The 132-93 loss at the hands of the Denver Nuggets Tuesday was the fifth-worst loss in Toronto Raptors franchise history. Having been part of the original radio broadcast crew back in the day, I witnessed many of those bad losses but that was from an expansion team.

It's a bit different now as this team is one that is supposed to contend for home court in the first round of the playoffs. Then again, maybe it was just one of those nights as Denver is the hottest team in the tough Western Conference having won five straight games.

But the disturbing part for Raptor fans is the lack of effort and pride displayed as the Nuggets did what they wanted, when they wanted with no resistance from Toronto. The tilt in Salt Lake City on Friday vs. the Jazz will tell us something about the team's character as they need to bounce back in a very tough building to play. The Energy Solutions Arena was voted the best homecourt advantage by NBA GMs in a 2008 survey.

As I passed Raptors president Bryan Colangelo on my way to the locker room he was beyond words and needless to say, the locker room itself was extremely quiet. Sam Mitchell admitted that the coaches "gave the players the room" to talk. After speaking to Jermaine O'Neal in the post-game, it sounds like the players will be meeting again today, without the coaches, to talk it over and look for answers.

On a lighter note, when we arrived at the hotel in Denver, the IT staff was working feverishly to restore the Internet as the whole system was in upheaval with no connection available in the building. It forced many of us broadcast types to scramble around to get our prep work done for the game. Some were heading to coffee shops to find wireless connections and even turning into makeshift engineers.

I eventually secured a connection thanks to John Rusin, the statistician, graphics, and associate producer on the TV side of the broadcast.

"Johnny Rocket," as he is known by Matt Devlin would have made the founder of the Boy Scouts Lord Baden Powell proud. You talk about being prepared, there he was in the lobby pulling out a router that he travels with for the TV broadcasts to split the connection so we could get on with a hardwire connection (Man, I sound technical!). There were cables everywhere, but hey, I was online. But the misfortune also led to some comical scenes around the hotel.

A group of us arrived back at the hotel after dinner and there was Roko Ukic on the Internet at the hotel's bell stand. At first glance, it looked like Roko was working at the hotel. When some of his teammates arrived they were giving him the business. Producer Paul Graham came downstairs to send a fax and while he was waiting at the front desk, Joey Graham piped up saying "What are you waiting for to fax it, just ask Roko to do it", as he pointed over to Ukic behind the desk.

Hassan Adams started to laugh saying "Welcome to the (insert hotel name here), Roko speaking."

All in good fun and yes the Internet is working at the hotel again.

The soap opera continues in New York where they are in the midst of negotiating a buyout with Stephon Marbury. It looks like it might take some time because of money.

So who did the Indiana Pacers upset in the league office to have drawn the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics on back-to-back nights? Indiana has already defeated both teams and Celtics head coach Doc Rivers has a lot of respect for the Pacers. Toronto fans will see former Raptors, T.J. Ford and Rasho Nesterovic next week as Indiana visits town on December 10th.

Rivers is also worried about the number of technical fouls his club has received. He has a good point about his team's identity around the energy with which they play. I have always maintained as much as rules committees in various sports try to legislate emotion out of sports (e.g. the NFL - No Fun League), you just can't do it.

Under the category of "amazing how quickly your life can change," former NBA player Rodney Rogers is reportedly partially paralyzed after an accident where he was thrown from an ATV. Rogers played 12 seasons in the NBA for seven different teams.