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Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

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Old 07-26-2015, 10:54 AM   #25
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History


November 7th, 2010




What a game. The Heat stepped into our building to show us they were the better team and, by record, they were. 3-1 is way better than 1-2 — our losses hadn’t been beat downs, but they weren’t pretty. Still, we were coming together as a team and we were building some chemistry.


But this game we all came together. I came out hot and driving down the lane, Jerryd (Bayless) and I were beginning to find a rhythm with one another. He was a smaller guard than I was, had been a former point guard, but he was a natural shooter. I had never seen a shooting motion I liked so much more in game than I did in practice. I hated how he shot in practice, but when game-time arrived that shot looked tons better.


He and I had been cool with each other up to that point but definitely not friends: just coworkers. But this game was the game where I felt Jerryd (and his weird-*ss spelling of his name) and I clicked for the first time. We all clicked. The Heat came onto our floor and tried to push us around with their “star power” in Johnson and Stoudemire, the two saviors of South Beach after Riley swung and missed on LeBron and Bosh.


And Wade. God, Miami was so desperate to prove Wade wrong for leaving, but can you blame him? Riley punted on the offseason for two straight years (and maybe longer) to hoard cap space for Bosh and LeBron, only to watch both go somewhere else? Was Wade really going to stick it out in Miami when Chicago was calling?


That night we were playing in our retro jerseys. I loved — and still love — those nights in the NBA. We got to play in the Raptors first jerseys, the ones that had the dinosaur dribbling the ball (and all those dinosaur teeth) and those jerseys were eyesores, let’s not lie, but they’re endearing now. They were laughable in 1995 (did the NBA not have a legit jersey designer that decade for the expansion teams? Seems like a lot of the expansion teams had drunk executives sketch out crap on a napkin for the designs).


The first quarter was all us, just barely. Amar’e was bringing his A game but he was getting frustrated with Asik and Ed (Davis). The two of them were harassing him in the paint and Amar’e was a scoring, flashy big — not a tough guy. Asik and Ed were tough SOBs (especially Asik).


The second saw the Heat begin to lose their composure. A few mental errors here and there, but they were keying off on me. So I let Jerryd have the ball and let him work it to whomever he wanted — if Miami wanted to freeze me out, let them, Jerryd could work it. And did he ever work it — dude might not have been a great PG, but he could do it for stretches in games and this one he was magic in.


The Heat had no answer. Johnson was trying to cover Jerryd, but Jerryd was faster than his slow *ss and was getting inside, causing Amar’e to cover and letting Jerryd pass out. He found DeMar (DeRozan) for bucket after bucket, and then he started finding me.


By the time the third quarter rolled around, we knew we had the Heat beaten. We knew and the crowd did too, chanting “Beat the Heat!” over and over, every possession in the third and the fourth. And we curb stomped them, frustrated them to no end on the inside, and Amar’e fouled out towards the end of the third — thanks to Ed.


The fourth was the end for them. We just killed them, showed off for the home crowd, and had a ton of fun. We barely called any plays, just let the flow of the game dictate our moves and we won convincingly. We were at .500 and that was going to be the goal all year long, getting there and staying there … it was likely impossible, but this team was looking better than I thought it would after four games.


After the game, the press had questions.


“Boomer, what do you feel was the key to this game?” one asked.


I laughed. “The key? Us being better. We went out there and operated as a team, one body and one will.”


“What’s your opinion on the Heat?”


The media was growing wise to my tendency to just speak out — and I welcomed it. I hated the way the NBA had grown all PC and no one trashed talked in the media anymore. It wasn’t like the NBA I grew up watching in the 90s and early 2000s. “I think they’re slow, probably weighed down by all those big contracts.”


The media ate that one up. We were a rebuilding team with no hopes of the playoffs — I could speak my mind and not worry about a postseason comeuppance.


“Why do you think you’re finding so much success here in the NBA, especially after you went undrafted?”


I knew the real answer to this — because I didn’t want to be drafted by some *hit team or get buried on the bench of a good one. But the NBA wasn’t ready for that truth … it would take a few years to get to that point, at least. “I guess it all came together for me because it was the right time,” I said instead, knowing it was a bland BS quote but one I had to give.


“Boomer, last question: what do you want the other teams in the NBA to think when they see you guys on the schedule?”


I smiled. “I want them to remember what we are: Raptors. We’re gonna do damage and if we don’t get you in that game, we’ll get you next time. The one thing you won’t see from us is mercy. We have no mercy.”
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Old 07-26-2015, 12:19 PM   #26
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

Man, this was a great game. Jumped out to a big lead at the end of the first half but Chicago got it together in the third, came back, took the lead, and we went to war in the fourth. Chris Bosh came through big in the latter stages of this double-OT classic.

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Old 07-26-2015, 05:58 PM   #27
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

43 points? Wow

I still love 2k14. I think it's the best nba2k ever.
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Old 07-26-2015, 10:45 PM   #28
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

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Originally Posted by Gensi2k
43 points? Wow

I still love 2k14. I think it's the best nba2k ever.
I agree, 2K14 is my favorite of the bunch (unseating 2K11 by a slim margin). My rankings for the 2Ks -- 2K14, 2K11, 2K9. I've had the most fun with those.

