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The end result of last night's game was not a surprise — I predicted a curb-stomping and that's what we got. Cleveland set an NBA record by winning their ninth straight game by a margin of 12 points or better. Kind of an obscure record, but it certainly shows how dominant they are right now.
The most discouraging aspect of last night was how uninspired and unintelligent the entire starting lineup played. Chris Bosh looked defeated out there and hasn't really been himself in the last week-and-a-half — he scored fewer than 20 points in four of the last five games. Andrea Bargnani has regressed back to being a non-factor offensively and on the boards, as he's averaged 7.3 points and 3.8 rebounds over 29 minutes of play. As for Anthony Parker, I hate to say this but I think he's pretty much washed up at this point. He's basically a spot-up shooter now who should be coming off the bench.
There was one moment in the second quarter that typified everything that is wrong with how this team is playing defense right now. Cleveland had the ball and Parker was guarding LeBron James, but then he cheated off him to help in the post. As I saw this transpire, I said out loud, "Oh god, no." Sure enough, the Cavs passed back out to LeBron, who glided down the lane and rammed the ball down.
Look, I'm not a coach and I haven't played organized basketball since I was a teenager so maybe I'm missing something here. But could somebody please explain to me why it would ever be a good idea cheat off LeBron fucking James? I just don't understand it. This incessant need for the Raptors' wings to provide help in the paint doesn't work on any level. Not only are they leaving shooters (or in LeBron's case, flat-out scorers) wide open, but none of our wings are really able to provide any significant help towards stopping decent post scorers, anyway.
The one Raptor who has played well during this ongoing five-game shitshow is Joey Graham. I admit that I wrote him off after last season, and now I'm saying that the man deserves to take Bargnani's place in the starting lineup. Bargnani isn't a small forward, he can't guard small forwards, and he's been a pile of hot garbage during the same time period that Joey has been playing the best basketball of his career. I don't know what kind of organization the Raptors are trying to run, but it seems to me that if you're on a five-game losing streak where the average margin of defeat has been 20 fucking points, MAYBE YOU WANT TO TRY SWITCHING THINGS UP A LITTLE.
Joey Graham has his cheerleaders who are undoubtedly starting to feel pretty vindicated right now. I have no idea if he can keep up the quality of his recent play, but he's in the last year of his contract so let's find out what we've really got here. He's finally playing the way we've been begging him to play for years — with controlled intensity.
Not that I'm actually pinning any of this mess on Jay Triano, but I do have to wonder how bad things will have to get before Colangelo convinces MLSE to suck it up and give him the go-ahead to hire another coach. If it's really Ettore Messina of CSKA Moscow that is his target, I suppose he might have to wait until after the season, anyway. But this period ranks among the most depressing periods in the history of this franchise. I mean, there have been some awful Raptors teams, but we either knew they were awful or they had injury problems. This team is just inexplicably, unexplainably bad and there is no way they should be getting beaten this badly on a consistent basis.
Let's look at some other "bad" teams around the league, shall we? The Pacers come into Toronto tonight with a worse record than the Raptors at 7-13. Two of those wins came over the Celtics and the Lakers. Sacramento is 6-16 and they beat the Lakers by 12 points last night. Washington is 4-15 and they beat Detroit by 13 points last night. Are the Pacers, Kings and Wizards all better than the Raptors? If so, strap in tight because we're in for a long freefall. 
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