So just to give you an idea of how bad the Raptors were in the first half as Reggie Evans led the Raptors in scoring with 11 and had 7 of the Raptors 19 in the half. While the Cavilers were led by J.J. Hickson who had 21 points in the half along with 4 boards and in the first quarter the fattest point guard in the league had 8 assists which is huge for him and had 8 points and 9 assists in the half as the Raptors shot just over 30 % in the first quarter and one of the worest scoring team in the NBA Cleveland Cavilers shoot 60 % in the first quarter. The Cavilers shoot just less than 60% and the Raptors shoot just less than 37% and the Cavilers had 19 boards and the Raptors had 17 boards as the Cavilers lead 60-40 at half time and it looked like I was buying someone a donut.
The third quarter ended nicely for the Raptors as the Cavilers missed 14 of their last 15 shoots in the quarter and the Raptors went on a 15-8 run to end the quarter as the Cavilers lead going into the fourth quarter 77-64 and then James Johnson comes from behind to try and block a Joey Graham lay-up and is a split second to late and gets Joey's arm on his follow through. Then Joey Graham gets up like a bat out of hell and charges the black belt known as James Johnson and DeRozan and Bayless corner Graham until his teammates can get him to the bench and I was feeling good going into the fourth quarter as it is the woeful Cavilers as they only have 17 wins this season. The is if the Raptors win I win a donut and I think they can win foolish me so I watch the fourth quarter as they get it down to 5 @ 81-76 with over 8 minutes left and I'm chant "I want donut, I want donut" but the Raptors can not close any closer as the Cavilers find their shot and just keep hitting big shots as the Raptors can not defend well enough to challenge shots as Baron Davis has 11 points and 3 assists in the second half and J.J. Hickson gets 6 more boards and 7 more points. While Jerryd Bayless came to life offensively in the second half with 23 of his 28 points but had only 3 assists in the game while DeRozan most of his 19 points in the second half but it came down to bad untimely shoots from people like Alexis Ajinca late in the game but his 23 minutes of playing time most of felt like 4 or 5 games and his 7 boards were nice but like Andrea you wonder why is a 7-footer out at the 3-point line.
In the end ...
Reggie Evans left it all on the floor and was really the only Raptor working in the first half and ended up with 15 points and 13 boards in the game but too many passes to him it is not a smart idea to pass to him as it will be turnover more often then not. Then there is this thing that I seen this before and I did in Cleveland I believe earlier this season and then a guy named Julian Wright came off the bench and turned the game on its ear and the Raptors came back and won the game but Julian Wright is not the same player that he was then he looks disinterested and feels that there is nothing he can do to get himself more playing time. It is nice having Jerryd Bayless scoring 28 points but then I think if I wanted A.I. than we would of had the first pick in the 1995 draft (it was are pick the balls landed in are favor but for some reason the decided that the Canadian teams could not have the first overall pick for like the first 2 or 3 seasons and it was just after year one) but I had no interest in a ball hogging point guard then and still don't now. So Cavilers did us a favor by shooting 69 % from the line but the Raptors only shoot 65 % from the line which is bad because usually the Raptors are a lot better than that as Reggie Evans is are worse shooter by far and then everybody else is pretty good or OK from the line.
3 more games left then maybe we can see where this off course ship is headed
Tom Mehegan
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