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"(It was) good for Maceo (Baston, nine minutes, six points, four rebounds) to get a chance to play and Joey (Graham)," said Mitchell. "And for Juan to get extended minutes, because we're going to need him. He has been playing well the last week or so. I think I'm getting more confidence in him, too."

"I've seen (an NBA player) having two cars a day to drive. You know, 14 cars," said Raptors sharpshooter Jason Kapono the other day. "Think about how absurd it is. You say 14 cars. All right, you may have some kids, a family of nine. But a single guy having 14 cars?

"It's one thing if Bill Gates wants to do that. But when you're 22 years old and you don't even have kids yet, it's not good."

While Stoudamire has decided to join the San Antonio Spurs as a free agent, the Raptors will get a boost when Ford rejoins the team to start practising as early as the beginning of next week.

Ford, who hasn't played since suffering a neck and back injury in a fall during a Dec.11 game, is ready to return to the team after spending a couple of weeks in his hometown of Houston working out with former NBA star John Lucas.

"We are happy, but we're still upset we lost (on Tuesday),'' Jose Calderon said after his 11-assist, one-turnover night was neatly in the books. "We have to play like this (last night) every night.

"To me, it doesn't matter if we win by 30 or one. We just want to win."

While Bargnani has yet to establish himself in his second season, the league's assistant coaches, who selected the teams, obviously have seen enough of last year's first-overall pick to merit his inclusion.

"I told them before and told them again, defensively we're pretty good at making initial stops. And I understand there's nights we give up athleticism, we give up bulk, we give up height, we give up size. We have to understand that if a guy's bigger, stronger and little quicker, we've got to box him further out. Because if it comes to jumping balls, we're going to lose that. So we have to be smarter about boxing out, we're going to have to take some chances, we're going to have to be aggressive."

"That's a big bonus. Last night was real tough on us," said Bosh, who scored 16 points in 20 minutes, a welcome respite after logging 50 minutes on Tuesday. "Any time you get a chance to kind of sit and rest a little bit, it's worth it. I'm proud of my teammates. I'm glad the way this whole team kind of stepped up and played basketball tonight."

If this had been a game of H-O-R-S-E, it would have been over in the first quarter," Wizards guard DeShawn Stevenson said. "They came out like they are supposed to at home after a loss. We said before the game that they play at a faster tempo at home and we just didn't match it and then once they started making shots, they got rolling. They were on fire."

RINSE wrote:The SS girl has a huge head, lit's like a watermelon on a toothpick.

Not Just a Ballboy wrote:Bad news: Smitch is now even more confident with Dixon.

"My approach is I want to enjoy my life for the long term, and I want my family and my kids to be able to enjoy it," said Kapono, 26. "So there's a fine line between extravagance and having fun and enjoying it at a reasonable rate.

"Going above and beyond isn't worth it. I don't want to be a part of that 60 per cent that's in trouble five years down the road. It's a short career and I'm blessed to be earning a great salary playing basketball. But if it ended, my contract only takes me to age 30. Life expectancy is 80-plus. So I've got another 50 years.

"Do I really need to buy another car?"

grimlock wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Good News: Sam Mitchell is playing the media to up Dixon's value

MrBojangelz71 wrote:

"My approach is I want to enjoy my life for the long term, and I want my family and my kids to be able to enjoy it," said Kapono, 26. "So there's a fine line between extravagance and having fun and enjoying it at a reasonable rate.

"Going above and beyond isn't worth it. I don't want to be a part of that 60 per cent that's in trouble five years down the road. It's a short career and I'm blessed to be earning a great salary playing basketball. But if it ended, my contract only takes me to age 30. Life expectancy is 80-plus. So I've got another 50 years.

"Do I really need to buy another car?"

grimlock wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Good News: Sam Mitchell is playing the media to up Dixon's value