Linkage - April 20
It was hard to tell if Chris Bosh was smiling after the Raptors practice yesterday at Amway Arena, or just gnashing his teeth.
Probably a little of both.
he also is livid over comments made by noted TV and radio blowhard Stephen A. Smith, who, in a typical on-air rant, called Bosh a soft player, and described the Raptors’ 6-foot-10 power forward as a Manute Bol with dreads.
"The thing that bothers me most is that every time I see him, I say hello and shake his hand," Bosh wrote. "The comments he made had nothing to do with basketball and I feel that he has something against me and that really makes me upset."
Bosh added that the criticism was not just about the Raptors or his style of game, but were of a personal nature, particularly the Bol crack.
"His remarks were not funny and I don’t understand why he would say something like that about me," Bosh continued. "That just goes to show you that some people will forget about mutual respect and try and bring you down, even if you haven’t done anything to them, just for some attention."
Bosh told the media that while he isn’t really hurt by Smith’s rant, the lack of respect does cut deep.
"If you’re a classless person like that, I guess that shows what type of person you really are," he said.
"Yeah, he crossed the line," Bosh added. "I mean, I’ve been watching (Smith on TV) for two days. He’s not talking about basketball. (He’s) talking about the (Cleveland) Cavaliers and (Washington) Wizards series, and he’s talking about how Big Z (Cleveland centre Zydrunas Ilgauskas) is slow. But we all know the Big Z gets the job done.
"It’s just stuff like that. Talk about the game. Talk about guy’s numbers and matchups. Don’t bring anything personal into it."
"Manute Bol is a good guy," Bosh said. "We’re not talking about anybody that has done anything to anybody. But I guess if that makes (Smith) happy, to try bring other people down, good for him."
Meanwhile, Dwight Howard, Orlando’s star centre defended Bosh, a long-time friend.
"Chris is not like that," Howard said of the comments that Bosh was soft. "He goes out and plays hard every possession. That’s what makes him a great player.."
"I think in order to get to this level, you have to have that supreme confidence in yourself," Toronto’s Anthony Parker said after practice yesterday. "All the great teams have it and I think to a certain extent, all the guys in the NBA have had to have that at a certain point in their careers to get to this level.
"Sometimes, it’s like this guy doesn’t know he’s not supposed to do this, or doesn’t know that he’s not supposed to do that, but they do it. They hit a big shot or they make a good defensive play.
"You can’t go by records, you can’t go by who’s on your roster, you have to go and play the game."
Sam Mitchell, who’s been telling anyone who’d listen over the last week that he doesn’t care about recent history because he knows how good his team can be, termed it "selective memory," the ability to block out all reasoned and recent history and harken back to better times.
"You understand from the time you played basketball, you better have short-term and selective memory because if you don’t, how are you going to make it, man?" said the coach. "How do you make it in this world being a professional athlete or a coach if you don’t have a selective memory.
"How am I going to coach my basketball team when we walked in the third game of the season, we’re 2-0, third game of the season, we go into Milwaukee and we get beat by 40? Guess what I did? I remembered Game 2, when we won by 30."
And as much as the Raptors are playing the series to recapture the feeling of success they had early in the season, the Magic go in hoping to erase memories of a playoff sweep a year ago and trying to earn some of the "respect" up-and-coming teams crave.
"Most definitely a respect factor, they kind of skipped over us in the season and didn’t talk about us very much, but this is where we have to earn our respect," said Lewis. "Cleveland went to the finals last year, Boston’s a great team, Detroit’s won a championship before. We have to win in the playoffs to get that respect.
"I think it’s going to take more than just beating the Toronto Raptors. Hopefully we can go ahead, beat them and go on to the second round. Not looking past them, we know we have to beat them first."
"I think sometimes when you’ve been in a certain situation, you know what to expect and you can adapt to that," said Parker. "But to a certain extent, big-game players are just that. It’s in you. It’s in you to make big plays when it’s your turn to step up and play big."
But Bosh said he doesn’t need to use Smith’s comments to get him more motivated for the series against the Orlando Magic.
"I don’t have to prove anything to that guy, plain and simple," said Bosh. "If that’s what he wants to do, that’s what he’s going to do. If that’s what makes him happy, to try to bring other people down, good for him.
"If LeBron (James) wasn’t doing so well, he’d probably dog him, too. If Dwight (Howard) wasn’t averaging 20 and 10, he’d talk bad about him."
It’s tough to find fault with Bosh’s games against Orlando, since he’s averaged 33 points a game in the two he played against the Magic this season.
