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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — With the Toronto Raptors' best player sidelined for a week at least, head coach Sam Mitchell didn't have expectations that someone on his team would fill the void left by Chris Bosh.
He hoped merely that those remaining would each do his job and whole would be more than the sum of the remaining parts.
Easier said than done.
With Bosh sidelined with a minor knee injury, the remaining Raptors seemed diminished by the burden rather than invigorated by the opportunity as they were blown out by the woeful Charlotte Bobcats 110-98 Sunday night.
Kris Humphries of the Toronto Raptors tries to stop Earl Boykins of the Charlotte Bobcats during their game at Bobcats Arena on Sunday in Charlotte, N.C. The Bobcats won 110-98. (Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
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- Charlotte Bobcats
- Toronto Raptors
- Andrea Bargnani
- Primoz Brezec
- Matt Carroll
- Jermareo Davidson
- Jared Dudley
- Jeff McInnis
- Rasho Nesterovic
- Emeka Okafor
- Anthony Parker
- Jason Richardson
- Gerald Wallace
Far from stepping up, most of Bosh's teammates seemed to take a step back. The loss, the Raptors' second in a row, dropped Toronto to 32-26 as Charlotte won for just the second time in 14 games.
The evidence was nowhere more obvious than on the glass, where Toronto gave up 18 offensive rebounds, which contributed to the most galling number of all: Bobcats' second-chance points 32, Raptors 0. That's the largest differential since the NBA began keeping the statistic in 1996.
"Do I need to state the obvious? Thirty-two points on the offensive glass, man," Mitchell said. "We didn't box out. We didn't do the tough things. They just beat us up on the glass. Our defence [was all right], but when it came to doing the tough things, getting in the paint, we didn't do it."
The Bobcats did, even if only 12,083 fans bothered to show up at the Bobcats Arena.
Jason Richardson (30 points), Matt Carroll (15 points) and Raymond Felton (17 points and eight assists) may not be an all-star trio of perimeter players, but they had little trouble making it into the paint and getting all the way to the rim against the Raptors.
That breakdown had the Raptors' big men rotating to help and opened up rebounding lanes for the Bobcats' bigs.
"Maybe we weren't paying attention to that," offered Rasho Nesterovic, who got the start in place of Bosh, pushing Andrea Bargnani to the power forward slot and had a season-best 16 points and five rebounds. "We were paying attention to the screens and not getting back in time. Once the big guy gets position inside, it's really tough to take him out and get the rebound."
The defensive rebounding woes were magnified because in the absence of Bosh, no one seemed ready to take up the slack in other areas.
By the end of the third quarter, starters Jamario Moon, Bargnani and Jose Calderon had combined for 13 points. T.J. Ford, the erstwhile spark plug from the second unit, was pointless. Jason Kapono had made both his shots, but had earned only nine minutes for his trouble.
The result was the Bobcats, who went into the game winners of one of their 12 previous, started the fourth quarter with an 82-70 lead — and this without perhaps its best player, swingman Gerald Wallace, who was out with a concussion.
Could an exciting rally be in store? Hardly. The closest Toronto got was nine points with just less than five minutes to play, and Charlotte promptly went on a 12-0 run to stretch its lead to 19 points with 90 seconds to go.
Toronto was decent defensively, holding Charlotte to 42.6 per cent shooting, while shooting 51.4 per cent from the floor itself, but the Raptors didn't finish off plays at the defensive end and the Bobcats were there for easy baskets.
Things seemed so promising in the early going. Nesterovic, of all people, sparked the Raptors with 13 points in the first quarter with six of seven shots, making a combination of jumpers out of pick-and-roll situations and a couple of inside half-hooks when he did dive to the basket.
Anthony Parker stepped up with nine of his team-best 24 points and perhaps most shocking was Joey Graham, who chipped in six in a rare first-quarter cameo subbing for ineffective Bargnani as Toronto led 32-22 after the first quarter. But that was the high point for Toronto.
The problem in the absence of Bosh wasn't scoring, but trying to keep the Bobcats from scoring. Usually, Charlotte does that on its own, as it ranks 25th in the NBA in scoring and 20th in field-goal percentage.
But against the Raptors the Bobcats made up for it with some plain old effort. They hustled to a 26-17 advantage in the second quarter and the Raptors needed a runner by Moon from the top of the key at the buzzer sounded to take a 49-48 lead into the half.
