If the Raptors' loss in Boston in November wasn't the low point of their season so far - and there is lots of competition for that honour - it was a rough night for many.
It was rough for Sam Mitchell, the Toronto coach at the time, who had to explain why his best player, Chris Bosh, didn't take a shot in the entire fourth quarter; and for the officials, who missed a technical foul when Kevin Garnett - the attention-seeking agitator known for yelling in opponents' ears and getting down on all fours to bark like a dog - wagged a finger in the face of Jose Calderon, the Toronto point guard. But perhaps it was roughest on the Raptors as an all-for-one brotherhood, to use a term favoured by Garnett. Even if the refs had slapped KG with the T, after all, someone in a Toronto uniform should have delivered to Garnett some variety of retribution. An old-schooler connected to the squad later suggested breaking that cocky finger would have been a good start. Even a halfway-hard foul would have done the trick.
The Raptors, of course, made no such sticking-up-for-Jose statement. Their public cowering - Mitchell and Bosh's deference to Garnett's sticky defence - was sad to watch and emblematic of their shakeable nature. They've been playing the patsy too regularly ever since. But if the dream of a turnaround is alive, fans can hope the Raptors, who play Boston in a home-and-home series that begins Sunday at the Air Canada Centre, have been paying attention to the goings-on around the league of late.
Faced with the frothing-at-the-mouth Garnett and his defending champs, opposing teams aren't turtling - they're striking back.
Brawls are not breaking out, mind you, although LaMarcus Aldridge, the third-year Portland forward, slapped Garnett in the back of the head after Garnett jabbed Aldridge with an after-the-whistle elbow late last month. Double technical fouls were assessed and Portland, thanks in part to Aldridge's take-no-guff performance, won the game, part of an ongoing stretch that has seen the defending champs lose six of eight. "You can only take so much," Aldridge told reporters. "I was going to come out physical and let it be known I wasn't going to be pushed around."
It's often said the Raptors don't have the requisite toughness to engage in such back and forth. But the Blazers are no brutes and their story is not unique. After the Charlotte Bobcats beat Boston the other night, D.J. Augustin, the Bobcats rookie point guard, told reporters: "(The Celtics) come in and intimidate you and try to punk you. But if you don't back down from them, they kind of fold."
It'd be easy to suggest the punk is Augustin, but the kid's on point. Not that reality doesn't need to be checked. The Celtics, 29-8 and a half-game behind Cleveland for first place in the East heading into tonight's game between the conference's two best teams, are still awfully good. And these are the nearly inconsequential dog days of a too-long season.
Still, as any child psychologist can tell you, bullying is just a mask for insecurity and the Celtics have their reasons for self-doubt. They clearly miss, for instance, James Posey, the defensively savvy veteran who signed in New Orleans in the off-season, and P.J. Brown, whose late-game shooting pulled the Celtics past the Cavs in Game 7 of the East final. ESPN's Marc Stein has reported the Celtics have considered signing Stephon Marbury, the property-of-the-Knicks head case, which speaks to Boston's confidence in its guard play and its theoretical tolerance of yet more hard-to-respect antics.
Most of the rest of the league, as it happens, seems in no mood to tolerate the Celtics' tough-guys act any more. If the mild-mannered local heroes get the message, maybe evidence of a collective backbone will finally emerge.
