Raptors win Raptors win Raptors win

So the Raps won tonight in there 4th preseason game against the Lithuanian league champion Zagliris Kuanas by a final score of 105-99. If was a very close game, with Kuanas up by 5 with 9 minutes to go. In fact, there was 16 lead changes in the second half. Let me tell you that if the Raps lost this game, I would then be worried. With or without Bosh, this teams depth should still be able to win ball games, which they did. Although when you look at who was on the court during crunch time, Delfino/Humphries/Dixon, Mitchell still realizes that it's preseason.

Now I would love to give more information about this game, but here's the deal...

Raps TV had the game listed for 7:00, with an hour pregame show that they normally do and an hour post game show. So 6 oclock rolls around and it is not the normal set up at the ACC (raps tv has its broadcast booth right in the middle of gate 4, it is quite a sight) but the studio set up they use for away games. And it's not the pregame show, but the daily Raptors Tonight show. I didn't notice it at first, thinking that they didn't have the Gate 4 set ready as of yet, but then they kept advertising that the game vs Kuanas would be seen at 11 as a Game in an Hour. Raps TV takes pretty much every game the Raptors play and edits it into an hour long version, and thats what I was getting.

I am very curious as to why this happened.

Update- Alright, I have watched an hour's worth of the game. Despite how close the game was, the Raptors did look better. Let's be honest here...they have played against a jacked up Boston team (in a game where they went REAL deep into the bench threw the 4th) and now three European squads that all have talent, have all been playing together for the past few months and have been putting in 100% effort for the victory. This Lithuanian team was not great, but you could see the effort they put in kept them in the game. Not to say the Raps didn't put the effort in, cause they did. But there is still a few things to work on for the Raps.

Kapono, by the way, started and looked great. He is not going to get the boards the Raps need. Those will just have to come from Bargnani, Bosh and Parker. But there was at least 2 occasions where the Raps got a board, Parker got the ball and threw it up to a streaking Kapono who hits the 3 with zero defense on him. The only negative I can see is that Kapono is going to have to remember that one more pass will get the ball to Bargnani. Bargnani and his long bombs were a no show tonight.

Man I can't wait to see Bosh 100% in this mix.

As for Delfino, he looked good in the 4th. One thing I noticed, that I didn't notice last year, was that if Ford or Jose was not close to the rebounder, Delfino and Parker would get the ball to bring it up court. I think they want to keep that push going, and instead of killing a few seconds finding the PG, Parker and Delfino are capable of handing the ball once in awhile.

Parker still does not have his shot falling, but I do remember last year it took until Decemeber for his shot to get consistent. I don't think it will take that long this year, but obviously he is a player that does need to warm up.

As for other preseason games today...

Dwight Howard is a BEAST! Orlando played Cleveland in China and Howard had a 31 point game. I will stick to my original rankings for my predictions BUT Orlando is looking good so far.

Boston KILLED NY by about 40 points. Pre-season or not, this does not look good for NY and looks great for Boston. So far, so good for the Celtics.

So now that Indiana is going to run, they are posting up 122 points in a game. Of course it was against defensivly challenged Memphis (who put up 115) but regardless, Indiana will be playing a different style this year.

Detroit beat Denvers Summer league squad (Iverson/Camby/Anthony/Martin/Nene did not play)