Raptors win big

You poor Chicago fans.

I always, of course, enjoy watching the Raps blow out teams, especially on the road. It was magical what the Raps did to Jersey a week ago. But last night....you just had to feel bad for the city of Chicago.

The boos. The Wave. The Kobe chant. That got into painful to watch land.

The Kobe Bryant rumours has done serious damage to this team. It's easy to forget that the Bulls are a VERY young team, and can get distracted easily by the behind the scenes drama. THe trouble for Chicago though, is that it just really appears like the team has other issues besides the distraction. They just have not looked good at all so far this year. Now, of course it's early. The Bulls started 3-9 last year. But with a long road trip coming up, and a much improved Eastern Conference, it is going to be a lot tougher to dig out of any early season holes. So already at this point, I think it's safe to say that while the Bulls are still a playoff team and should still be a top team at the end of the season, they won't be getting number one seed.

Now as for the team that will be battling for number one spot...

And what about Jamerio Moon?? Inserted into the lineup to match up against Luol Deng (these are examples of why Mitchell deserved Coach of the year), Moon had a break out night in every sense of the word. Tough D, getting the boards, highlight plays, and shooting the ball. From the guy who was 16th man of a 15 player roster 2 months ago, to being the Raptors starting small forward. HUGE. Now, what happens from here? That is a tough question, but I really do feel Kapono should be offense off the bench. I don't know if Moon is ready to become a starter or if that is even something to consider based on one game, but the crazy thing is that I am sure it is being considered. Now what would you have thought if you were told during that battle during training camp for the starting SF spot between Deflino/Kapono/Garbo that the winner would be Jamerio Moon? Lot's of time till the next game, but it's going to be interesting to see what the decision is going to be.

Another note about last night's game. The Raptors looked perhaps the best they have all season in the second half. They killed the Bulls after halftime. But first half though it was not as much the Raptors beating the Bulls but the Bulls just playing really bad basketball. Even Sacramento would have been winning the game last night in the first half with the way the Bulls were playing. SO the Raps do still need to be concerned about getting out of the gates early. 17 or 18 points in the first quarter is not going to cut it.

So we currently sit at 4-3, with a 2-2 record for the 4 battles this week. Well, even though 4-3 is not really great, I did say 2 out of 3 last week and they got it, and with the tough schedule this week I said 2 out of 4 and that got that. I will give a preview of the upcoming week tomorrow, but let's wrap this week up by saying that it was a tough week, but it all worked out in the end.