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TORONTO — Sam Mitchell was not about to divulge his promised starting lineup changes for the third game of the Toronto Raptors' NBA playoff series with the Orlando Magic at the Air Canada Centre tonight.
No surprise. No problem. The Raptors' head coach was merely being consistent in his way of going about things. He was not going to change, even with his team down 2-0 in the best-of-seven series.
It is pretty obvious something must change, considering the way the Raptors played the first quarter in each of the first two games of the series at the Amway Arena in Orlando.
The Magic led the first game after the first quarter 43-23 and won 114-100.
Raptors forward Chris Bosh argues a call with official Derek Stafford during Game 1 of the first-round playoff series against the Orlando Magic. Toronto is down 0-2 to the Magic heading into Game 3 Thursday night at the Air Canada Centre. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
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They led the second game after the first quarter 35-18 and won 104-103.
In the second game, the Raptors came back to gain a short and brief lead and had Chris Bosh in position to take the potential game-winning shot in the final seconds.
Jason Kapono, who might have earned a starting assignment after he came off the bench on Tuesday to score 20 points in 32 minutes 31 seconds, has an observation about the starting lineup.
From his view from the bench, he saw a tendency in the early stages of each game.
"We're just playing too passively," he said. "We're just out there trying to think our way through the game instead of playing it. I think if we play more and think less, I think you'll see a much better team."
The Raptors will play the next two games of the series at home. The fourth game is scheduled for Saturday.
"I think we've got to stay patient, play hard and try to get off to a good start, but we don't have to force anything," Kapono said after yesterday's practice at the Air Canada Centre. "If we start to think too much and try to put pressure on ourselves, [that] isn't something that we need right now."
Kapono, who played for the Miami Heat championship team of two seasons ago, also came off the bench to play 30 minutes 33 seconds and scored 18 points in Sunday's opener.
"I've seen it all, I don't try to panic," he said. "You're down 15, it's a long game. … We were up one [Tuesday] night with two minutes to play. Obviously, each team is going to make a run.
"We want to start well, but we don't have to put pressure on ourselves to try to start well. "
Kapono had not played 30 minutes in a game since March 16, and that was the first time he had played that long since Jan. 15, when he played 32 minutes.
There were games when he played a total of seven, eight or nine minutes in a game. "As a shooter, it's kind of hard," he said. "You only get one or two shots, and if you miss that one or two, you're not going to play the rest of the game. It's tough to play that way, but, hey, I'm ready to play, and if I do play, I'm going to do my best."
It is possible that centre Rasho Nesterovic will not start and Andrea Bargnani will remain in the starting lineup to increase the probability that the Magic's star centre Dwight Howard would cover Bosh, who has an advantage in quickness. That matchup helped the Raptors come back on Tuesday.
Nesterovic played 5:06 in Tuesday's game after playing 35:32 in the opener.
"We just have to come out and play better," Mitchell said. "Understand something, it's not like they're trying to fall down. We are trying to win and I think you can see that by how we've played. As big a deficits as we've had, we've come back and gotten back in the game and had a chance to win.
"In Game 1 we got within five but the game [on Tuesday] we had a chance to win. … So it hasn't been that we haven't played hard we've just made a lot of mistakes."
