The only silver lining to be found in a defeat as ugly as Friday night's 123-116 loss to Denver, is the fact we get the opportunity to immediately wash the taste out of our mouths tonight by hopefully beating on the Pistons.
But, first, about Friday:
Which of the two teams playing last night was supposed to be the younger, more athletic squad anyway?
The 30-year-old Al Harrington torched us for a season-high six three pointers and 31 points and geriatric Chauncey Billups -- who is off to a terrible start -- got to the line 13 times.
Later, Jay Triano whined: “Our fours couldn't stay at all with Harrington. He just drove past them and used his quickness and they spread the floor.
“He's a nightmare matchup for guys. I couldn't keep (21-year-old) Ed Davis on the floor, I couldn't play (23-year-old) Amir (Johnson) because they couldn't guard him. I had to go with somebody smaller.”
Oh, we're sorry, but isn't our quickness (including Amir's) supposed to be one of our strengths? Al Harrington is a good player, but there's no way we should have let him abuse us like that.
Unacceptable. Lack of focus. I'm making them walk from their hotel to the Palace in Auburn Hills tonight covered in bling.
These are the stern terms we wanted to see in quotes attributed to Triano this morning.
With the Nuggets missing Carmelo Anthony, it was a game that was there for the taking with a little more smarts and a little more hustle.
Unfortunately, it was also the type of game a savvy, veteran squad like Denver doesn't lose to a team like us.
But props to George Karl on win No. 1,000.
Who's the new Lithuanian guy?
Earlier on this year, we foolishly raved about the potential and leadership skills of Linas Kleiza.
We may have even confessed to a small man-crush, but after looking totally lost for the past several weeks, sorry Linas, but that ship has now sailed.
Last night, however, he went off for 26 points and 12 rebounds (17 points in the second quarter).
Perhaps it was the pageantry and nationalistic pride of Lithuania night at the ACC last week that awakened him -- who knows -- but last night's performance was a reminder of the explosive offensive potential lying beneath that brush cut and five o'clock shadow.
Up next: Raptors @ Pistons, Saturday 7:30 p.m. ET
As mentioned above, this one has potential Raptors beat-down written all over it.
The stuck-in-basketball-purgatory (7-17) Pistons are loaded with high-priced veteran talent (Charlie V, Rip Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Ben Gordon) yet they're playing even worse than us right now.
So at least we're not Pistons fans.
They're also entering tonight's game coming off a Friday night loss, in their case a 109-99 defeat in Minnesota.
The Palace at Auburn Hills was a one-time House of Horrors for us (see Chris Childs video below) but of late we've seized ownership of it like a bank on a downtown Detroit house.
The message boards and our incoming text messages are starting to fill up with calls for Triano's head, and should they lose another ugly one tonight … he still won't be fired, so just relax.
Cause for panic concern:
-- Raptors are 2-9 as the visitor while giving up an average of 108.9 points.
-- Over the past four games, Raps are allowing an average of 119.0 points with opponents shooting 52.1 per cent from the floor and 45 from 3-point range.
-- Rip Hamilton will play.
-- The career Raptors-killer is averaging 19.9 points in his last 11 home match-ups with the Raptors, helping Detroit to wins in all of them.
On the plus side:
-- We swept all four meetings last season by an average of 15.5 points.
-- We've outscored Detroit by an average of 22.0 points in our past two visits to The Palace.
-- The Big Italian averaged 23.0 points against the Pistons last season, 33 in a 111-97 win at Detroit.
-- Pistons have dropped seven of eight overall and are coming off an 0-3 trip that saw them average 85.3 points while making 39.1 per cent of their shots -- 28.6 from beyond the arc.
-- They shot 39.6 per cent against us last season.
-- The Pistons $90-million men (Chalrie V and Ben Gordon) still suck and are coming off the bench.
-- This may be the first time all season the “plus side” list has outnumbered the “cause for concern” list.
Go Raps.
