Man, it’s early out here.

Not an awful lot of stuff off Thursday, actually; long travel day for one of us, a day off for the guys who actually count.

But anyway …

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You know what the worst possible thing for the Raptors might be right now?

The Golden State Warriors.

Really. A team with an unorthodox style of play, guys who don’t have a thing to play for except fun and frivolity and a coach who can run out combinations of players that would appear to make no sense whatsoever.

If there’s one thing Jay and his staff pride themselves on, it’s preparation, knowing what the other team likes to run, having counters for what they do and having stuff in on offence to exploit mismatches.

And I know yesterday they were a bit perplexed because you really have no idea what the Warriors will.

As one of ‘em put it:

“They don’t run anything. How do you prepare? You put your guys on the treadmill ‘cause all they’ll do is run you?”

And there’s the big issue – and the big danger – for Saturday night.

The Raptors aren’t a bad team and can be quite competitive when they get teams that play a more traditional, halfcourt style. Like the Lakers, or Cleveland, or Dallas or San Antonio or the like.

Teams like Golden State? Teams that go all helter-skelter? Not so much.

What’s why tomorrow could be 140-138.

Or 135-78.

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This might have been a bit dicey.

When the Raptors arrived at their ritzy San Francisco hotel, they found the Portland Trail Blazers sitting there waiting.

Portland was in town to face Golden State over in Oakland on Thursday night.

Wonder if the Blazers looked oddly at Hedo when he was hanging around the lobby.

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Oh, can we get a bit more mail over here. Thanks. With games Saturday and Sunday nights, not sure when I’ll get it up, it might end up being an early Sunday morning bonus.

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More time for Marco?

Not sure right now how Marco’s back is – we won’t find out until much later today out here after practice – but if he’s okay, it’ll be interesting to see how Jay uses him tomorrow night against the Warriors.

You know how Jay likes to let players get a shot against their former team – to the point of getting Reggie Evans back a week earlier than expected so he could face the Sixers – and Marco has some history in Golden State.

Figure on Belinelli getting some early run, if he’s healthy.

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Speaking of San Francisco, here’s what the Chronicle had off Thursday’s loss to Portland.

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Buena Vista story time.

For those who don’t know it, it’s a San Francisco landmark known since 1952 for its Irish coffee; in fact, it boasts about having the finest brew this side of Ireland and they are very particular about how it’s made: Warm the glass first, fill three-quarters with hot water, two sugar cubes, a jigger of Irish Whiskey and topped with a collar of lightly whipped whipping cream.

(Late add: Yes, they put some coffee in there, guess it doesn't go without saying)

Anyway, it’s a bit of a rundown place you have to see and last season, on an off-day here, one of the team’s broadcasters (who shall remain nameless) and I do our duty and show up.

So, as Jack (oops) and I are sitting there through three, four, maybe five of these concoctions we do what we do, strike up a conversation with the fella on the other side of the serving area, a guy who happened to a hoops fan. Blah, blah, blah, blah, we prattle on and take our leave.

Next night, Raptors play the Warriors and, if you recall, Jermaine O’Neal first was felled by a flu bug before banging knees with someone and sitting out a half.

But it’s the flu that we’re told is the reason he’s done.

Well, we get back a couple of days later and an e-mail arrives and it says something like:

“I see Jermaine didn’t play because of the flu. Hope he didn’t get the same kind of flu you and Jack might have had.”

It was from the Buena Vista bartender.

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Here’s one thing to watch for Saturday night.

How they get along.

It seems to me there’s some more of the finger-pointing and subtle digs that we saw in November creeping into the picture now and that’s a troubling sign indeed.

Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, nothing helps “chemistry” more than a win or two and nothing hurts it more than continued losses so it could go the other way quite easily and quite quickly.

But right now, the body language I’m seeing and the reading between the lines that I’m doing is showing a team not with a break but one with at least a non-displaced hairline fracture.

It can heal, but it might take time.

And some wins.

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Former NBA all-star Alvin Robertson, facing sexual assault of a child and sex trafficking charges, is back in jail in San Antonio after a judge increased his bond.

There is clearly much more to Toronto's poor play than a rusty return by Chris Bosh and the comatose Hedo Turkoglu. At the very least, coach Jay Triano is employing a flabby rotation that continues to tolerate repeated lapses.

Damn refs.

Oh, wait, that was Tuesday.

Never mind.

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THREE POINTERS

Time for a change

Remember the other day when I mentioned that there were those in the hierarchy who thought change might be coming to the starting lineup?

I am sure their voices are louder now and should be listened to.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the starting lineup in Golden State on Saturday wasn’t Jose Calderon, Antoine Wright, Hedo Turkoglu, Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani.

It’s not entirely a knock against Jarrett or DeMar – and Lord knows there’s enough under-performing going on now that everyone shares the blame – but it’s got to be time to do something to see if they can find a spark.

There’s still a quarter of the season to go and that’s plenty of time and they remain right in the thick of a race for fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.

But the events of the past couple of weeks, plus some private conversations I’ve had with a bunch of people, leads me to believe change is afoot.

