Amazing what a win will do for a team’s confidence.
The Toronto Raptors played well but coughed up their last two games before a big win on the road Monday night in Charlotte. The optimist says, with any luck and a bit better play they could be on a three game winning streak.
You know what made Monday’s dubya at Charlotte more impressive? The Bobcats are a typical Larry Brown team right now. They play hard and they play together and they have been playing well, recently having lost only eight home contests all season before the Raptors took them down the other night. And for Toronto, they grabbed the fleeting mental toughness that comes and goes blithely in and out of their locker room and held on to it for a night. Yep, there are times that they look weak and soft and leave people saying "what was that?" and other nights, like the middle of the season and Monday night in the Queen City where they come from behind and get wins that leave people shaking their heads saying "who knew they had that in them?"
Seriously, how many of you out there expected Charlotte to wear them down and beat them down on the second night of the back to back? With the win, Toronto has beaten Charlotte two of three times this year and own head-to-head tiebreakers against the Bobcats, who they are chasing and the Chicago Bulls who are right behind them.
Oh and the confidence, there are some nights, about an hour after the game when it’s all over, you can’t tell if they won or lost. But there was no doubt about it on Monday night’s flight from Charlotte back to Toronto. The flight was joyously loud with an overriding feeling of "We got that one and nobody thought we could. We know we’re a good team when we want to be, let’s choose to be all the time".
Let’s see what they come up with tonight against the Los Angeles Clippers.
Ahhh, the Clips, they were once my favourite team when I was a kid growing up in downtown Toronto. Yep on nights when there was no hockey on TV my brother Mark and I often did our homework at the kitchen table listening to hoops on the radio. Hey we had no desk and shared a room, and my parents sat in their chairs not far away ostensibly reading the paper but in actuality supervising homework detail as we all listened to Van Miller calling the Buffalo Braves.
Van was great, he painted a great picture and really made it theatre of the mind, and you know what, many of those Braves teams were great too. You read in the last episode where I got to talk about the baby blue clad Braves with one of their leaders, Bob McAdoo in Miami on Sunday night. Problem was that Jack Ramsay’s Braves were always in tough against the Celtics.
OK, there have been lots of e-mails about Chris Bosh’s rude crowning of Gerald Wallace on Monday night. First off, no shame on Wallace as he’s a defensive guy and defensive shot blocking types get dunked on a lot. That’s the way it goes, just ask Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo, David Robinson, Hakeeem Olajuwon, and many of the great human erasers. They think that they can block every shot and they sometimes get posterized. Look at many of the great "Noxzema" jobs and you’ll find a shot blocker in the wrong spot. Hey, fish swim, birds fly, ball handlers turn it over, and home run hitters strike out, that’s just how it goes.
But the call, the "grill cheese" is something that regular listeners know, as well as its origin , but for those of you that aren’t habitually with us on the radio, a little history lesson for you.
The phrase "grill cheese" comes from the Raptors inaugural season. They are in a game against Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Bulls and it’s a close game. During the course of the game, Jordan "dips" one on Acie Earl and it’s a facial. You’ve read many of the terms used for those nasty dunks, and on the plane ride after the game Oliver Miller comes at Earl with this one.
"Hey Acie, I saw Michael gave you the "grill cheese". I look at Oliver, (yes, I can hear the food references from all of you regarding "Big O") and ask him where does grill cheese come from? He says, "Well, he jammed it in his grill and I saw where (with Acie’s grimace) he was sayin’ cheese cause when that picture comes out, he’s gonna be on the poster," said a laughing Miller.
And thus, the grill cheese was born. And when it gets really nasty, my broadcast partner Eric Smith, adds a side of fries and pickle. Translation, you’ll be tasting that one for a while. Funny, my man "E" did not order up any extra for Wallace the other night. Maybe he should have because that game could be a big one when it’s all said and done.