Credit-Mark Blinch,Reuters- canada.com
Coming off of a frustrating 130-115 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Tuesday night, the Toronto Raptors will look to get back to their recent winning ways tonight when they host the lowly New Jersey Nets.
After winning their fourth game of the season one week ago, the Nets have returned back to their awful selves losing three straight, including a 97-93 loss last night to struggling Detroit Pistons. The only bright spot for the Nets in last night’s contest was the return of their talented point guard Devin Harris, who led the team in scoring with 24 and managed to also pick up 14 assists in a losing cause.
Winners of five of their last six, the Toronto Raptors may be without four of their key players tonight – as Jose Calderon now joins Hedo Turkoglu, rookie Demar DeRozan, and Reggie Evans on the Raptors wounded list. Calderon left Tuesday night’s game in the fourth quarter after spraining his ankle in an accidental collision with fellow point guard Jarrett Jack. Via his twitter account, Demar DeRozan also confirmed that he will not be in the line-up tonight, but expects to play Sunday versus the Sacramento Kings.
As usual the Raptors will rely heavily on the performances of big men Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani tonight, both of which are coming off monstrous performances in Indiana. Just off being named the Eastern Conference Player of the Week, Bosh poured in 35 points while pulling down 15 boards, making him an early candidate to repeat this week. Bargnani on the other hand set a new career high in points scoring 34, on 14 of 21 shooting from the field -including 4 three-pointers.
Tonight’s matchup, will be the second of four meetings between the two teams this year and the final at the Air Canada Center in Toronto. The teams previously met in December when the Raptors routed the Nets 118-95, while having 7 players score in double figures. Tip-off is at 7PM EST.
Special Note: Tonight is Fan Night at the ACC, so if you are attending the game you can look forward to a half-time performance by Vanilla Ice. (Somehow I don’t feel like I am missing much by not going to this one)
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them. Go Raps Go!
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