And, frankly, I think it should be.

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One step back

Actually, it’s more like a dozen steps back and it speaks entirely to what transpired early in the third quarter last night, when a winnable game went away.

In every NBA game, when a team rebounds a miss and starts heading up the court, you usually hear someone on the bench yell:

“Stop the ball, stop the ball.”

Yeah, right. Not if you’re the Raptors last night.

Their transition defence was so bad it was laughable.

On one play, Tyreke Evans was leading a break and going about 55 feet straight ahead with the ball. At least three Raptors were back but did even one move into Evans’s path to slow him?

Nope.

Dude went right to the rim through all of ‘em, was fouled, completed an and-one and it was 55-48.

That’s the kind of lax defence we saw in November and it looked to have been corrected in December, January and February.

Not so much.

That’s simply effort and smarts and if they don’t have that, they have no chance.

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To a screeching halt

That was Toronto’s offence and that’s been the issue now for more than two weeks.

The ball simply doesn’t move and, what’s worse, neither do the players.

Chris Bosh was a big culprit last night, spending too much time sizing up his man rather than making a decisive move but he was hardly alone.

Jarrett Jack was the same with a handful of early jumpers, Turk took a bit too long on some possessions and Jose probably fired up a couple too many jumpers coming off high screens when he could have driven or passed.

And unless they figure that one out, recall the days of crisp ball movement, late-clock open shots and sharing, they’re dead.

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A wee bit more before I have to head to the airport

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What do I think?

Putrid, stinky and smelly.

Turk’s an albatross around a franchise’s neck and not only shouldn’t Jarrett be starting, neither should Jose and if they don’t fire Triano and get a real coach, this franchise will be doomed forever.

Oh yeah, and Bosh is so leaving it’s not even funny and what are they going to do then?

There. Everyone happy?

Seriously, there was a we bit of mud slung around these parts yesterday because, apparently, there isn’t enough ranting and raving and going off the handle to satisfy some of the screamers among you.

Guess what? There’s not going to be and if that’s not good enough, well, that’s not good enough.

What we do here is not yell and scream.

Yes, Turkoglu’s playing poorly; yes, sometimes the players don’t play well; yes, sometimes the coaching moves don’t pay off.

And you can get all your dander up and go nuts; I’m more of a big-picture, voice of relative reason and I simply don’t have the passion a lot of you do.

Sorry, but that’s not going to change.

What we do here is a bit complex.

I hope we inform and entertain a bit; give you some insight into why things happen (that those things often don’t agree with your opinion is not something I can control) and, perchance, give you a look at things you might not get.

The other stuff? Well, there are other places you can go to hear writers go off and you’re welcome to them.

I think we do all right here so I see no reason to change.

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No, I don’t think they can catch Boston, in case anyone wants to ask again.

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Tough week for Jose, no?

A technical foul the other day against Philly and the cut under his eye suggested perhaps his argument was valid.

Then last night he gets a questionable Flagrant I call while being smacked on the lip and some more blood is shed.

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Sorry about the in-game thing last night. Wireless went kablooey and by the time I pushed buttons and reset things, swore a bit and turned a few things on and off (surefire technological methods for fixing things in my limited knowledge), the game was just about over.

I blame Super Dog.

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Long flight ahead to San Francisco so I have no idea when we’ll get to comments and the like but I will. That’s after I get settled and perhaps find some for a coffee at the Buena Vista.

Remind me to tell you the Buena Vista story tomorrow morning, would you? It’s not bad but I’m pressed for time and space at the moment.

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If you’re lying around today with nothing to do and have some questions, here’s where you send them to the mailbag. Please, though, limit rants to a couple of hundred words.

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The Toronto Raptors lost their seventh game in eight, 113-90, with a woefully heartless performance against a team they should have defeated Wednesday night.

Great, great game, wasn’t it?

Second-best of the year maybe; only after the other Laker game which makes me think a Toronto-Los Angeles NBA Final would be epic.

Now, quit dreaming and read this:

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THREE POINTERS

Back in his old spot

It was pretty much matchup driven, and as always a way to make it difficult for the Lakers to quickly run a double-team at him, but the Raptors had Chris Bosh at the elbow far more often last night than they have in some time.

It worked pretty well – he didn’t drive the ball as much as a lot of people would have liked – but it was much easier for him to get quick jump shots off and find guys open on the perimeter when wing defenders cheated over to help.

What I’d like to see, though, is more weak side movement from his teammates to make it even more effective.

That’s stuff like the weak side wing – DeRozan or Weems, depending on who’s in the game – curling off screens and down the lane rather than fading to the other elbow or the three point line.

There’s also got to be lots of opportunities for Bargnani to flash to the middle of the lane and get off that little jump hook that’s becoming a staple of his inside game.

However they decide to use it in the future, it was good to see more of it against the Lakers and I presume we’ll see it more often now.

But, and this might be what happens, they may want to save it for a bit, too, so other teams don’t get a real good handle on how to double him out that far.

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They did it right

I’m not sure they could have defended that last possession by Bryant any better and sometimes great players make great shots.

