There is no sense of panic or frustration or anger to the Raptors , just the same old lip service being paid to the need for consistency and effort and improvement. While the talk is grand, the results have not been, even if the NBA season is less than a quarter gone. "Not frustration," Hedo Turkoglu said Saturday after the team went through a longer-than-usual practice at the Air Canada Centre. "We just have to be more consistent, that's the point. We can't be too high or too down on ourselves, even with good games and good days.
"We have to do one thing every night, bring energy and be consistent at both ends of the floor."
If there is a mark to this team this season - aside from continuously woeful defence - it's inconsistency, often within games. They were fine in the first half of an eventual 116-103 loss in Boston on Friday, but capitulated when the Celtics turned up the intensity in the second half.
It has been the same in a handful of games for the 7-10 Raptors , who face a monumental task Sunday in facing the Phoenix Suns, the team with the best overall record in the NBA at 13-3.
Until they find that consistency, it's going to be a season of one step forward and another back.
"Of course, everybody may be really frustrated because we're not this team," Turkoglu said, suggesting Toronto should be better than its record shows. "We know that, so we can't be really upset about it. We have 65 games left; all we have to do is (to be) ourselves in the best way."
A start would be to find some level of toughness and at least a passable interior presence. Teams routinely run over the Raptors inside, meeting with little or no resistance.
One telling play in Friday's loss was a dunk by Boston's Paul Pierce over Chris Bosh that ended with Pierce being hit with a taunting technical for flexing over the falling Raptor . That brought coach Jay Triano and his staff off the bench to scream at Pierce, but elicited no response from the other players.
"I was pretty focused on what was going on in front of me. I didn't realize until I watched it on tape that we had backed off as much as we did," Triano said. "I think if I was Chris I would confront my teammates.
"Any time one of your guys goes down - and you don't have to go out there and start fighting - just go over and help your teammate and we didn't even do that. He laid there on the floor without anybody going over to see how he was."
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