"There will be a lot of different guys probably take a run at Bosh, he’s not an easy guy to guard," Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy said yesterday. "You have to give them as many different looks as you can. He’ll see a lot of different things over the course of a series."
Bosh’s biggest task is going to be on defence. For at least some of each game, he’s going to be matched up against 6-foot-10 Orlando forward Rashard Lewis, a three-point shooting threat who’ll make Bosh move away from his defensive comfort zone.
Dwight Howard and Chris Bosh became good friends as teammates on the United States Olympic squad.
They became rivals over video games.
"I remember during the summer, there was one video game we played and the first couple of times I beat him like crazy," Howard recalled yesterday. "He bought the game and practised and practised and practised and he came back and he beat me. We really enjoy the rivalry."
But only on television screens and basketball courts. Howard said the two would "wrestle" every now and then but Bosh wants no part of recalling any physical confrontation.
"I wouldn’t say that," said Bosh. "I might grab him and mess with him, but as soon as he gets for real, I back off. He’s too strong."
Last year’s first-round playoff loss to the New Jersey Nets was a telling study in the team’s limitations. And a year ago, after they dropped a decisive Game 6, there was every reason to believe that Toronto’s disappointed young players would address their weaknesses and come back stronger and smarter and more skilled.
So who’d have thought, 12 months on, they’d appear weaker and slower and, some of them, worse?
Perhaps, for all the hand-wringing about why this team hasn’t been successful – for all the talk of holes in the roster on defence and on the boards – the simple truth is they haven’t put in the labour. And maybe, if this season and post-season won’t be remembered as a progression, they’ll go down as an important lesson.
This Toronto group has been saying it all season: We’re better than our record. Speaking of favourite moves that won’t work in the playoffs, that refrain is running out of runway, and fast. If you’re betting a dime you can’t afford to lose, the Magic take off for round two after Game 5. If you’re in it for long-term gain, a swift tutorial in what it takes – specifically, more than what’s been given – might be worth the price of the springtime pain.
Coach Sam Mitchell said he met with his assistants and found them going a mile-a-minute with ideas.
"I told my coaches they had too much coffee this morning because they were bouncing off the walls," said Mitchell.
And they were apparently delivering the same messages they have for most of the season.
"I was like, ‘First of all, let us calm down,’ " Mitchell said. "For 82 games, we haven’t told them what to do? This time we’re going to really, really, really, really tell them?
"Let me tell you something, I sit in every meeting, I’m there every time. I know what we go over before every game and if I didn’t think that y’all really, really, really told them, I would have spoke up after Game 1."
But Bosh says the series won’t be won from behind the three-point line.
"We know this team shoots a lot of threes, but we can’t get into that," he said. "It’s won in the paint. It’s won with defensive and offensive rebounding and getting easy baskets. You can’t fall in love with that three. You can maybe win one or two games, but this is a seven-game series."
Magic coach Stan Van Gundy wouldn’t say who he’d put on Bosh, a tough matchup for a team without a true power forward. Rashard Lewis slid into the position after Tony Battie’s season-ending shoulder injury, but isn’t Orlando’s best defensive option. Howard had trouble when Bosh faced up on him in the team’s second of three regular-season games, when the Raptors star scored 40.
Orlando-Toronto? This is your off-Broadway portion of the NBA playoffs. Boston and Detroit are playing Carnegie Hall; the Magic and Raptors are playing the Elks Lodge. Boston and Detroit are driving in the Daytona 500; the Magic and Raptors are in the Saturday night demolition derby at Bithlo Speedway. Boston and Detroit are considered the beasts of the East; Orlando and Toronto are considered the deceased of the East.
Here’s all you need to know about the Magic-Raptors: In their composite 30 years of NBA life, they’ve either not made the playoffs or lost in the first round 27 times.
It’s no wonder two of the first four games of this series are being televised by NBA TV. For the novice who is unfamiliar with the history of sports-television’s pecking order, NBA TV ranks slightly above The Bowling Channel and slightly below Mizlou.
They’ve not won a playoff series in 12 years and have been beaten six straight times in the first round. If they were boxers, the Magic would be nicknamed Glass-Jaw Jake for the number of times they’ve been TKO’d in Round 1.
The time is now for them to finally end their reputation as playoff patty-cakes. The Magic have home-court advantage for the first time in nine years and are facing a team that slinks into the playoffs with a 41-41 record and a 7-13 mark to finish the regular season.
The Raptors believe they are better than their record indicates. They believe they are finally healthy after being victimized by injuries this season. They believe they match up well with Orlando.