They tried to deny him the ball on the inbounds play but when you’re watching the replay, watch how sneakily he pushes off on Wright to get clear, which is a smart play any number of great players will make and not something that’s going to get called.

And once he caught it, they did what they should have, forced him away from the basket to make the sideline and baseline extra defenders and than ran a second guy at him in the corner.

Both Wright, and I believe it was Bargnani, had hands up in his face when he shot it; good defence again.

No, if you’re analyzing that last play, there’s not a whole lot more you could get out of the Raptors.

Great player made a great shot.

Whaddya gonna do?

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The staple of his game

You know what Amir Johnson does better than any other big on the roster?

Roll to the rim.

No, not roll up the rim; roll to the rim.

It gets him easy looks right in front of the basket, always occupies a second defender who slides over the help because that’s the first instinctual thing you do.

The next step in Johnson’s development will be when he stops his roll a step or two shorter after taking the pass.

Not so he can launch a 12-footer (our retinas don’t need that) but because with the defence moving to pay attention to him, there have to be guys open in the corners. And if he stops and looks around, there are going to be wide-open threes available.

I’ve seen Alex and Marc working with him on the roll, I’m sure they’ll start working with him on the passing as the next step.

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And now, the rest of the story:

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Here’s a comforting thought.

Or not.

The Raptors are 2-11 all-time in Sacramento.

They won in 1997 and they won in 2008, when this Jermaine O’Neal bloke scored like 36 points.

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So Mike Dunleavy is out entirely with the Clippers, fired in what can only be called Clipper Fashion.

Seems Dunleavy found out he’d been fired over the internet; got back to his cell phone to find a message after the news had been out a while.

Classy.

Now, I don’t know Mike Dunleavy all that well but I do know there’ve been times when he’s thought to have been quite a good coach, like in 2006 when he got the Clippers not only to the playoffs for the first time since 1997 but into the second round.

Guess he, like so many others, became a bad coach rather quickly.

I think this move says more about the Clips than it does Dunleavy, who I expect will get another gig this summer if he wants it.

Oh, as an aside, my impression of Dunleavy grew quite a bit when he brought the Clippers here in 2007-07. Los Angeles had signed Alvin Williams to a 10-day contract that spring, hoping Boogie had something left in the tank.

He didn’t – he didn’t get a second 10-day which meant he missed the Clips trip to Toronto that season – but when I asked Mike about him during a pre-game chat he said something along the lines that Alvin was one of the best guys he’d ever coached and that he deserved a chance to see if he had anything left.

Dunleavy had drafted and coached Alvin as a rookie in Portland and he’d become a big fan back then.

From that day, my estimation of Dunleavy’s character and ability to judge players grew.

Nothing that happened in L.A. – where Baron Davis would try about six games out of 10 for a couple of seasons, where the owner would get tight-fisted just about any time a significant move could be made, where Blake Grifin got hurt last fall – was Dunleavy’s fault.

Let’s look at the Clips for a second:

They fired Elgin Baylor amid accusations of age and race discrimination.

Sterling, who is a piece of work indeed, was convicted in court and forced to pay a fine for racial discrimination in a housing suit that found he refused to rent to blacks and Hispanics at property he owned in Los Angeles.

No, I think the winner in this whole mess might be Dunleavy.

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Anyway, in another Los Angeles Story, here’s what they wrote about the Laker game, another homage to Kobe. As it should be.

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Speaking of other stories, here's one from the Sacramento Bee.

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Got questions?

I may have answers.

Be here at noon to find out.

(Yes, this means there will be a game-day question and answer session in case that wasn’t clear enough).

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Look at things this way:

No matter what happens tonight with Miami and Charlotte, the worst the Raptors can be tomorrow morning at this time is tied for eighth.

Or tied for sixth, depending on whether you look at your glass half empty or half full.

Comforting, eh?

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Guess yesterday might not have been a day to suggest NBA referees weren’t quite as bad as many of you thought, was it?

No, they were not good last night at all; the calls on Bosh and Wright were atrocious and I’m trying to figure out what they could have done about the fan trying to interfere with the ball Jose was chasing. Not much, actually, since it was L.A.’s ball when the incident took place and they couldn’t anticipate a save.

But, and I’ll say this knowing slings and arrows will come, while those blown calls on the fouls were bad, they did not determine the outcome of the game. Not any more than missed shots did, or bad passes did, or silly turnovers did.

They were part of it, but not the reason the Lakers won.

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Okay, I told you I’d be a bit late and I am; I have no idea how tomorrow’s gonna work with a 9 a.m. flight to San Francisco but we’ll make it work somehow, won’t we?

Two Euro-shooting Raptors big men walked out of a gym into the California sunshine the other day. Andrea Bargnani and Hedo Turkoglu, en route to an idling bus, walked past a fan who politely asked them both for an autograph.

Kobe Bryant hit a 17-foot fallaway jumper with 1.9 seconds left, and the Los Angeles Lakers rallied in the fourth quarter to snap their three-game losing streak with a 109-107 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Tuesday night.

Hi

Yes, it's late

But we're here as usual

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