To The Bitter End

Today is a happy day in Raptor land - it is Chris Bosh's 25th birthday. Now if they can only make his wishes come true with a win over the lowly LA Clippers at the Air Canada Centre this afternoon. Although the game is the first thing Bosh will do today, his mind is probably more focused on his bash after the game.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is uncommon for the Raptors these days. With the team struggling, 1-9 in their last ten games, only 24 wins on the season, this season is over and the players and management need to start evaluating and preparing for the draft and next season. How does a team that has 13 games left (including today) come out day after day knowing that the season can produce nothing? You would hope that the players are professional about it and play hard, try and win, perhaps end the season on a positive, but does that only give false hope to a rabid fan base who is looking for any sign of life? Does that give management a false sense of security?

One goal the team should have for the remaining games is to make them competitive. 11, 8, 20, 11, 10, 6, 8, 9, 4, 26 and 13 are the margins of defeat during their current run of poor form. This is a team that is coming out flat for the second half of games, not executing in-bounds plays properly and allowing other teams to score at will in the paint.

These characteristics might not change before now and the end of the season, so Raptor fans should not be afraid to send the team a message with a chorus of boos when they go down by 15 to the Clippers.