The Raptors would never say it publicly, but the Magic are the team they secretly hoped to draw in the first round.
Point guards Jameer Nelson and T.J. Ford — smallest men on the court today — each will try and balance the need for creativity with the need to protect the ball against turnovers, the dirtiest word and the deadliest sin at playoff time.
Rashard Lewis and Anthony Parker, two of the best long-range shooters in the league, will fire away without conscience, knowing a hot hand could turn the series one way or the other.
Yet still it’s no secret that when the score is close in the final seconds — as playoff games usually are — that Turkoglu will have the ball at the top of the key, playing a point-forward role and looking to create a game winner.
Another reason for Turkoglu’s importance is that he likely will be guarded by Toronto rookie Jamario Moon, who never has been in a playoff game. Forward Rashard Lewis will be focused more on slowing down Bosh. Nelson will be working to contain Ford, a speedster who has hurt them in the past.
Much of what the No. 3 seeded Magic do will be determined by how the No. 6 seeded Raptors defend Howard inside. If they leave center Rasho Nesterovic to guard him alone, Howard will dominate the offense. If they double team him, like most teams do, the Magic will rely heavily on their outside shooting, which was among the best in the league.
I’m going with Toronto because Chris Bosh can hold his own against Dwight Howard, and the Raptors point guard tandem of T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon is much better than the Magic’s guards.
Consensus Pick: Magic in 5
Picking the Magic [# of games]
RH: [5] I don’t see how the Raptors are going to slow down both Dwight Howard and Hedo Turkoglu. It’s just not going to happen. The Raptors don’t have the interior defense to make this one even competitive.
wd: [4] Toronto has just not been good this second half of the year.
Redz: [5] I have it stuck in my head that both of these teams are soft. Toronto’s softer and will go down hard to Orlando. Howard will have his playoff day in the sun. Just don’t call him Superman anymore please.
Don: [5] Toronto’s soft and its going to show here. Howard will kill them down low and I expect Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu will each have nice series.
SW: [6] I’m not necessarily any more sold on the Raps overall than Dons, wdleehi and Roy seem to be, but with that said, I’m wary of overlooking the factor that could throw a big-time wrench into the proceedings here: Point guard play. If there has been one particular knock on the Magic all year, it has been the lack of consistency and leadership at the point. Ultimately, of the two teams in this series, one has Howard and Turkoglu, and the other doesn’t, so I’m sticking with that team. But I’m not as willing to count Toronto all the way out.
G17: [7] Potentially a compelling series if the Raps can do enough to limit Dwight while staying close to the Magic’s shooters. I don’t think they can pull it off in the end though.
Edgar: [5] One win at home its all Toronto can manage in this one. Dwight will make Bosh look bad, but this series will be all about Calderon, and he’s not enough.
Picking the Raptors [# of games]
IP: [6] The Orlando Magic are the better team, but they aren’t ready. Jameer Nelson isn’t ready and that will make the difference. Sam Mitchell’s savvy sense of style prevails along with Calderon’s MVP performance for the first round.
Many believed Mitchell was out-coached last year by Lawrence Frank in the opening round of the playoffs against New Jersey. Now, head-to-head with Magic coach Stan Van Gundy, Mitchell may again come up second best.
If the Raptors lose out in Round 1, that’s expected. But if the Raptors lose without putting up much of a battle, Mitchell’s future will undoubtedly be discussed.
It’s clear Bryan Colangelo, the impatient general manager, won’t sit still and watch this team decline. That isn’t his way. Which puts Mitchell on the firing line for the second year in a row.
Like every other team in the postseason, defense is going to be huge for the Raptors. Orlando tends to fall in love with the three-point shot, the Toronto players need to make sure they’re contesting every shot. That will lead to long rebound and allow Ford and Calderon to get out and run a little, leading to easy baskets.
They also can’t let Dwight Howard get comfortable and dominate the series. They have to send double teams quickly and force him to turn the ball over. If they allow him to kick the ball out to Turkoglu and Lewis the series will be over before it starts. Toronto has to find a way to take Howard out of the game.
Predictions: Jarrod Rudolph is going with Orlando in six games; Preetom Bhattacharya is taking the Magic in seven.
I’m going on the record and saying Raptors in six. There’s nothing the team has done to make me think we’ve got a fly’s chance in a lizard factory (y’know, where they make lizards) of moving past Orlando. But I just have one of those gut feelings - it kinda burns, kinda aches, and it means I think the Raptors will win.
