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Their coach can question their toughness. One of their captains can question their commitment. They can set an NBA record that pretty much screams they didn't try very hard.
And in the end, it probably doesn't matter.
The Toronto Raptors aren't a basketball version of a country-club kid, surfing a wave of silver-spoon entitlement.
They're more like the product of a well-meaning upper-middle class family. They get all the right lessons. Their parents keep in touch with their teachers. They've been taught their manners.
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- Boston Celtics
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Detroit Pistons
- Indiana Pacers
- Los Angeles Clippers
- New York Knicks
- Orlando Magic
- Phoenix Suns
- Toronto Raptors
- Washington Wizards
- Chris Bosh
- Dwight Howard
- Steve Nash
- Anthony Parker
They're good kids, nice kids.
And if someone mean slaps them around and takes their lunch money every once in a while? Well, shame on them, Johnny. Here's another dollar and maybe cross the street next time.
Such is life in the NBA's Eastern Conference. As a youngish team with some holes in the roster — a beasty-type rebounder and a physical, slashing small forward — there are perfectly good reasons why they are only vaguely in the same league with the Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons and, in all likelihood, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
And as a youngish team with some impressive talent and good depth, it's also unlikely they'll end up missing the playoffs, or even slip to the seventh or eighth seed and a first-round date with Boston or Detroit.
They are neither burdened by unrealistic expectations nor driven by irrational fear of failure. They are sheltered by NBA geography.
The Raptors' pattern has been firmly established: defend well and shoot well and they can win against nearly anyone and often win big. Do one and not the other and they're at least competitive night and night out.
But what happens when they mail in a couple of games, as the Raptors did against the Indiana Pacers at home last Friday and on Sunday against the Bobcats in Charlotte, where they set a NBA record by recording not a single second-chance basket, while giving up 32 second-effort points to the woeful Bobcats?
Well, nothing really happens.
Oh, sometimes they get all bothered and bounce back in shame. Embarrassing losses to the short-handed Washington Wizards, Los Angeles Clippers and New York Knicks of late have inspired blowouts in response.
But the reality is, thanks to their cozy Eastern Conference address, there is no immediate consequence for losing games that could have been won.
In the West? Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns have muddled along with five wins and five losses in their past 10 games and dropped to sixth place from first in the standings and are now only three games out of the ninth spot.
It's silly to suggest that an already-average rebounding team minus their best rebounder — Chris Bosh, who is sidelined with a minor knee injury — can simply solve their problems by trying harder.
But as they face the Orlando Magic tonight — a team 4 1/2 games ahead of them in the standings and a team the Raptors would like to catch — the Raptors have to be at least be open to the idea of giving more of themselves, knowing that Magic centre Dwight Howard got 10 offensive rebounds all on his own against them last week.
But are the Raptors really open to laying it out there a little bit? To getting dirty? To making another team uncomfortable?
They haven't really had to this season, so who knows?
"We just have to have an urgency to get it done and know that we're not going to get where we want to go if that doesn't change," Anthony Parker, one of the few Raptors who has stepped up his game since Bosh has been out, said after the loss in Charlotte. "It's not effort, it's that mentality and that hasn't been there."
Mitchell said the other night: "The tough things? We didn't do them. We didn't box out, they beat us up on the glass. … There's nothing to say. It's happened to us before. It's happened to us too much."
This time a week from now, the Raptors will have left the friendly Eastern Conference behind for a nasty five-game trip in the West, where they'll be viewed as fresh meat in one of the most ruthless playoff buildups in NBA history.
The way they're going, their lunch money will be gone and their dignity, too. And there will be no safe side of the street to run to.
Reality can bite.
