Livaso

http://www.nba.com/raptors/news/PR_032107.htmlBargnani has become an important part of the Raps. 10-20 points a game doesn't come easy.Mo Pete went 0-8 the other day. 0-8. that's just ridiculous. Nobody goes 0-8 unless they're hurt or distracted. you don't go 0-8 because of playing time. if you shoot the ball 8 times it's bound to fall in at least once by mistake. Parker wasn't fully healed against the knicks and it showed.So Morris Peterson needs to step up. The Magic game tonight can be won but Dwight Howard just beat the crap out of the Raps last time they met. Luckily Bosh had a career hig

In my opinion Toronto's best chance of making it to the second round is facing the Bulls. The Bulls are almost exclusively an outside team and Big Ben can protect the paint taking away Bosh's presence there. So basically every single night between Bulls-Raps is a shooting lottery. If Toronto keeps the 4th seed and Chicago keeps the 5th they'd at least have home court advantage for the shooting lottery giving them a "card counting" edge.The east is heating up and Toronto's cooling off so they better get a sense of urgency in their step. Like TJ Ford said from experience you don't want to get co

i missed the game and i'm going to miss tomorrow's as well.the knicks game on sunday is going to be brutal. the knicks are going to be ready and apparently spent something like 5 hours reviewing their mistakes. they're going to give curry the ball every time down the floor.toronto needs that win and they'll have to pull something new on them because ny will be seeing the pick and rolls coming now. sucks facing a team twice in such a short period of time.

Raptors probably have the same strategy they had against New York. Bargnani will probably be playing out of center until Yao leaves the game or is a non-factor. Try to keep the pace high to wear him out. His conditioning hasn't been the same since he came back so they want to make him run.Last time it was bench central and I think it will be this time as well if Toronto wins.Parker's a little banged up and McGrady is a hand full to say the least. His D would be appreciated in this game if he's feeling good... Toronto can make it interesting but they'll have to really fight and the crowd has to

I'm going to have to disagree. Calderon drives with his head up, doesn't pick up his dribble when he does it, is fast enough to hit those tear drops consistantly and while it's fallen off recently his TO to Assist ratio is incredible. There's nothing to not like about that in a PG. I think Ford is the main point guard on the team but to say Calderon is over achieving isn't true. He's proven himself with Team Spain and now the Raptors in only his sophmore year. Andrea looks like he's taking free throws from the three point line. Its just incredible how natural he makes it. He kills his dribble

So Bargnani did come in for Garbo in the first quarter and was playing Small Forward. But later on in the game slid over to center and did a fine job on Curry. I've said before in this thread that Bargnani needs to bulk up a little bit this off season to play on the block in the NBA but Garbajosa and Barg both did a fantastic job on a guy as big (fat) as Eddy Curry. Bargnani and Garbajosa were catalysts offensively and defensively. TJ Ford is going to be great whether Raptors fans want him to or not Tony Parker and Allen Iverson are the only players I've ever seen make defenders look that stu

the Knicks are heating up a bit. Eddy Curry always gives Toronto trouble since Rasho's the only true big man Toronto has. Humphries will probably see a lot of time as well. Slowing Curry down is vital. Marbury is in a groove right now too.Don't be surprised to see 3 bigs later in the game with Bargnani subbing into the 3 instead of center.This game is all about defense for Toronto and keeping the pace a little higher than usual. Keep that fat *** off the court and let your bench do what they do. If the shots are falling the New York perimeter defense will not be a problem.Should be a good one

That was an incredible game against Utah.Is Pat Riley that motivational? Is Shaq still that good? Are the Heat a better team without Wade?I think the first one is the correct explanation. Maybe the second. Probably not the third.

Everything you could have asked for in a Raps game. No more back to backs this month after a screwed up beginning with 3 in a row for some ungodly reason.Thankfully bookies don't take into consideration daylight savings. I'm rich.Now's the time for the Raps to hit a hardcore rhythm. Lots of home games this month, days in between each game and they don't have to travel out of the time-zone or even the eastern sea board.

I agree with the point of the OP.But I've been in petty entertainment addictions before. It makes me feel shallow but what can I say. I wish I still had the fire in the belly attitude that makes me hate myself for liking stupid things. I hate the fact that people are well off enough in the western world to turn blind eyes to suffering but I would refresh boxscores for hours when a game wasn't televised.At least I'm glad I left fantasy sports in college. It's the paramount of a time waster. Like Tetris. You have no idea why it's so fun.What's worse, that we need personal tragedies to awaken

To any Raptor fan that missed that game... I feel sorry for you. Personally I like games where Mo Pete has 10 and Rasho has 10 and Garbajosa is nailing 3's and you have a really unexpected X-Factor like Humphries or something... But stellar performances from Ford and Bosh with the ultimate onions shot by Bargnani with a 3-n-1. Behind the back lay up by Chris Bosh followed immediately by a block at the opposite end.Dixon hitting a massive 3 to make it 99-100 officializing the momentum swing.OT victoryJust a great game. A little nerve wrecking and maybe a little closer than it should have been..

