Hornets come in with a 12-13 record, but are as jeckyll and hyde as the Raps - 10-3 at home and 2-12 on the road.

But who's going to be stop C. Paul?

Is Jose back for this game? He'll stop Chris Paul no problem.

would raps games be more bearable if we had a better colour guy on the broadcasts? leo sucks. he should stop this "that's an international matchup" shite

on another note, marcus banks might make some sense for us, he seems like he's somewhat athletic.

Good to see the "desperate" Raptors sleepwalk through another first half of a very winnable game. Chris Paul can hardly move and we're blowing layups left, right, and center. That said, New Orleans isnt very good, we can definitely win if we apply ourselves and concentrate for longer than a few minutes at a time.

I don't think so, our schedule is too tough to stop Chris Paul.

if we were going to be an actual good team 4 years from now, i think while bosh/calderon/bargnani would probably have to be gone from our roster for that to be possible, guys like weems, derozan and johnson certainly seem like they could be good contributors. in that little stretch that began with the oop from weems to derozan, they all seem like they're bringing the energy (although their relative youth makes it somewhat unfocused at times).

i'm also always amazed when weems hits those turnarounds over his left shoulder-- that's a hard shot to be accurate with unless your footwork is really good.

as a "silver lining" guy, at least we have that

The Raptors are doing absolutely EVERYTHING to blow this game - but Bosh is playing like a beast.

Maybe there is a slimmer of hope for this season - we would have definitely blown this game a few seasons ago with the comedy of errors, turnovers, missed jumpers, and blown defensive assignments in the last five minutes.

As far as effort goes, though:

Bosh
Weems
Johnson

That was a solid game, with solid minutes from Banks too .

I'd like to see an All-Athleticism lineup out there sometime:

PG: Jack
SG: DeRozan
SF: Weems
PF: Bosh
C: Johnson

That lineup's pretty balanced with offense, energy, and hustle to be able to make some good runs.

Let's hope this becomes a long winning streak, because we (players and fans) certainly need it.

Didn't catch the game but I'm hearing that Banks did a decent job defending Paul. Is he generally considered a good defender? Since we already have so much offense we could prolly stand to just play him a lot for defensive needs.

it seems like banks at least has the quickness to guard a guy like paul. there were a lot of times in which he still looked way too upright, but at least he wasn't in matador mode.

while the pessimists would remind us that we almost blew a game to an atrocious road team who was missing their star player for some of the game, i still think there were some positives. our young energy guys looked good. they made some mistakes but made up for it with hustle.

Energy was great!!! Amir was one of the best players on the court, hitting the glass big time. Bargs was also good on the glass and even played some good help-side defence to close out the game. The Raps need to keep the energy up & that is exactly what Weems, Amir even Banks bring off the bench. Weems has taken all of Marco’s playing time & for now I’d say it will stay this way. Weems just brings more of what the Raps need then Marco. Ditto for A.Wright.

Also was good for the Raps that CP3 was hobbled. He can win a game on his own.

I just watched the Bulls blow a 35 point lead in the second half to the 2-11 Sacramento road team.

I don't think I can ever criticize the Raptors again after watching that...

The 2-11 road record for the Kings is misleading. They played harder than the raptors in Dallas and San Antonio, dropped two real close ones in NO and they are just coming together. tyreke evans is a beast and I would trade bosh And Bargnani for him right now.

Evans is an absolute beast. The Kings ran the same iso play for him five times down the stretch, and he got a basket or fouled every time. I've never seen Bosh control a game like that. If Griffin pans out and Rubio comes over and plays like people think he can, with Jonny Flynn and Brandon Jennings as well this will be remembered as a draft class right after the 2003 draft. What is clear though is that Evans is headed into max territory for his next contract.

especially with the rule changes/interpretations circa 2004 (the ones that enabled the phoenix suns to do what they do), fast point guards who can shoot have become the most important players on the floor. i hope we get one of those eventually

Just so everyone doesnt cream their pants over the Kings. They have had the easiest schedule in the NBA this year. Not saying they arent impressing just dont get carried away.

Schedule,shmedule, I will put a raptors uni on their entire roster right now and give Sactown our collection of softies in return.

Paul Westphal schooooooolllllleeedd Del Negro. PW is a big time coach. He substituted like crazy against the bulls until he found the combination he was looking for. Think Jay can do that for us?

The Kings are becoming a bit of Binky for me, I really like the young core their working with ala the Bulls. I look forward to watching them this year and yes Evans is a monster I grossly underestimated him.