(The best thing about searching for random Magic and Raptor
images is that you’re bound to find pictures like the one above. And,
inevitably, some not-too-surprising pictures that you’ll have to see after the
jump.)

Orlando
at Toronto

This is always a good matchup. It was great even a few years
ago when Chris Bosh would come up with games
like these
on Dwight Howard, and it hit a new level last spring when the two young teams
paired off in the playoffs, with a five-game series that everyone but Bill
Simmons seemed to love.

Orlando
won that series, in surprisingly handily fashion-ly. The Magic absolutely
dominated the Raptors on the boards, forcing the Raptors to trade for some
interior help the following summer to shore up their defense and rebounding.
And while those two haven’t exactly come around since Jermaine O’Neal, uh, came
around; the Raptors have played quite well this season at times.

Still, they only have a 5-4 record to show for it. Meanwhile,
the Magic have won seven of 10, as the squad’s defense has been taken to
another level.

Ten games on tonight, so fire away should you feel a fire
coming on.

Orlando Magic: 7-3, 93 possessions per game
(11^th-most in the NBA), 106.5 points scored per 100 possessions (11^th
in the NBA), 100.3 points scored per 100 possessions (4^th). I Can Feel the Fire.

Toronto Raptors:
5-4, 89.2 possessions per game (24^th), 106.2 points scored per 100
possessions (13^th), 106.4 points allowed per 100 possessions (19^th).
Pool Hall Richard.

Shocker:

Bigger shocker:

Taken at two seperate games, though I’m sure you assumed as much.

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According to the Rocky Mountain News, the NBA powers that be have downgraded a flagrant 2 foul against Kenyon Martin to a flagrant 1. K-Mart was ejected in the fourth quarter of Denver’s loss at Cleveland on Thursday after lowering his left shoulder into Cavs forward/pest Anderson Varejao. Referee Joey Crawford flipped, saw K-Mart’s tattoo, and then tossed him. Here’s the incident, via Nate Jones:

Martin also was fined $20,000 for failing to leave the court in a timely manner, which he plans to appeal to the league office. His case’s opening statement: "Joey Crawford hates me, Stu! He just hates me!"

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A look around the league and the web that covers it. It’s also important to note that the rotation order and starting nods aren’t always listed in order of importance. That’s for you, dear reader, to figure out.

C: NBA Blog Squad. Tyson Chandler blogs about the Hornets’ early struggles, his expensive quest to catch a bass, the upcoming birth of his son, and some great advice he once received from Eddy Curry.
PF: True Hoop. Remembering Pete Newell, one of the biggest names in basketball coaching history.
SF: RealClearSports. Something tells me "Shaqtastic" and "Shaqesque" are not in the ol’ Scrabble dict.
SG: Bright Side of the Sun. A look at the post-D’Antoni, added-Shaq, coach-Porter Steve Nash.
PG: PistonsNationBlog. WATCH THIS .GIF of Tay Prince going for a loose ball in LA, try not to giggle.
6th: DB.com. The Mavs have engaged in "casual" conversations involving Kaman, G-Wallace, and others.
7th: The Knicks Blog. Sonny Vaccaro says LeBron James will end up a Knick. Shoals says BAH!
8th: Denver Stiffs. George Karl to A.I.: "Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, ballhog …"
9th: X’s and O’s. To double Tim Duncan, or not to double Tim Duncan: that is the question …
10th: ClipperBlog.com. KA: "Though the Fun Active Gentlemen’s Society [F.A.G.S.] were playing on the Clippers’ home court, the vibe was far more electric than a Clips game. For one, the Clippers don’t play Le Tigre during live action, and they certainly don’t have a bikini-clad muscle dude cavorting on the scorer’s table."

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Sports Illustrated’s Ian Thomsen posted a fantastic article on Friday about NBA injuries, which included his All-Injured Teams, great investigative work into The Raptor mascot’s long list of bumps and bruises, and this classic NBA injury story:

Danny Ainge was the victim of the weirdest injury that I can remember in the NBA. In a 1983 first-round playoff game with Atlanta, Ainge tried to tackle Tree Rollins. Ainge shrieked in pain from the ensuing tangled pile of bodies.

"We got into a little scuffle out on the court by the foul line and he almost bit my finger off,” Ainge said. "He bit it all the way through. I had to get two stitches.”

He raised his right hand to reveal the scar on his middle finger.

"Usually, you don’t put stitches on a human bite,” he said. "But just to keep everything in there together, they had to put a couple of stitches in there.”

Did he realize that someone was biting him?

"Oh, yeah, I knew it was happening,” he said. "Oh, yeah.”

The next day, the Boston Herald published one of the great headlines: "Tree Bites Man.”

It’s a shame Tree didn’t bite Larry Bird, too.

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Today, I have to admit that I am ashamed of myself. I actually think that most of my peers should also feel ashamed and embarrassed as well. See, as a professional basketball player, you’d think that we would be the best at what we do. So when we see a YouTube clip of a CEO beating MJ at a one on one game, we flip out.

Well, I had that same flip-out feeling when Lou Richie, one of the guys I and other Cal hoop-stars (Leon Powe) train with in the offseason, sent me a video of one of his new up and coming stars. Lou trains many high school kids, so he’s always bringing the next bay area prodigy to Haas Pavilion to compete against us big boys and prove just how good his game really is.

The video that Lou sent me had one such prodigy. The kid was a little younger than his usual clientele. He wasn’t 16. He wasn’t 14. He wasn’t 12, or 10, or 8.

He was 5 years old.

And he was a she.

I watched a video of Milan Simon Tuttle, a 5-year-old girl, who can flat-out, hands-down dribble a basketball better than EVERY PLAYER ON MY TEAM. Check it out and see for yourself:

So, now that I have been schooled in the art of the two-and-three-ball dribble by a 5-year-old, I feel like I need to work on my D, because I don’t know when the next pre-school kid will come to the park, throw the rock in my face and say, "Let’s do this."

Thanks for the shame, Lou.

Rod Benson
is a Cal grad and former D-Leaguer who plays for SLUC Nancy, the reigning French league champion. When he’s
not busy in Paris, he blogs one or two times a
week on Ball Don’t Lie. Read his archive, pay a visit to TooMuchRodBenson.com and always support the Boom Tho movement.

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