Last week, I ran a contest on here giving away a pair of courtisde tickets to the final Raptor home game of the season. The tickets were graciously offered up by Gatorade Canada and the winner was Alex Bogach. Picking the winner was no easy task but Alex managed to get my attention with his entry. The Raptors were eliminated from the playoff race, but all was not lost as a true fan got an experience he won’t soon forget. After a few days to soak it all in, Alex sent me a recap of his night and I had to share it on here.

Notes from the Floor

Jarrett Jack grabs two basketballs and decides to roll one at a kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, sitting a few seats down from me.

“Now give me that back.” Jack tells the kid playfully.

The kid wearing a Raptors jersey rolls the ball back and as he does so, Jack rolls the second ball at him.

“Hey, kid! We need that ball! Come on!” Jack continues.

The game continued on and on with Jack rolling the second ball back at the kid the second he released his ball. The kid got Jack by punting the ball into the Raptor bench on the other end of the court. Jack was even forced to send the Raptor over to keep a close eye on this young fan.

When you sit courtside at a Raptors game, you start to learn a lot more about every player. You can hear them interacting with each other, see them run through their pre-game routine and observe their level of intensity. Jose Calderon was constantly talking and encouraging his teammates and running the warm-ups while I don’t think it is humanly possible for someone to be more disinterested than Patrick O’Bryant. O’Bryant was constantly trying to show off his three point shooting ability…or lack thereof.

I knew I was in the right seats when I arrived at my seats about half an hour before tip-off and Mike D’Antoni and Bryan Colangelo are laughing it up twenty feet away from me.

Some other interesting stories from the game:

• At halftime Jose Calderon and David Lee were engaged in a long conversation. I can only imagine Calderon asking Lee if he’d be interested in coming here next year.
• Another David Lee story— a fan came up to Lee as he was warming up for the second half and asked Lee if he has considered playing in Toronto next year. Lee replied that he hasn’t thought about it yet. And to be honest, I hope he never does…the Knicks interior defense makes Andrea Bargnani look like Bill Russell.
• Sonny Weems and Jarrett Jack were practicing shots sitting down about three seats down from me in the corner during warm ups. Weems and Jack both hit front iron once each. Weems gave the ball to a fan and asked him to try and that guy barely hit the restriction zone…standing up. He tossed the ball right behind me to another fan who after spilling his popcorn asked Sonny how much he was going to give him if he made the shot. Sonny told him to “shoot the damn ball”. But the fan insisted on having something on the line. Sonny replied…”FIVE STACKS! NOW SHOOT THE DAMN BALL!” He missed and Sonny asked for his money, settling for a high five.
• At one point in this game, with the Raptors scoring over 70 points in the first half, I began to wonder if the Raptors could score 200 points today…and then I started to wonder if we would get two slices of pizza for that…
• Danilo Gallinari took a three in front of me and I really thought he was going to fall backwards into me.
• Former Kansas State guard and Celtic, Bill Walker was shooting the lights out (and when you’re running plays for Earl Barron, you better be shooting the lights out) at one point and was going at DeMar DeRozan in one set. Walker was sizing him up and decided to pull up for three. He shot the ball and then looked towards official Eli Roe asking for a call gesturing that he thought DeRozan grabbed his arm. Roe made no call, the ball fell short of the rim and fell out of bounds. Roe then made a call: foul on DeRozan. Not only was there no foul by DeRozan, it was clearly influenced by the air ball and Walker’s complaining. If NBA officials want players to stop bickering about every call, they should stop rewarding this complaining. It is no wonder why writer Bill Simmons talks about player’s ability to “work” officials as a positive aspect of their game.
• A couple of times over the course of the game, you could hear the refs say “get out, get out” to offensive players camping out in the key. I always thought this is was a technique for referees to use at younger ages to teach younger basketball players how three-in-the-key works. One of the officials even reminded Amir Johnson after a play, “Amir, Amir, you gotta get a foot out”. I can understand why the NBA trains their officials to do this as they do not want the game to be slowed down…I just never thought it happened in the NBA until I heard it myself
• I know Hedo Turkoglu said in his exit conference that, “I know I disappointed a lot of people, especially the fans after they watched me many years coming over here and they expect a lot of things from me and I couldn’t do that. I know I upset a lot of people but it wasn’t really on purpose.” But watching him on Wednesday night, he looked really disinterested…not as much as Patrick O’Bryant though…
• I cannot stress how disinterested and complacent O’Bryant was. Joey Dorsey joined the team last week and was more excited than him.
• Before the game someone who worked in the building came to visit the people sitting next to me (I assume he gave them the tickets…) and was just talking about basketball, playoffs etc. He mentioned how Michael Jordan apparently gave the Bobcats a talk before their game about the importance to play hard for the integrity of the league…guess it didn’t work…
• Late in the game with the Raps up big, Toney Douglas inbounded the ball a couple feet down the sideline from me and was guarded casually by Sonny Weems. Weems saw the same kid Jack was joking around with before the game and gave him a look of complete, dead seriousness. Douglas inbounded the ball and as Weems backed off the sideline to guard him and gave the kid a smile…Weems was very friendly and seemed like a likable character

While the fans didn’t get the Bulls loss they were hoping for, they got an entertaining, offense dominated game which was thoroughly entertaining. The Raptors face a lot of questions going into this off-season but my only hope is that I can have another opportunity to see them that close again.

Thank you to Heels on the Hardwood and Gatorade for this unreal opportunity…it was really something special. Now let’s all hope for a successful off-season…

Photos from the Floor

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