Raptors 107 - Grizzlies 115. The brick-fest.

My hubby likes to say that your team always loses, when the superstar has to many points and I like to repeat it sometimes. But is your team losing because your superstar is a ball-hog or is your superstar trying to put a bunch of losers on his shoulders to win the game?

This time it seems to be more of the latter. Each Raptor besides Bosh decided to take the opportunity to practice brick-laying and forget the rim and the defense. The team that you saw schooling Shaq and Big Z got somewhat scared of Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol and instead of showing who's the boss and beating them by 20 points, we lost. The boxscore shows you what happened. Add the fact, that the Grizzlies shot above 51% and you have the whole story. I don't even feel like writing very much about it.

Ballin': Bosh. Suckin': The Bricklayers. All of them. I am disgusted.



After the game, I decided to watch 'The Orphan'. For some reason, I love to watch a little girl / boy / Chucky stabbing somebody, while I'm trying to analyze a bad loss. It soothes my nerves perfectly.

Raptors 101 - Cavaliers 91. Viva Italia!

No, I didn't mix the numbers, we really won.

Last season, Cavaliers swept the series against us leading by average margin of 18.4 points. And LeBron was heading to the game after a loss to the Celtics, you knew he was pissed off. Shaq is a Raptor eater, too. Referees want Cavs to win. No chance.

We were up by 21 points in the first half, but we blew the win fast enough, referees helping with some outrageous calls. What would the last year Raps do? They would fold and lose by 15. Not so with the new Raps, they actually started building another lead. We defended really well - don't you tell me about LeBron's triple-double - he lost, didn't he? We also ran pretty well, killing the Cavs with our pace. Figure our big men against their big men. Bargnani can run the circles around Big Z and Shaq - and not even sweat in the process.

Hedo Turkoglu - not much of an impact, but a 3-pointer inserted when it was needed to lift our morale. He was also a second leading rebounder and blocked 3 shots.

Chris Bosh - somewhere between suing over domain names and begging for Twitter followers, he managed to add about 20 pounds to his frame, and it wasn't a beer-belly neither. All 20 pounds were invested in a new pipe system with an extended rebounding system. 16 boards over the bald heads of Z and Shaq? I'll take that. The shot selection wasn't the best, I still don't like the Ben Gordon-esque leaning jumper, but I can learn to live with that, I guess. On the defensive end, he took the LeBron's charge to his chest. It would be a great defensive play if the 'good' referees weren't back. Also, not bringing any girlfriends to the game was a good decision.

Andrea Bargnani - 28 points, 11-15 shooting, perfect from the line. OK, he missed the wide-open, fast-break, two-handed dunk, but man, you gotta love this hustle. Like the Road Runner, he left Shaq far-far behind him.

DeMar DeRozan - 8 points, 5 rebounds and a block on Shaq. Great debut for the skinny rook.

Jose Calderon - honored for breaking the record of free throw percentage, he celebrated it with missing his first 2 freebies. Well, you don't have to score very much if you have so many scorers around you, 11 assists, and improved speed - I'm fine with that.

Antoine Wright - very good on defense. Offensively not that much.

Jarrett Jack - the worst shooter in the game.

Amir Johnson - 1 rebound, 2 points. Come back, Reggie.

Marcus Banks - the stat sheet says he played for 25 seconds. Must of missed him while in the washroom.

Marco Belinelli - energy, speed, he even dunked. I didn't expect that much. Impressive.

Rasho Nesterovic - 2 rebounds, 4 points.

Patrick O'Bryant - didn't play, we might try him instead Amir Johnson in the next game, I think.

Inactive: Douby, Evans, Weems.


On the other side:

LeBron - triple-double in a loss. Yeah, Bron, I encourage you to build your stat sheet while losing the games. They'll love it in New York. 0-2 is just about right to start the season.

Shaq and Z - man, were they slooooooooooow....

Flopsy Andy - keeps all the NBA fans begging to foul him out - of the league.

Boobie Gibson - shaved something on his head. A nipple?

Anthony Parker - we're gonna miss your 4-12 shooting, Your 2-5, too, Mr Moon.

Mo Williams - 4-14 and an assault threat from LeBron in the locker. I think so.

Ballin': Bargnani. Suckin': Jack.

Next game: Memphis, Friday. Keep on running, Raps.

A deep breath before the season starts

This year, I decided not to watch the preseason basketball. There were several reasons for this difficult decision. I wasn't sure if I wanted to dive in deeply in the games which didn't mean very much and serve myself loads of stress of negotiating the price of extended cable service (they don't give you the preseason games on basic TV, actually they won't even give you all the regular season games there).

The regular season in basketball for me is a very specific period - it turns into this full of anxiety, missing sleep, losing weight time, when I don't really care about anything else but the scores, standings, injuries and schedules. So, I decided to catch a deep breath before I jump head first.

I found a new gym, close to home (each cardio machine had a little TV!). I called my family and friends in Europe, they were really long calls. I still have some emails to write before I abandon them completely... I prepared a list of books I have to read. And I served myself a selection of other sports which I won't bother myself with till June.

Friday was a baseball night. Although it usually puts me to sleep, I made it through the end and witnessed the Yankees' heroics in the 9th inning and win in the overtime. I hate A-Rod as anybody else, but, boy, was he good!

On Saturday I turned to soccer. And I really don't like soccer - it's boring and frustrating, that you have to work 90 minutes to score 1 goal! But I was born in Europe which makes an European soccer a part of my genotype. I live near the Small Poland in Toronto, and during my morning walk I discovered a pub with a Poland-Czech elimination game for the World Series. It started at 2.30 pm and provided a good reason to scream, jump and have several beers that early in the afternoon. I decided to join in.
I wasn't the only female. OK, OK, the other girl was the barmaid. It had its bright side, tho - I didn't have to pay for my beer. But there was also the dark side - during the intermission I asked my neighbor politely: 'How bout those Yankees yesterday?' and he looked at me in a very specific way. Did I break some unwritten rule - is talking baseball in soccer place a sacrilege, or is it simply a woman talking sports such an unusual occurrence around Polish and Czech folks?
Anyways, the game itself turned surprisingly entertaining - the Czechs were playing efficiently and with the sense of urgency... The Polish on the other hand were exercising a kind of formation which resembled a triangle offense in basketball (really!). Apparently, it doesn't work well in soccer, as they lost 2-0.

On Saturday evening I joined my hubby for a hockey game. He loves hockey (real Canadian) and convinced me that Maple Leafs were supposed to be so good this year, and they were playing Penguins and Crosby. I believe Crosby is some kind of LeBron for hockey, also he looks like a chipmunk and (worse still) he resembles one of my ex-boyfriends. All the reasons to cheer against him. Of course Leafs lost and I still hate hockey.

Sunday was a football day, but I took it really easy. I saw the first 30 minutes of Bills massacre and promptly fell asleep before the half time. I woke up to witness the last 10 minutes and it hurt all the same. Packers didn't play (it's always good to have a second fave team which can actually pull a win from time to time). I switched to Broncos and Patriots while baking a long-promised apple pie. The game was interesting enough for me to burn my apple pie. I hate baking! And as much as I hate the Pats - I wasn't too happy to cheer for Denver - this horrible uniforms! The last game in the menu was between Colts and Titans - Titans sucked big time, Peyton Manning is still a scary ugly beast and I went to sleep with the very image of his broken nose hovering over me. Brr... what else is new?

Now, I'm nearly ready to switch to the regular season basketball mode.