Raptors 103, Knicks 100

Well, the Knicks crapped away another inexplicable loss at home. This may be the worst loss of the season, as the Garden was really electric and Eddy Curry had one of his better games as a Knick. As Knickerblogger has pointed it, the guys absolutely must start getting wins at home. Their defensive intensity has to pick up, and they should not be falling to teams like the Raptors. A few game notes:

- Chris Bosh is really talented, and really improved. He seems to have worked on creating his own shots, and as Kenny Smith said, he's kind of like "a small forward in a power forward's body". The kid's scary good.

- Speaking of which, the Knicks had 3 announcers in the booth last night. Mike Breenonhand did the play-by-play, with Clyde and Kenny Smith sharing the color duties. I was a little dubious, but it worked out ok. Clyde sounds upbeat no matter what, whereas Kenny is kinda pissy and pessimistic, so the dynamic is fairly entertaining. I can definitely see Kenny cracking jokes and criticizing the team while Breen and Clyde point over their shoulders at Jim Dolan and feverishly motion for him to shut up.

- Humpty threw down some some absolutely ridiculous dunks. Two of them were straight up posterizations of Bargnani in the first quarter. If the Knicks are on the break, Balkman has gotta be the go-to finisher. I don't think I've seen him blow a dunk yet.

"I'm sick wit dis, straight gangsta mack, but sometimes I get ridiculous"
- As is often the case with the opposing team, the Raps kept hitting these little fluky shots that really screwed things up. The Knicks defense was mediocre for most of the game, but early on and down the stretch, guys like Bosh and Ford put down some tough shots. For some reason, teams can close out the Knicks in the Garden, but not on their own home courts. Weird.

- Steve Francis had a solid first half, really limiting himself to point guard duties and garnering 7 or 8 assists. I'm starting to think that he should be starting at point guard. In fact, I'm positive.

- By the way, why does Francis always look like he's in pain? He's constantly grimacing and grabbing parts of his body, but doesn't usually have to sit down. Either he's a real trooper or a real drama queen...I can't tell.

Steve Francis: Warrior or Wuss?
- Especially when Frye returns, the Knicks could benefit from just running the pick and roll to death. It can get Frye open jumpers, the guards to the basket, and Curry some dunks and layups. They have the right personnel to do it, so why try anything else in the halfcourt set?

- This is the first game in which the Knicks have scored 100+ and dished out 20+ assists and still lost. Probably because the Raptors had 103 and 21 of their own.

Anyway, this was a disappointing and frustrating game for the Knicks. This homestand must be a salve for the inexplicable futility at the Garden, so games like this cannot happen again. A nice blowout in which they hold the other team to 70 points would really make me feel better right now. For more (and more of the same) on this game, listen to the Hoops Addict podcast coming later this afternoon. Ryan's got a great show over there, and he has one of his most brilliant and profound (not to mention handsome) guests on today to talk Knicks-Raptors. Take a guess who it is. Backatcha later, kids.