Paul Jones

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

Toronto fans have to be feeling a bit better after last night's win in Detroit. As Raptors guard Jarrett Jack put it, "It was one of our most cohesive performances." Boy, did they need it. They still need a bit of help from Chicago or more specifically Boston and or Charlotte to grab the final playoff spot but at least there's still hope.

First off, let's put the Chicago game to bed. It says here that one of the key phrases in team play is "playing together" and that was ignored in Sunday's loss. There were too many guys trying to do it themselves. When you fall behind by a large margin, there is a way to orchestrate a comeback to turn things in your direction and it has to build slowly.

One of my old coaches referred to it as the "panic and the patience" of chipping away at a lead. That means on the defensive end you have to play with almost a "panic - we can't let them score mind frame and make them work for everything." You probably should have been doing that all along but you didn't and that's why you're in the situation you are in. The patience comes on the offense when you get a stop. Don't just hustle up court and take the first shot in an attempt to put points on the board. Make sure it's a good look and players stay within their personality and roles. Repeat a few times in succession and you'll start to see the results.

It was a terrific performance last night by Amir Johnson against his former team as he put up a career-high 26 points. He was ably supported by Andrea Bargnani who came a point from tying his career high as he posted 33. Bargnani scored both on the outside but when the Raptors run their high-post series, which is classic UCLA (somewhere John Wooden is smiling.) When you have a seven-footer ducking in on the weak side for the high-low pass, it's going to get them something good every time. Bargnani does a good job when that play is called and the pass from the other big, or "buddy ball" as assistant coach Marc Iavaroni calls it with the two big men passing to one another, is delivered properly, look out defense.

Following the game in the locker room, Johnson was taking some good natured trash talk from team personnel. "Amir, two rebounds man, what you a scorer now, you don't want to get your hands dirty? See man, that's what I used to like about you. You used to want to do the dirty work, now you're all Hollywood, only two rebounds." And after laughing Johnson defended himself by chirping back, "I tipped all those rebounds out so we could keep the ball alive."

Alright, as we hit Game 82 you are now allowed to look back at all the ones that got away and lament how those wins would have made a difference right now. But this is it, if it doesn't work out tomorrow night for whatever reason, I don't want to hear about it again. Right, like that's going to happen.

Let's see there was a 23-point lead blown at Indiana, a close loss at home to Memphis in overtime, a 17-point lead that got away in Miami, as one observer pointed out, that one shouldn't be counted because they may have let down the next night and not won the game in Charlotte. So in the end, the old adage that says "you are what your record says you are" fits right here.

Yep I can hear the chants of "Let's go Celtics!" ringing in Toronto right now. Boston still has a chance to catch Atlanta for the three seed in the east. While some will say Atlanta, who swept Boston this season has the tie-breaker, let's point out that's not the case in this situation. The Celtics are a divisional winner so they would get the third seed. Yep, even though the Hawks defeated Boston soundly in the season series and is in a division that will produce half of the teams in the Eastern playoffs, Boston, gets the nod, if and it's a big if, they can win out. And while Charlotte is locked into the seventh seed and will play Orlando, you have to love Larry Brown when he said he will coach the game as close as possible to a game that still has stakes for the Bobcats. (are you listening in Cleveland). Not unexpected as it is in keeping with Brown's philosophy of "playing the right way."

Speaking of Larry Brown, there are reports that he may be on the move again and headed back to Philadelphia where he was the Coach of the Year in 2000 and led the Sixers to the NBA Finals.

So there will be scoreboard watching for one more night, but it will be synchronized on the last night as, not by coincidence, 11 of the 14 games start at 8:00 p.m. Why you ask? Well as it was put by the employee of one team "the league wants to avoid teams manipulating the match ups for the playoffs if the games end at staggered times." Hmmm wonder if all the teams got the same message