Boston started out in a zone, with KG on the perimeter guarding everyone from Bargnani to Anthony Parker to Ford, while Perk stayed down low on Bosh. From the tip Bosh went right at Perkins every time he touched the ball, but it wasn’t working. He shot 2-for-10 in regulation. Bosh’s stat line looked good (19 pts, 10 rebs, 5 blks), but it didn’t reflect how unreliable he was and how KG (23 pts, 13 rebs, 6 asts, 3 stls) owned him in overtime. On one play KG caught it in the post, paused to fix his rubber band, backed Bosh in and gave him some shimmy action setting up a turnaround J …

Heidi Comes to T-Dot • Dime Magazine’s Blog – FOX Sports Blogs

Wow. Owned. Harsh.

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Mitchell has said the last couple of days that Kapono may not be his starter at the three spot, that the job may go to another newcomer, Carlos Delfino, or the wildly inconsistent Joey Graham, or even to Jorge Garbajosa, whom Mitchell would prefer to play at power forward.

With only two players taller than 6-foot-7, Roma struggled inside where the 6-10 Bosh was able to operate relatively uncontested.

Iceland guard Jon Stefansson hit a 3-pointer to put Roma in front 34-33 and Bargnani replied from beyond the arc a few minutes later as the lead swung back and forth in the second quarter. Christian Drejer was fouled by Joey Graham while shooting a 3-pointer, converting a four-point play that gave Roma a 45-44 lead at halftime.

Drejer and former Celtics guard Allan Ray continued their shooting streak to start the second half and Roma opened up a 65-58 lead toward the end of the third quarter.

Jason Kapono hit four straight free throws to put Toronto back in front 67-66 at the end of the third.

After Ray tied the game at 71 with another 3, Kapono and Anthony Parker

- delfino starting instead of kapono.

- sloppy start. Il Mago missing 2 of 2 FT and bad passes by TJ.

- ukic with a sweet move. somebody should sign that guy!

- allen ray looking pretty good too.

- oh look…Violet Palmer again. Gonna be a long game.

- roko is schooling TJ….2 straight turnovers and on him like a glove.

- the raptors defence is pathethic. Back to the turnstile D.

- how is this for a lineup: humphries, garbo, jose, joey, carlos.

- first fast break basket by the Raptors comes at the 11minute mark.  Suns of the North, huh?

- good first quarter, bit sloppy. Raps are getting caught by lottomatica leaking out. Guess roma has been watching the playoff game tapes.

- best Bargs sequence I’ve seen yet…agressive rebound on the defensive end, runs the floor, takes the ball at the top of the key, puts it on the floor to drive and gets fouled. No reason he can’t do this 10 times a game and hit the free throw line for, literally, 20 FREE throws a game.

- ain’t no d in transition.

- our inability to break the zone makes a nice re-appearance in 2007. I’ve missed you. How’ve you been? See you haven’t changed much.

- bad play by Graham. Horrible foul on a 3pt shot, possible 4 point play. Sam must have just lost a year off his life.

- as an aside, sherman hamilton’s interviews suck large. i think RapsTV let the wrong person go.

- bargs 11, bosh 10.

- parker back in after only 4 minutes in the first half. Wonder if he is the odd man out. No real reason to rest him, is there?

- bargs and bosh are inching toward double doubles

- raps look in disarray to start the fourth, this with a solid unit of Garbo, Jose, Bosh…

- ESPN 2 having technical issues. Maybe Maurizio is pissed at the subpar play and has snipped a few cables.

- great, so the feed finally comes back and we are up 14. What the hell happened?  Oh wait, now it’s 82-75. I love ESPN. They should hire Rod Black.

- oh my god, we have ball movement!! WE HAVE BALL MOVEMENT!!!

- calderon and ukic battling down the stretch.

- 93 – 87 Toronto wins! Toronto wins! Torrrrrrrrrrrrronto wins!!

- sloppy game in a lot of respects, but Sam put the good guys in at the end to wrest away the win.

“If you want to know, 90% of our season-ticket-holders have renewed for 2008,” he almost shouted. “We have 5,500 people on the waiting list, which is more than we have for the Leafs and Raptors. It makes it easier to run the team which has an annual budget of $10 million.