The Raptors are the better team on paper, but the Magic had the much more impressive season. A lot will ride on the point-guard play of Ford and Calderon, but more importantly, on whether the Raps can contain Dwight Howard. Orlando has home court and is an excellent road-team, one of the best in the league in fact. It sounds like it all adds up to a Magic win and another disappointing first-round exit for Toronto BUT the sea of red in the ACC will leave happy because what should happen, won’t happen. The Raptors will split the two opening games in Orlando, most likely a stunning victory in game one, and then ride that to a series victory in six games.
MY PICK: RAPTORS IN SIX Toronto will prove to be the kryptonite to Howard’s Superman.
This team can definitely be beaten. The question is, are the Raps the team to do it? One way to look at a series is to evaluate the match-ups. So the HQ has looked at the match-ups for the starting fives in this series.
I really think the first game will be key to the Raptors success in this series. Both these teams don’t have any sort of proven track record with these rosters and it will be important to see how both these teams come out and play, in particular the Raptors. Toronto struggled mightily over the final two months of the season and you’ve got to think really wanted to play the Magic in the first round. Well, they got their wish, but it won’t really matter if the Raptors play like they did over the final two months.
My analysis on the FAN 590 broadcasts and insight is based on gaining knowledge of what is expected versus what the final outcome actually is. I can tell you why a play did or didn’t work. I can tell you if somebody was in the right or wrong place. I can talk about different defensive plays or match-ups, or weigh-in on why I think a coach did or didn’t play a guy a certain time of the game. Again, some like the work I do … some don’t.
But what kind of broadcaster would I be … and what kind of respect would I have from the viewers and listeners if I simply went on the air and talked about (for example) how bushy somebody’s beard is … or how unattractive a certain player may be.
That’s not basketball. That’s not analysis. That’s JUVENILE.
Stephen A. just set guys like me back a few pegs for his immaturity and his poor attempt at “humor”. In fact, he set us all back. Because … even if that had been a “former player” or “former coach” to make that comment … it still wouldn’t make what was said any better. It would still be lame and in bad taste.
And the sad thing is … we’re talking about THIS … instead of GAME ONE!
Brutal.
I even took time out to have some fun, joking around with my colleague, Jalen Rose, about the Toronto Raptors’ playoff series vs. the Orlando Magic on ESPN’s NBA Shootaround show. When Jalen talked about Bosh needing to toughen up, I said, "It’s too late for all of that. He’s Manute Bol with short dreds" — alluding to Bosh’ slim physique. That’s all I was doing. I swear.
Unfortunately, Bosh took it personally and, from what I’ve heard (I haven’t seen it yet) called me out on his website.
For the record, I’ll take whatever he says. I’m a genuine fan of Chris Bosh, from my personal interaction with him to all the wonderful things I’ve heard about him from coach Sam Mitchell and President/GM Bryan Colangelo. I think he’s a phenonmenal young player and one of the most humble people I’ve ever known in the NBA. I was just having fun and didn’t mean to offend him in anyway.
Sorry Chris!
Now get over it and let’s get back to talking about the playoffs.
Magic vs. Raptors: Magic in 7
*This will be a highly competitive series. Toronto has a lot of skilled players, although they are a bit too soft for comfort. Problem: They don’t have Dwight Howard, nor do they have home-court advantage.
The most compelling (yet least respected) first-round series in the Eastern Conference is now officially underway. Discuss the first game here. The new comment interface means you don’t have to refresh your page at all; it’s truly a live thread.
Will the Magic win their first playoff game since 2003? We’re about to find out.
Go Magic.
I think I’ll go with Dwight Howard at home in the Magical Kingdom against Rasho Nesterovic and the Craptors.
In style, the Raptors and Magic are similar. They have surrounded young front-court All-Stars (Howard and the Raptors’ Chris Bosh) with dangerous 3-point shooters.
"We have similarities, but we have Dwight Howard. I think he’s the most unique player in the league right now,” said Keyon Dooling. " I think they have one of the best point guard tandems in the league.”
The tandem of T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon has been a big plus for Toronto. They split the minutes right down the middle, with Ford providing more scoring and quickness and Calderon better passing. Calderon’s assist/turnover ratio (5.44) was the best in the NBA. He played his final 142 minutes without turning over the ball.
So why are people who are taking the Magic saying they will win in like 4 or 5? You got me because these teams have always had great battles in the past couple years and have never had to many games that were not very competitive.
What Toronto will need to do to win the series: Get the 2-headed point guard (Jose Calderon/T.J. Ford) more involved as they can shut down Jameer Nelson, if used wisely. Bosh should be able to succeed against Turkoglu as Hedo isn’t exactly known for his defensive skills.
Prediction: Orlando in 6.
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