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One game, some things, v3.3:

If there is a theme I’ve picked up in three games it’s this: As the other team goes, so go the Raptors. Against Cleveland, I thought Toronto played well, but my overall impression was the Cavaliers were awful. Memphis? I thought they played great, and Orlando was unbelievable. The flip side is one of the objects in sports is to make the other team struggle. I’m not sure the Raptors made the other team do much of anything.

As much as Bargnani didn’t score in the first half, I thought he played pretty well; in particular he defended Howard reasonably well and most importantly didn’t foul. Very early in the game Howard took him to the left block, got the ball, pitched out, re-posted and then powered hard to the middle of the lane. Bargnani was pretty much overmatched, but he stayed with the play as best he could and at the point he realized he’d been beaten he didn’t foul. Bargnani’s tendency to foul early was a big hurdle in his development and more and more he’s learning to use his fouls wisely and keep himself on the floor.

Someone should roll out the Vlade Divac tapes for Bargnani though. He’s been pretty game in matching up with Shaq, a surprisingly effective – and huge – Marc Gasol and then Howard, but he’s still a couple of seasons of lifting away from really keeping those guys out of the deep post, if it ever happens. It might be time to flop.

So into the Magic dressing room before the game and there’s a very sleepy Dwight Howard holding court. He’s not doing interviews; he’s just bored and looking to chat with the three or four reporters lingering around. First it’s about MMA, of which he’s apparently a big fan. Then it’s mentioned that Ron Artest apparently wants to box professionally when he retires from basketball. Then the question becomes how much money would it take to step in a ring against Ron-Ron. Tough question, as I point out that a clean shot by Ron-Ron might break my face and kill me. Howard says if I trained I could make sure Ron-Ron doesn’t get a clean shot. I’m thinking a lot of professional boxers train their whole lives and give up clean shots all the time. I figure $5-million might be enough.

Then Howard comes up with this one: Would you stand in a ring with a gorilla for one minute for $5-billion? The last time I seriously contemplated this was fourth grade, I think. It’s pointed out to Howard that, pound-for-pound, a gorilla might be the fiercest beast on earth. The possibility is that the gorilla rips you limb from limb before the minute is up. At that point who gets the $5-billion?

Then Howard and Ryan Anderson got into a pretty detailed chat about their pre-game, um, rituals, toilet wise. We’ll just leave it at that.

Then Vince Carter walks in. Somehow the conversation has shifted to Master P; Carter tells a funny story about being Master P’s teammate for a memorable (though before my time) pre-season game during the Butch Carter era. The rap mogul stripped a Vancouver Griz hopeful at midcourt, went the other way and pulled up and made a 1-0 three-pointer. The offending Vancouver player, says Carter, got cut the very next day. Playing with Master P, said Carter, was great: “We had the best music.”

In the midst of this, a little guy is labouring over the Magic’s white board, delineating the Raptors sets; drawing up Orlando’s game notes. “I saw Master P playing for the Fort Wayne Fury in the CBA during the lockout,” he says to no one in particular. “He was awful. Couldn’t play at all.”

The voice, I realize, belongs to Stan Van Gundy who has coached a team to the NBA Finals but still won’t let an assistant do his white board, possibly because he couldn’t possibly find someone to make it neater. It’s a beautiful piece of work.

By the way, a few minutes later Van Gundy told us that Vince would not be playing because of his sprained ankle. “It’s absolutely killing him not to play,” he said, noting that his lateral movement was the problem.

Um, no it wasn’t ,Stan; it was not killing Vince not to play. Carter seemed absolutely jovial in the dressing room in between his Master P stories, and even did some running on the spot, announcing that he could “run the Boston Marathon right here in Toronto.” The marathon as we know, doesn’t require defensive slides.

Funny line about Turkoglu by Van Gundy: “Hedo’s biggest thing is, I don’t know what time they practise here, but 10 a.m. is not his best time of the day. Sometimes he needed a little prodding and sometimes a lot more than a little to get him going in practice, but that’s just him, he’s not really a morning guy. We had some troubles there.