“For the Raptors, we have 3,000 new ticketholders. We are No. 1 in the NBA ticket renewal race. That’s because people see what Bryan Colangelo and Sam Mitchell have done — what with 47 wins and making the playoffs. The future for all our teams is looking up.”

Okay, Tom, but Toronto’s fans are no doubt taking a page from Missouri and saying “show me.”

“Different teams are at different stages in their overall life cycle, and people were anxious for us to do something in reaction to Boston’s changes because we’re in the same division,” Colangelo said. “We just took the (approach) that we’re going to be patient with what we’ve done. We made some great strides last year, and as we look at tweaking our team and improving our team, we want to keep these young guys together. Last year we had one of the younger, better teams, and we wanted to get better from within more than anything.”

The Raptors put out Jose Calderon, Carlos Delfino, Joey Graham, Jorge Garbajosa and Rasho Nesterovic and benefitted against a Boston group that was still learning each other’s names.

“You pretty much know what Rasho and Garbo and Jose and those guys are going to give you,” said head coach Sam Mitchell. “I think we went up 10 or 12 with that group.”

Toronto pushed it’s advantage to 37-27 on the strength of a Delfino triple, but as the Celtics went back to their stars — all three played at least 19:30 in the first half, reflecting perhaps Boston’s desire to get them acclimated as quickly as possible — they managed to take a 43-40 lead into the half.

European teams tend to play different styles than NBA teams and the rules are a hybrid of NBA and FIBA, which rankles Mitchell.

“I would prefer to play against other NBA teams just so our guys can see other NBA personnel, but the schedule is what it is.”

The Raptors have played exhibition games against European teams for more than five years, although this is their first foray to Europe.

“I still think his game is more suited for the NBA.”

Ukic is known now more as a creator on the court than a scorer and there are deficiencies in his game and his body. He’s not a good enough shooter right now, he admits, and he needs to put some muscle on a slight frame.

But the Raptors remain in the forefront of his mind, too.

“They have to tell you what they plan to do with me,” he said. “For me, I just need to … make them to want me more and more. Get more mature in the game and see what happens next year, or in two years or in five years, I don’t know.”

At one point Garnett glared at him – Garnett’s lips moving in rapid staccato that suggested the ongoing delivery of trash talk in Bargnani’s direction – and the young Italian didn’t shrink. He didn’t talk back. He didn’t change his expression from the usual blank. He did, on the contrary, look stronger than ever, convincingly holding off Garnett in the post more than once. Most important, when he touched the ball on his favoured end of the floor, he pulled Garnett out to the three-point line. He stretched the defence. He either created holes or filled one. He had 13 points on six shots.

“This year, I took my time in the summer, came into camp in decent shape, getting in better shape every day and I’ll be able to start the season off right.”

While his words say one thing, his demeanor suggests something completely different. He lashed out at a Toronto reporter (in his unique, semi-serious way) when asked yesterday if he secretly wished the team’s Europe Live 2007 was coming to an end.

“I know why you asked me that, and it’s low-down and devious and underhanded, because you wanted me to say: ‘Yeah’, so you can write: ‘Mitchell’s tired of the trip,’” he said.

More importantly, his left foot, which bothered him most of last year, was fine.

“I’m going to try to play in all the pre-season games, so when the season comes, I’ll be full swing, unlike last year when I was forced to take some time off when I hurt my foot,” Bosh said.

“I feel like I’m going in the right direction.”

* Jason Kapono, Toronto’s big free agent signing, started at small-forward. His range will spread the floor and keep defenses from doubling Chris Bosh in the post.

* T.J. Ford or Jose Calderon? This question comes up each time I watch the Raptors. And I debated it again this afternoon. I like Ford’s pace. But I really like Calderon’s feel for the game. Eventually, the club will have to make a decision on who starts long-term at the one-spot.

More importantly, for the Raptors and their hopes of defending the Atlantic Division title, the few minutes Bargnani then put in before his home crowd were of the highest quality.

After Garnett had beaten the young Italian with an early, devastating baseline move and dunk, drawing a foul and sinking the and-one in the process, Bargnani came straight back at his tormentor on the next possession and drained a long two pointer.