A lackadaisical defensive effort against a terrible team, the fact that we let Tracy McGrady stick it to us again, and the several sociable beverages we enjoyed at Real Sports during last night's game has us reeling from mental and physical hangovers.
Watching an ancient Tracy McGrady tear us up on our home court will drive any Raptors fan to the bottle, but there were several other reasons last night to drown our sorrows:
- Losing Barbosa to a hamstring injury
- The Pistons bench outscoring us 35-18.
- At one point in the third quarter the Pistons had five offensive rebounds in about a minute
- As a result, Triano (justly) benching Bargnani for almost 10 minutes
We're still waiting to be convinced that Triano has enough street cred with NBA players to be a successful head coach, but we were relieved to see him finally rip into the Big Italian post-game following another soft defensive "effort."
"I was looking for someone to get us some defensive rebounds," Triano told the Star, when asked about the benching.
He followed up with: "You’re being kind," when a reporter suggested Bargnani had made kind of a poor effort on an earlier play.
But it was this quote from Triano last night that summed it up best:
"Guys should be embarrassed when a team runs a play six times in a row right at you," said Triano.
Waitress, I'll have another.
And a shot.
Luckily for the Raptors, and their robotic giant, they have a Hair of the Dog game Saturday night in Washington against the Wizards.
Barbosa didn't make the trip to D.C. and who know if Sonny Weems' and Amir Johnson's backs will be in the lineup, but the Wizards have some injury issues too with Andray Blatche and Nick Young both questionable tonight.
Blatche, who is averaging a team-best 16.1 points and 8.2 rebounds, sat out Friday with a shoulder injury, while Young, who is averaging 25.9 points over his last seven home games, has pain in his left knee.
In a 109-94 win over the Raps at home on Nov 16, Blatche and Young combined for 42 points, so pray we see them in suits, not sweats.
Should we suffer another ugly loss tonight as we kick off a five-game road trip, things could get quite lucrative >ugly down at Real Sports with upcoming games against New Orleans, San Antonio, Orlando and Miami.
Our darkened, baggy eyes tonight will be glued on Bargnani and Triano.
It'll be fascinating to see how long and how far Triano is willing to play bad cop with his star centre should he mail it in (again) at the defensive end.
In the meantime, we're going to try and come up with some new Bargnani/rebounding related drinking games.
It would sure help pass the time on nights like last night.
Below: Paul Jones and Eric Smith of Sportsnet radio Fan590 with their preview of tonight's game:
