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 Geplaatst: 24-03-2020 09:21:38 Onderwerp: NEW YORK - The basketball gods have spoken, with an assist |
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| NEW YORK - The basketball gods have spoken, with an assist from Jason Kidd. Jaquiski Tartt Super Bowl Jersey . The Toronto Raptors will open their first playoff series in six years at home to the Brooklyn Nets at 12:30 PM et Saturday afternoon. The Raptors learned their fate early in the second half of Wednesdays season final - a 95-92 loss to the Knicks - when Chicago fell to Charlotte in overtime, assuring Toronto would finish with the third seed in the Eastern Conference. Brooklyn had been red-hot, winning 33 of 46 games - the second best record in the East since Jan. 1 - until they dropped four of the last five contests, conceding a division title to the Raptors and ultimately falling to sixth place. Their last stand in Cleveland suggests that the late-season collapse, or at least the latter half of it, may not have been an accident. Kidds Nets squandered a couple of opportunities to lock up the fifth seed, setting up a likely matchup with the surging Bulls, on the final two nights of the campaign. On Wednesday evening, with four teams jockeying for playoff seeding, the Nets rookie head coach opted to sit all five of his starters, suiting up only seven players in a winnable game against the lowly Cavaliers. They would go on to lose by 29. "In my experience, youve got to be careful what you wish for," Dwane Casey cautioned ahead of Wednesdays finale. "You think you want to play a certain team then you start preparing for them and say, wow that teams pretty good. Then youve got a dogfight. I think the best way to approach it is let the basketball gods decide." Faced with a similar decision, Casey - who was an assistant in Dallas when he and Kidd won a championship together in 2011 - chose to play his stars against the Knicks and compete to win. Thats just one of the factors that separate these two teams, that creates a trace of animosity going into this weekends first-round matchup. Whether they care to admit to it or not, the Nets took their foot off the gas in the hope of maximizing the odds of facing an inexperienced Raptors team. Whether Torontos players or coaches care to admit it, thats a slap in the face, or at least it should be. Do they feel slighted? "No, man," Lowry responded, after the game. "They rested their players. Thats what they did." They shouldnt need added motivation, Casey wisely posted out. The Raptors have been underestimated and theyre about to be again. They will be lost in a sea of publicity surrounding the compelling storylines of a big market team with a payroll exceeding $100 million. "Weve played all season as the underdog, as the small guy trying to come up, whatever you want to call it," said DeMar DeRozan, who is one of three Raptors starters slated to make his postseason debut Saturday. "We always play with a chip on our shoulder and we understand going into the playoffs, we havent done nothing. We havent made it to the playoffs in six years. So weve got to go in there with a chip on our shoulder and understand its going to be a dog fight every single game, just like the season was." Their starting lineup goes into the series with 24 games of playoff experience to Brooklyns 399. The average age of the Nets first unit - complete with veterans and future hall of famers - is eight years older than Torontos. Its a clash of old and young, the battle-tested versus the unproven soldiers. "Experience is one thing but youve got to go play," said Casey, who is also venturing into uncharted waters, his first postseason as a head coach. "You have to go out and compete, its why they play the games. Our guys are going to be ready." "Theyve got a lot of older veterans that have been in the league 10-plus years so thats an advantage that we have," DeRozan said. "We understand that theyre experienced and everything but hey, who isnt? Once you come in this league youre going against players all season that are experienced in some way. You just have to find a way to win." The Raptors and Nets split a four-game season series, with each team winning one on the road. Perhaps it was fate. In a redditt AMA chat last month, Terrence Ross identified the Nets as a preferred playoff matchup, to which Brooklyns Andray Blatche took issue and responded, "Ross asked for this, so theyve got to back up their words." These teams faced off in the 2007 playoffs - Toronto the third seed, the Nets, then in New Jersey, the sixth - after the Raptors won their first and only other division title. It was the first postseason experience for the likes of Chris Bosh, Jose Calderon and Anthony Parker, among others. That inexperience against a veteran Nets team - led by Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson - proved costly, as inexperience tends to be in the playoffs. This Raptors team believes theyre different, that they have something special. They may be right. As most observers - both devoted and casual alike - are aware and will continue to be force-fed ad nauseam ahead of their first postseason game since 2008, the Raptors rapid return to relevance in the East was unexpected. Generous prognosticators billed them as a conference wild card, a fringe playoff team, at best. Division winner? No chance. Not with a pair of entitled New York-area giants and their gargantuan payrolls occupying the Atlantic. Internally, expectations were being tempered, justifiably so. After years of false promises, the word "playoffs" was quickly dismissed in place of a new goal; "growth". They were indeed a wild card in the East. A newly structured front office, an expiring head coach and starting point guard, an $18 million experiment inherited from the previous regime. "We didnt go into the season thinking we were going to be division winners," Casey admitted. "That was our goal but we knew that was going to be a lofty goal. We always go in trying to swing for the fences. Once the trade happened, no one knew. The guys kept working, kept working, kept working and [it] kind of came together." The Raptors were 6-12 before that fabled evening in Los Angeles, the night