaline. The first four minutes of the second quarter will go a long way toward deciding if this ends tonight.

Man, the Raptors could come back to win this series.... don't go talking crazy.

SECOND QUARTER

9:44, 33-20: The Nets, no dummies, have drawn some fouls and got to the line to cut into the lead, bringing Bosh back into the game. (The Raptors outscored Jersey 20-14 while he was cooling his heels.)

8:40, 37-22: That's three fouls for Jason Collins, one of the Nets' bigs. Joey Graham drew the call, which combined with a dunk he just had, means he's done more tonight than in their first 3 1/2 games combined.

5:47, 42-29: Mikki Moore is having a bad day for the Nets -- he's been T'd up and has some running feud going with the refs. Being down big has led Lawrence Frank to change his lineup for the first time all series, with Marcus Williams and Kidd on the court together.

T.J. Ford (three points, seven minutes) has a "stinger" and will not play again tonight. It's Jose Calderon's show, so a 13-point lead might be a big enough cushion.

4:01, 46-31: Morris Peterson's made a couple big plays, forcing Carter to lose his dribble out of bounds and getting a layin to finish off a fast break following a Calderon steal.

2:02, 53-37: The open shots are coming way too easily for the Nets, especially Bosh (three) and Joey Graham (four) both in foul trouble. Fortunately for the good guys, Richard Jefferson just missed badly on an open three that would have cut the margin to 10. MoPete finishes with a three in transition for a six-point swing.

HALFTIME, Raptors lead 59-42: Break out the Gone Drinkin' sign. The Raptors are up 17 at half despite Bosh scoring just two points in his nine minutes on the floor, so all the better to hit the bar before it all goes boom in the fourth quarter or in Game 6 on Friday (especially if Ford cannot play).

Toronto is hard-pressed to win this series, but you have no idea how much we would like to share those last two quarters with a half-lit Bruce Willis. There was just no way this series could end that quickly.

THIRD QUARTER

7:22, 63-50: Never noticed this till now, but Bryan Colangelo has bags under his eyes that he never had when he was running the Phoenix Suns.

5:56, 65-52: It's a nervous time, with the Nets coming on and the Raptors starting to settle for jumpers again on offence. By the way, a friend told me he paid $343 for a group of four tickets for tonight's game. Did he realize he was paying that to see Bob Delaney referee? Chris Bosh just got his fourth foul.

4:11, 69-60: Thankfully, Vince Carter can't make a foul shot in Toronto -- but it's in single digits for the first time since midway through the opening quarter.

2:50, 71-60: If this Mo Peterson's final home game, he's having a good one. His midrange jumper, after Carter missed a half-assed layup try, stretches the lead to double digits again.

1:24, 77-63: Never, ever, complain about the Raptors dominating a game to the extent it didn't warrant analysis, since even this 14-point lead doesn't feel safe so long as No. 5 is dribbling down the court for the Nets. It's been mostly Calderon (19 points, eight dimes) and Mo Peterson (eight of his 13 points this quarter) maintaining the lead. They'll have to do it for about five more minutes before Bosh can return to the floor.

End of third quarter, Raptors lead 79-67: Break out the rosary beads, even if you're not Catholic. Just in case, eh.

FOURTH QUARTER

11:36, 79-69: Darrick Martin fills in at the point for all of 24 seconds and one turnover -- they were going to get Adnan Virk, The Baller, to fill in, but apparently he didn't bring his court shoes.

10:05, 81-71: Fortunately for the Raptors, Bostjan Nachbar's shooting stroke didn't make it through Customs, since he just missed a three to cut the margin to five. Jose Calderon blithely shoots the J right in the face of Jefferson, who's only four inches taller.

8:50, 85-71: Calderon hits two more baskets... Bosh is back on the floor with four fouls after a New Jersey timeout. The Raptors increased the lead by one in the time Bosh was on the bench.

7:23, 85-79: Anyone feeling like they have no idea how to close out this game? New Jersey's thrown in a quick eight points since the timeout -- hey, it's not like the Raptors are allowed to anticipate what adjustments that Nets might have had in store. Oh, wait.

6:39, 87-81: Would you believe Bosh is at the line for the first time tonight? (He makes both.)

3:59, 93-88: Kidd makes one of his few mistakes, trying to a throw a tricky pass that's too much for Jason Collins to handle. The ball goes out of bounds.

2:46, 95-88: The foul shooting's been a saviour -- Toronto's 22-for-25 on the night and 8-for-8 in the quarter. That and Nachbar's absence have been the difference.

1:28, 95-88: MoPete just fouled out -- not too long ago he never would have played enough minutes to get six fouls, so he deserves the standing 0. Chris Bosh missed a chance at a follow reverse dunk that might have put the game away.

Andrea Bargnani, meantime, didn't do a half-bad job of guarding Richard Jefferson in a key situation -- RJ had to pass off once, then missed from the baseline on the next trip.

:50.8, 95-91: Juan Dixon is going to come off the bench for the first time all half to get another ballhandler on the floor. Does it seem like Bosh is really lusting for an ESPN moment -- he's missed a dunk and just got called for goaltending after swatting a layup attempt.

:27.6, 95-94: Down goes Calderon! Jose turned his ankle on the drive, lost the ball and, wait for it, Carter hits a three to make it a one-point game. We're officially out of point guards. There was no foul on the play. No way the referees would call Jason Kidd for a foul there anyhow.

:16.8, Raptors still lead 97-96: There'll be a deliberate foul coming up after Moore gets the tip-in -- both Bargnani and Bosh played Carter on the drive and no one was left to rebound. You know, it's really no surprise it's come down to this. Fortunately, Sam Mitchell did know enough to make his guys shoot practice free throws when they're tired.

Bosh makes 1-for-2, so incredibly -- well, not that incredibly -- New Jersey has a chance to win in regulation. They get it to Nachbar, who hasn't been shooting well, and it's off. Raptors control the rebound, and it's over -- a near three-hour game.