Holy Villanueva, Batman

In Milwaukee, Chris Bosh catches a Pop Sow foot to the thumb, and leaves the game for good (x-rays come back negative – mild sprain – day-to-day). Charlie Villanueva catches magma (I’m going with “magma”, because “fire” doesn’t really do him justice) and goes Buck-hunting for 48 points (20-32 shooting). That helps send the game to overtime, but we all know how that goes in Raptor-land…

Bucks 125, Raptors 116 (OT)

Toronto’s now 1-8 in O-T this season. A questionable call on Mo Pete ignites Sam Mitchell, who lets out his fury on a ref, and gets the boot. Charlie V’s 48 is the most from any Raptor not named Vince Carter; it’s the highest individual output since 2000; it’s an NBA rookie-high for the season (the previous best was 31 from Ray Felton); it’s the most a Raptors’ rookie has ever scored (Camby dropped 37 in ’97); and last but not least… it’s obviously Charlie’s career-high (previously 27).

Being in Milwaukee… I’ve got no inside dirt on this one… but I assured you, there’s some goodness in this entry… First, I need to go out of my usual order, and skip back to Friday, before touching on Saturday’s practice.

So Minnesota’s in town… Sam Mitchell’s old stomping-squad. Pop Sow starts off with some defensive prowess and gets Kevin Garnett to commit a charge less than a minute-in. That apparently fires up the Raps, who allow only eight T-Wolves’ points in the first quarter – both a Raptors’ franchise-best, and a Timberwolves franchise-low.
Toronto outscores Minnesota 24-8 in that first Q, as the T-Wolves shoot blanks (4/19 from the field).

Later in the game, Minny’s trying to make a comeback… Pop gets tangled up with KG and falls underneath the basket. He “pops” up (for lack of a better word) and begins shoving the former-MVP… getting not only a technical foul, but also the crowd in a frenzy. (There’s something about getting rough with KG that Toronto loves – what up, Bonner?)

Anyway, this one wasn’t really a contest:

Raptors 97, T-Wolves 77

Chris Bosh drops a double-double (17 points, 15 boards) on his 22nd birthday (“I’m just hanging out with the family,” he says after the game. “For real?” I ask. “Yup, just family.”). Matt Bonner gets his first career double-double with 10 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, while Pop helps frustrate Garnett, holding him to 15 points (and only 11 shots).
Mo Pete connects on 5 of his 8 3-pointers, for a game-high 21.

However, the 4th quarter looked pretty ugly at times. In fact, the offense went stagnant (which led to boo’s when the fans didn’t get their free pizza) and was held to donuts for a six-minute span in that final frame.

I asked Sam Mitchell about that in the post-game scrum…

“Was there any concern with the offense failing to organize in the 4th?”
“Well yeah, you want to score, but we were playing well defensively… and if we’re up 20 and we don’t score and they don’t score. I dunno, my math teacher will tell me you win by 20.”

It started off so nicely.

All this time, Boston College was losing in overtime (and screwing up my bracket), so most of the guys took a while in the “shower.” We did speak to Bosh, and Pop… who had this nice little gem about his interaction with KG:

“That’s why I’m here for, just to bring the energy up. I make up my mindset, and coach talk to me about how I have a big game tonight…you know, [KG] was just trying to talk sh!t, and you know I’m not going to back down. I just want to bring the energy, you know… that’s why I’m here.”

So after he’s done… the media relations guy walks over and says something along the lines of:

“Pop, you can’t say sh!t on camera...”
“I said sh!t?”
I quickly interject… “He just wants to let people know, he’s not going to take sh!t from the media.”

Alright, so that’s got salami and cheese written all over it, as Chuck would say… now lets move forward.

Saturday’s practice was quiet. 3 reporters including myself. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I read your comments and e-mails (thank you), and hopefully you’ll be happy to know, that I got plenty of good dialogue for you.

We’ll start with Pop, again… here’s the interview, in it’s entirety:

Z: “Hey Pop, what do you consider to be the strengths of your game? What do you bring to the Raptors?”
P: “You know, energy and helping my team do the dirty work.”

While he’s answering this, he looks over to Bosh, who’s making faces at him. So I say:
Z: “Guys like Chris Bosh… can you teach a guy like him to do something different? Like, can the teaching go both-ways?”
P: “Yeah, you know… they look out for me sometimes to see what I do and keep them up – the intensity – and since I’ve been in the lineup, we’ve been doing very well.”
Z: “Everyone talks about this team being so close, on and off the court, what’s your take on that… how do the guys get along?”
P: “We get along GOOD. You know, this is the best team I’ve ever been on in my life, to be honest. These guys, they’re wonderful. We have fun, we enjoy the company of each other. We hang out, but still, when we come out here we play hard.”
Z: “Does that make things a little easier? You know, you might not have your best game, but you come out here and guys still have your back...?”
P: “That’s the thing, because not every night’s going to be your night. But the thing you gotta do, is just help your teammates do the other things.”
Z: “Now how about guys like Hoffa, you know, it appears that sometimes his confidence is down, and he doesn’t get the most minutes-…”
P: “We talk everyday. You know, I was in the same position. I wasn’t playing at all. Now I’m playing, I’m starting, and I know how he feels. But at the same time, he’s still over here working out hard like I do. The thing is, you can never be done on yourself, because you never know when you’ll get the opportunity to play. That’s why he keeps working hard, and I don’t think he’s down on himself.”

After that, it was the most unpleasant scrum with Coach Mitchell to date… He comes over after a light workout, sees the “Raptors TV” cameras and says:

S: “I’m not doing no promos for Raptors TV… and you…” He looks at me, “Are you gonna ask me the same thing you asked me last night?”
Z: “Probably…”
S: “Well then you can write exactly what you wrote last night.”
Z: “Alright, so how do you carry over something LIKE last night’s effort, against a team like the Bucks?”
S: “…just hope we do… How do we carry it over?...”
Z: “Yeah, how do you carry over something like the first quarter’s performance-?”
S: “I doubt if we’ll hold Milwaukee to 8 points…I doubt that, seriously. So we’ll just go out and compete.”

At this point, I know he’s not going to give me any good clips, so a reporter from the Star pipes in:

STAR: “Have you seen significant improvement in Pop, or is just sort of baby steps?”
S: “Baby. Baby Steps.”
STAR: “What are-…”
S: “Guys, look… one game. Okay? Let’s not retire his number or anything. You know? One game. Y’all their worst enemy sometimes, because they play DECENT, and next thing you know, in the papers the headline says ‘THEY HAVE ARRIVED.’ All of a sudden it sets them back 4 or 5 games. Hey, he worked hard, he played hard, he’s got a long way to go.”
Z: “How about Andre Barrett? What do you like about his game?” (He had just received a 2nd 10-day contract)
S: “He’s got a long way to go.”
Z: “Do you like what-?”
S: “Long way to go. Do you watch the games?”
Z: “Yeah…”
S: “Okay, long way to go.”

Thanks for that.

I also spoke to Andre Barrett about the opportunity he’s receiving, but looking up, I see 4 pages of content… I doubt you want to read more… for now.

But please come back, and keep those comments/e-mails coming. I love them.