Rudy Gay was shipped to Sacramento and the fortunes of a long-suffering franchise began to turn. From that point on they would finish the season with a record of 42-22, tops in the East. Some will shrug them off as the poster team of a historically weak Eastern Conference and at one point, early in the season, that may have been the case. However, they made it here on their own merit. Theyre one just four teams, in either conference, to finish in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Their 22 road wins, a franchise record, tied Miami and Washington for the best mark in the East and they finished with 16-14 against the superior Western Conference. Their individual and collective accomplishments seem countless. Their starting five has won more games than any other in team history, each player putting up career highs in minutes logged and scoring. On Monday they hung their second division championship banner and set a new franchise mark in wins. Six months ago that would have been more than enough. Now, its an appetizer. Theyve tasted success and they want more. No one is satisfied. "When I first got here that was one of my biggest goals, to get this team back to the playoffs," said Kyle Lowry. "Im happy to be there but Im not satisfied. I want to go out there, I want to make some noise and show that were really a good team." Custom 49ers Super Bowl Jerseys . Mats Zuccarello and Derek Stepan scored shootout goals, and backup goalie Cam Talbot earned his second win in two nights as the Rangers shook off a late tying tally and beat the Maple Leafs 2-1 Monday night. Kyle Juszczyk Super Bowl Jersey . Pedroia reached the milestone with a little panache, hitting a grand slam in the sixth inning and propelling the Boston Red Sox to a 7-1 win over the Oakland Athletics on Friday night. http://www.49ersofficialfanshop.com/george-kittle-jersey-sales.html . The 24-year-old Pruneau played his CIS football with the Montreal Carabins. The six-foot, 200-pound Montreal native had 41 tackles, 3.ARLINGTON, Texas -- Yu Darvish let out a good yell and pumped both fists before catcher Chris Gimenez greeted him in front of the mound. The Texas ace wasnt necessarily celebrating his first complete game in the major leagues. His battery mate says he does that all the time. "He just kind of looked at me and goes, Yeah! Thats what I said back to him," Gimenez said. "He likes going Yes! all the time. We kind of goof around with each other about it." This was their best reason yet to have a little fun. Darvish struck out 10 in his six-hitter, Shin-Soo Choo broke a long hitless streak with a three-run double and the Rangers denied Miamis bid for a record interleague winning streak, beating the Marlins 6-0 Wednesday night. Darvish (7-2) struck out the side in the eighth to end a streak of one baserunner in each of the first seven innings for the Marlins. The Japanese right-hander wrapped up his 73rd career start by getting Garrett Jones to swing at a pitch in the dirt. Gimenez had to finish it off with a throw to first. The closest Darvish had come to a complete game were the two times he lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning. The first was a perfect game bid against Houston last year. The other was against Boston a month ago, although a scoring change a few days later altered that. "I wasnt really conscious of throwing a complete game," Darvish said through an translator. "I thought I was going to be out of the game after the eighth inning, but when (manager Ron Washington) told me that Im going in the ninth inning as well, I decided to go. And I also wanted to face (Giancarlo) Stanton again." Darvish gave up his final single to Stanton leading off the ninth, but Casey McGehee grounded into Miamis third double play before Jones whiffed. "I dont think we really have anybody like that," Miami manager Mike Redmond said when asked what NL pitchers compared to Darvish, who was facing the Marlins for the first time. The Marlins had to settle for tying the New York Yankees (2003-04) and Tampa Bay (2004) for the longest interleague winnning streak at 13 games. Richard Sherman Super Bowl Jersey. It was Miamis first interleague loss since last Aug. 12 at Kansas City. The Rangers (32-34) snapped a four-game losing streak and avoided falling four games under .500 for the first time since 2008. Texas split the two-game set and is now winless in eight straight series at home. Choo was in an 0-for-18 slump when he pulled a line drive past Jones at first with the bases loaded in the third against Jacob Turner (2-4). When Stanton couldnt cut off the ball in right field, Elvis Andrus scored easily from first for a 3-0 lead. Choo had a single in the fifth that again brought home Andrus, who had three hits. "I needed just one hit, one good hard it," Choo said. "I tell myself every pitch, start over, start over, start over." Darvish, who won his fourth straight start for the first time in Texas, blew a 4-0 lead in his last start against Cleveland but still got the win in a 6-4 Texas victory. There were no such threats this time, and Darvish has allowed one earned run in 37 2-3 innings over his past five interleague starts. Marcell Ozuna helped Darvish by getting thrown out at second base by left fielder Michael Choice after a leadoff single in the seventh. Justin Bour followed with a walk, but Darvish started a double play on J.T. Realmuto to end the inning. Jones had one of the singles on a 59 mph curveball before Darvish struck out Ozuna looking on a knee-buckling slider. Darvish, who threw 116 pitches, got Stanton swinging on another slider in the sixth. Turner finished the fourth inning after getting hit on the right side by a line drive from Rougned Odour, but the right-hander didnt come out for the fifth. He gave up six hits and five earned runs. NOTES: This was the first meeting between the Marlins and Rangers since July 2011. They play two more in Miami on Aug. 19-20. ... The Rangers agreed to terms with top draft pick Luis Ortiz, a high school pitcher from California. The deal for the right-hander includes a $1.75 million signing bonus. He will report to the Arizona League after graduating from high school Saturday. ' ' ' |
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