As far as Boomer's points, 43 is a ton (he's the only reliable offensive threat I have at the moment, though Bayless is a great spot-up shooter) but it was a Double OT game (classic -- Bosh just BARELY came away with the win, if my team was slightly better/more experienced, we would have closed it out) but that's what this season is really going to be like -- lots of tough, close losses, indicative of a team building and on the rise, but not ready for that first leap.
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Old 07-28-2015, 07:24 PM   #29
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History



November 15th, 2010

This was the first game in the NBA I felt genuinely sick about. We were playing the Bulls that night and it was a personal game for the fans, and a personal game to me. Chris Bosh had left the franchise — and the fans, including me — high and dry, just like Vince. Just like Vince, we couldn’t blame him — it wasn’t exactly like the organization did anything good for him. They left him alone in terms of talent.


But he still left. He could have stayed, could have stuck it out. Paul Pierce did that for the Celtics, but Bosh teamed up with Wade in Chicago and here he was. That team was undefeated when they entered our building.


And they left, 7-0, winners. We fell to 4-6 and I felt like we were a lot *hittier than that. We played our hearts out in that game, we took it to not one, but TWO OTs, and we just didn’t have enough. The Bulls won because they were better than us — we traded blow for blow against them but they had three legitimate scorers in crunch time.


And my team? My team had me. I kept taking it, I kept going, and I got damn close to winning this game myself. Jerryd did his part, he knocked down some great triples, DeMar tried to do his part but he got left on an island from deep and kept missing. Then he got scared and drove into a double-team, chunking it up and hoping for a miracle.


No one else on that team could score in crunch time except me, really.


But that night wasn’t bad just because of the loss. It was bad because of the way the locker room was when it was all said and done. Up until that point, no one had really had a problem with me killing it night after night, dominating the ball. I passed to others, others got their points.


Well, everyone but Barbosa.


“The *uck is wrong with you, man?” The guy, three inches shorter than I was, got into my chest, eyes on fire. “You got to score every time up the floor? Can’t pass? Can’t look off? Just got to shoot, shoot, shoot!”


Barbosa got nothing. Zero points. All game. You know why? He was a dick to me. He was a dick to Danny. He was a dick to Ed. If you were a rookie, he was dick to you. He tried to haze us and I told Danny and Ed to ignore him. I wasn’t going to be hazed, there wasn’t going to be any hazing on my team.


Barbosa, the vet, took offense to that. And now he was going to shovel some *hit my way? “*uck you,” I told him, nice and loud. I pushed him away from me and he came flying back to me like a rubber-band.


And then Danny got his big arms around the Brazilian and swung him around, facing away from me. “Lay off, man!”


“*uck him! *uck him!*” Barbosa repeated, his English breaking down into lightning-fast Portuguese.


“Too bad you don’t play as fast as you speak anymore!” I called out to him as I went into the showers.


I heard him slam his locker over a dozen times as I was showering.


As I showered, my mind relaxed and I got to thinking. Barbosa and I weren’t getting along, so he was marked as the guy I was going to trade before the deadline, easily. I was concerned about the lack of low-post scoring for us as well … defensively, we were beyond solid, but offensively it was me and Jerryd most nights, DeMar sometimes, and no low-post offense.


If we were going to be a competitive team we needed to get more well-rounded, more multi-dimensional. Danny and Ed could work on developing their post games as the year went on, but until then it was just going to be me.


I could carry us for that long, but our record indicated we weren’t as far off as I thought. We weren’t that bad. A little better and we might actually compete for a playoff spot this year. But was it worth it if it meant a lower draft pick?


That would be a question that would be on my mind the rest of that night, and I wouldn’t come up with an answer.
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Old 07-29-2015, 08:38 AM   #30
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

Interesting feud with Barbosa

I think that if someone doesn't make his part, rookie or veteran it doesn't matter, he must be sent away. This is YOUR team...
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Old 07-29-2015, 12:15 PM   #31
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

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Originally Posted by Gensi2k
Interesting feud with Barbosa

I think that if someone doesn't make his part, rookie or veteran it doesn't matter, he must be sent away. This is YOUR team...
I like Barbosa IRL, but in the game I just can't play with him. In the last game he blew a wide-open layup (A LAYUP) after a steal and then compounded the issue by fouling the Carmelo on the next possession (and fouling him so poorly Melo made the shot AND got one). I can't play with him. He has to go.

Recap of that game will be forthcoming tonight. We won (it wasn't easy).
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Old 07-29-2015, 09:45 PM   #32
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Re: Raptors Rising: A Toronto Raptors Alternate History

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I like Barbosa IRL, but in the game I just can't play with him. In the last game he blew a wide-open layup (A LAYUP) after a steal and then compounded the issue by fouling the Carmelo on the next possession (and fouling him so poorly Melo made the shot AND got one). I can't play with him. He has to go.

Recap of that game will be forthcoming tonight. We won (it wasn't easy).
I completely forgot about Barbosa's 4th quarter. I'm still trading him, but this was a scoring game all around -- defense was optional till the last four minutes or so, and then the Raptors locked the Nets down HARD.

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