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OK, have you calmed down yet? No? Yeah, me neither. I'm still pretty pissed off. It doesn't help that my 19-month-old daughter kept me up until 4am last night, so I'm angry and tired.
Let's not try to make this complicated — last night was a fucking choke job, pure and simple. The Raptors were tired from travelling and playing back-to-back, and they simply ran out of gas in the second half. The fourth quarter, in particular, was a complete debacle. They shot 3-for-18 and committed five turnovers in the fourth, basically ensuring that the Pacers would make up their 23-point deficit from the first half.
The P.C. thing to say here would be that you shouldn't point the finger at any one particular person, that last night's collapse was a team-wide failure. That, of course, is utter nonsense. I've held back on commenting on him for most of the year, but Hedo Turkoglu has been a pile of shit the last couple of games.
I can't even get any satisfaction out of saying "I told you so" to all the people who insisted I was wrong about Hedo when I loudly proclaimed that his signing was a huge mistake. As the saying goes, he is who I thought he was: an aging, fading, inconsistent, sorta-lazy, overated, overpaid player with only one tremendous skill — his playmaking ability.
My biggest problem with Turkoglu is that he seems to think he's a much better player than he actually is. About a couple of times per game, he takes a terrible shot early in the shot clock that has almost no chance of going in. You don't mind Kobe Bryant taking a shot like that because, well, he's Kobe Bryant. Hedo Turkoglu really isn't that good of shooter and he's certainly not athletic enough to get off the kind of contested shots he keeps on taking. There are few things that infuriate me more than a player wasting possessions, and that's what Turkoglu does when he takes those shots.
Don't even bother coming up with scenarios to trade this guy. With that $53 million contract, he's going to be virtually untradeable right up until his contract year in 2013-14. In all likelihood, we're going to be stuck with this guy as he becomes increasingly useless over the next three-and-a-half seasons. DAMN IT! I FUCKING TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN!
Sorry, that's not very "classy" of me. Let's move on to my other main beef with this team, and that's Jay Triano's egregious insistence of playing Jose Calderon and Jarrett Jack together (a.k.a. "Jackeron") in the last half of the fourth quarter. Jackeron didn't work before Jose got hurt and — surprise! — it didn't work last night. Last night's "Fourth Quarter Jackeron Revue" began with the score tied at 89 with 7:18 to go in the game. Jackeron had zero points and zero assists during that period and the Pacers outscored the Raptors 16-12 for the rest of the game.
We all know this is not an anomaly. Jackeron simply does not work. And yet Triano keeps using that combo and it keeps blowing up in his face. HOW COME ALL OF US CAN SEE THIS BUT JAY APPARENTLY CAN'T?
The truly sad thing about last night's traveshamockery — you know, aside from that whole "blowing a 23-point lead to the fucking Pacers" thing — was that it overshadowed an epic performance by Andrea Bargnani. His shot wasn't falling (4-for-14 from the field, 1-for-7 on treys) but he more than made up for it by grabbing a game-high 17 rebounds and blocking three shots. SEVENTEEN REBOUNDS! HOLY SHIT!
Sorry, my caps lock key is acting up today. Anyway, it's only one game but it's encouraging to see signs that Bargnani can contribute in useful ways when his shot is off, like last night. Nobody expects 17 rebounds per game from the guy, but most of us would be ecstatic if he could average half that. 20 points, 8.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game for around $10 million a season? Yes, please!
The Raptors have the next three days off, and I'm glad. They can spend that time feeling ashamed of themselves and getting themselves ready to hate-fuck the Knicks on Friday. Maybe I won't feel as disgusted with them by then. 
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