Another struggling, spiraling team makes its way to the Izod Center tonight as the Nets desperately try and get to 10 wins. Sam Holako, from the fantastic TrueHoop Raptors blog, Raptors Republic, has answered a few questions for us, explaining why things have gone south up north.
NAS: The last time the Raptors came to Jersey, they were on an upswing, but they’re sliding back down again and are in danger of missing out on the playoffs? Can you provide any explanation for their schizophrenic season?
The knock on this team was that it was built to outscore their opponent, and not outplay them. When games came down to a defensive battle, most Raptor fans had doubts about the teams ability to make stops, and those doubts had lots of legs. That upswing was the result of the players having a closed door meeting and working things out; but when Bosh got injured after the All-Star game, the team lost 4 in a row, and continued the losing when he came back. Toronto was able to hang on and capitalize on the Hawks mistakes down the stretch, but have otherwise regressed back to early season form against the Thunder. Fortunately we get the Nets tonight.
NAS: Chris Bosh seems to be lashing out regarding his role on this team and how much he’s able to take on. Is his attitude making Raptor fans uncomfortable about his status with this club beyond the season?
In all fairness, he has been getting more than the lion’s share of the blame even though he has producing, very consistently (and at an elite level) for the whole season. When Turkoglu and Bargnani aren’t producing, ducking the media and not having even a finger pointed at them, you can sort of understand his frustration. His comments have definitely concerned me (us), but I still think he resigns with the Raptors after getting courted by a few teams in the summer. There is nothing really new going on, just that it’s in the public now.