At the all star break I felt The ROY was Roy's. I'm bias, but Bargnani is the star now. It confuses me how he isn't given a closer edge or how its not even close...I mean Kobe leads the league in scoring last year but Nash wins the MVP because its more about making your team better than just pure stats (I agree wtih this)... Iguodala should win the Dunk Contest but what Nate did was impressive for his size... I hope the voters are smarter than the guy who writes the Rookie Reports and it isn't a blow out choice like Chris Paul's award was. I still think Rookie of the Year might be to Brandon R

The episodes where Hellmuth has been on shows the more important fault: the players don't care that much for 100k profit. Hellmuth would routinely play like Gold on High Stakes. Just raise with anything for the sake of it. So you either get people talking a bunch and not caring, or caring too much and not talking.The most entertaining week was the one where Laak took it all and that was only because Laak wanted to beat AE so bad and they had all been drinking and it was starting to show. What can you possibly tell the players to make sure it remains interesting? That there's a 2 drink minimum?

salami and cheese out early in the 4th. Entertaining game so far. How about Juan Dixon? He has fan favorite written all over him. Colangelo is a genius.Edit: Bargnani is SICK. My goodness. that move he made on the poor guy that was defending him was jaw dropping. Even better than the pass fake the other night.That's the smoothest shot of any big man I've ever seen. A German Maverick included.

I missed last night's game but I'm going to get to see this one. They were supposed to beat The Bucks too, remember... Swirsky was saying how he was disappointed the team got booed off the court when they lost that game because "The Raps have passed all expectations and one loss shouldn't change the attitude of the fans. But what he doesn't realize is when you're a feel good story, everyone is waiting for you to screw up. They were riding a wave and the fans are just like I was earlier in this thread. Very jaded and always holding their breath. The team talent is there but if they can't play t

Pippen was a great player in the right place at the right time. Sort of like the Kobe/Shaq duo. What would Pippen have accomplished without MJ? Probably as much as Kobe has accomplished without Shaq (That's not a diss, Kobe could very well carry the Lakers to a championship and I think Pippen could have maybe as well. But its not domination). He was still a superstar in my opinion. He's ego is big all of a sudden and that's a shame.

I think he's making a mistake. I hope he doesn't do something stupid like let them give him cortisone shots or adrenaline or anything like that. For finesse sports especially like basketball that can ruin a young player's body. I don't even know if they do that for arm/shoulder injuries. I'm just fearing the worst. a few weeks sounds awfully short.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh on them... Its the Raptor fan in me. I've been watching Raptors basketball long enough that it's made me jaded and pessimistic. The last 2 games the jump shots weren't falling after shooting 60% for two games earlier in the week. So it really is a gamble. Although I admit this team is going to hit those shots more often than not. But if you have an outside team, you need to have your forwards get into the paint. You just have to. Otherwise you're just constantly swinging it trying to get something. Bosh is slumping a little bit whether he wants to admit it or not

Actually I'm pretty sure its not part of Catholic dogma. To call it a rule of Lent is even being a little stiff. Whether or not it was adopted because of meat rationing I don't know. The meat fasting during Lent dates back much further than that. There's the story of Huldrych Zwingli's eating the sausage in front of the church on a Friday during the Protestant movement in the 1500's to prove a point. I'm not very Catholic though so you could be right. I'd have to look it up. I was just noting fasting went out with the Middle Ages and the Roman Church didn't press the issue.

I gave up cow-based products for a lent a while ago and through the years it slowly became veganism because I enjoyed the light feeling and I think cows are nice animals. Originally many Christians did partake in lengthy fasts, as it was part of the semitic lifestyle at the time. As time went on it became no meat, and then no meat on Fridays. And then fish on Fridays.It just seems to me like people gave up on the concept as Catholicism became more politicized and conceded to the pressures of the times.I've fasted for multiple weeks when I was younger. Not 40 days but for a while. Its an incr

David Grey and Chewbacca were watching the game, and Grey turned to Chew and said "this is the ugliest thing I've ever seen" and Chewbacca looked at Grey nodded in agreement.Without all those garbage minutes in the 4th, Chris Bosh's line would be something like 5 rebounds and 15 points. but WHAT a performance from Juan Dixon. He picked up some garbage time too, but he went 10-18 from the field. Which equals GREAT shot selection. Too bad the rest of the team didn't follow suit.I hope Toronto wasn't just over achieving the last little while. Could AP really be that big of an influence?There's no

I think somebody needs to put Bargnani on an all Steak, cheese and soy diet this off season and teach him the North American delicacy of the bicep curl. Bogut's a born and raised traditional center and he pushed him around all night. And the NBA gets waaaay stronger and bigger and tougher in the forward positions than Bogut.If they win tonight I'll be impressed. I imagine Nesterovic and Humphries are going to split the time at Center, with.... uh.... Slokar backing up Bosh in PF.... Joey Graham might get a few minutes there............. Toronto is going to count hugely on the role players to

That game was so ugly it even made Charlie Villanueva wince!Some where Sam Cassel was making a sour face and thinking "now THAT'S ugly"That game fell off the Otis Nixon tree and hit every Annie Duke on the way down.

I read Mike Ulmar's blog on the Raps site and I thought it was pretty interesting. Because of different rules in European basketball defenses can clog the lanes (I imagine there's no 3 second violation or something like that) and so that's why all these big guys from Europe like Garbajosa, Nowitzki and Bargnani are all so good at shooting from the outside. I think they should get rid of the 3 second defensive violation in the D-League so players have to master the outside shot. I think it'd produce better players.--After the last performance from Bargnani it's unfortunate he can't ride the mom

I like how he tried convincing you his agency was back. What was he expecting? To get the Agent Rodney/Jay Schroeder operation back in action?"I've worked with a lot of Jay Schroeder's kid and you do him better than anybody. Come on lets get the old duo back together."