Done in by the Fourth

Through the first three quarters, there was a sense that the Raptors were just about to break the game wide open and come away with a big win. They just finished a solid third quarter, and found themselves up 8 with 12 minutes to go. But then, everything started to go wrong. The Raptors shot a pitiful 4-22 in the fourth quarter, but worse was that two of those made field goals came in the last 30 seconds when the game was already over. The Raps could only muster 12 points in the fourth, including only 7 over the first eleven and a half minutes when the Warriors pulled away. The Raptors did an okay job on the boards, losing 47-46, but they gave up 12 offensive rebounds, 5 of them to Biedrins. Chris Bosh once again struggled, though he did finish with a double double. Bosh had 11 points on 4-12 shooting, including only 3-6 from the FT line, and grabbed 11 rebounds, but turned the ball over 6 times. The Raptors as a team only turned the ball over 13 times. The best Raptors player by far was TJ Ford, who led the team in points [29] and assists [9], while also adding 6 rebounds and 2 steals. The sharpshooters of Bargnani, Delfino, Kapono, and Parker combined for 35 points but shot only 4-15 from three. For the rookie watch, Moon had a solid defensive game with 3 big blocks and by grabbing 7 rebounds, but his shot was a bit off, shooting only 30% for the game, and failing to hit a three pointer on three attempts.
The Raptors just needed to play average basketball in the fourth to win the game, but failed to do so. The started off slow again today, but were able to climb all the way back to take a large lead before giving it up with an awful 4th quarter performance. The Raptors have games against Dallas and Cleveland coming up, so let's hope they find away to start, and finsh, games more effectively, very soon.