Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

Eric Smith (L) and Paul Jones.

It was a disappointing loss for the Raptors on Sunday against the Philadelphia 76ers on a number of fronts.

The Sixers came into the game on a five-game losing streak and admittedly, according to people connected with the team, had not played well in those losses. Those same people said there was no sense of urgency as they sat in 10th place in the East, eight games out of the final playoff spot.

How important was the game for Toronto?

It was the last home game until close to the middle of the month as they now head out west on a four-game junket. They needed one more win to give them a cushion in the event that, well, things didn’t go as planned on the Left Coast.

So much for the cushion, unless you are talking about one of those flat jobs that you sit on at the ballpark, but provide no comfort at all.

The Sixers 114-101 victory dropped the Raptors to 32-29 and took away a game that some had pegged as a "W" for Toronto. But give the Sixers credit as they played with a sense of urgency and were the better team all afternoon with Thaddeus Young leading the way with a career-high 32 points.

In truth, a road win by Philadelphia is not uncommon as they are one of two teams, along with the Boston Celtics, to have more road victories than home wins.

Chris Bosh’s return seemed negligible at the defensive end. Bosh played well notching his 40th double-double of the season but it was not the offence that was the problem. In truth, it’s going to take Bosh some time to regain his from which made his absence in Friday’s game more critical as the timetable was pushed back by a game, but Philadelphia’s athleticism and fast-breaking style created problems for Toronto all afternoon and it was the Raptors that failed to grasp the importance of the game and the immediacy of the situation.

As the Raptors prepared to take on the Los Angeles Lakers Tuesday, on Monday at practice on the campus of UCLA, Raptors coach Jay Triano commented that the problem was not a sense of urgency, but a lack of focus.

Why?

The Raptors, like every team, are looking for a solution to maintain their focus when facing a long road trip. For example, after Sunday’s game they could have stayed in Toronto and traveled on Monday, sacrificing valuable "acclamation time" on the body clocks, or do as they did, prepare to fly at the conclusion of Sunday’s game and take some of the focus away from the getaway contest.

"If it happens to me, it happens to the players," said Triano in reference the mental preparation. "I went home and I had to go to bed thinking of the game and I didn’t (Saturday night) because I finished my prep early (at the arena) and thought, ‘four games on the road what do I need in this city? I forgot that scouting report from the last time we played Portland.’"

"My focus wasn’t as good. If the players have to do that with their families and think I’m going to be away for a week, I know their focus wasn’t there. We tried, at 9:30 (Sunday morning) to go over all our coverages, but you could see it wasn’t sharp."

The Sixers, the second best fast-breaking team in the NBA, put up an extra 40% on their normal output, scoring 30 fast break points. It was the fifth time in six games thatToronto had allowed its opponent to shoot better than 50% from the floor.

In fact, during the last six games the opposition has pierced the magic 45% shooting barrier against the Raptors.

So it’s time to see what kind of resolve the Raptors have with 21 games left in the season, including 14 of them in seven sets of back-to-backs and more of those contests taking place on the road away from the friendly confines of the Air Canada Centre.

The first test will be a difficult one as they will run with the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Centre with the Lakers coming off three-straight losses on its recent Eastern swing.

Incidentally, the last time the Lakers dropped three straight was in January 2008. I know what some of you are wondering: can the Lakers lose four in a row? Well, Toronto will try and hand the Lakers four straight losses for the first time since April 8-13 2007.

Take a look at the Eastern Conference standings and you’ll see this is not a time for the Raptors to be leaking oil and thinking about backing their way through the field.

They currently sit sixth in the East, but there are only two-and-a-half games separating the fifth and the ninth seeds. Some team is going to have its feelings hurt and be left without a chair when the music stops on April 14.

No question Triano had a sense of what is at stake as the Raptors head into the last quarter of the season. Toronto has broken the season, according to the coach, into 20 game segments and has gone 7-13, 13-7, 12-8, and has started this portion 0-1.

"We have to worry about ourselves," said Triano. "We don’t even play Milwaukee again so we can’t control that. We have to make sure we are very, very sharp."

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You know what never gets old? Visiting legendary places and touching history. Monday as the Raptors were practicing and we were waiting to get in and talk to the coaches and players, my broadcast partner Eric Smith and I wandered over, with Jim LaBumbard, Raptors director of media relations, to the famed Pauley Pavillion on the campus of UCLA.

I was reminded that while it is a job, a good one and a tough one at times, there are some perks with what I do to pay the bills. And to be standing at centre court, re-named Nell and John Wooden Court, where the likes of some of the great names in basketball history played, was one of the benefits.

It hit home even more when, let me date myself here, I remembered the first UCLA game I ever saw was on a grainy, black and white Philco in a basement during the 1970s.

Video: Me and Eric Smith on the practice court at UCLA.