Pre-Game Reconnaissance: Knicks vs. Raptors- 1/2/12

Whoa, that's the first dated headline of 2012. Who'd have thought there would still be Raptors in 2012!?

What's up with the Raptors?

From the splendid Adam Francis of Raptors HQ:

What's up with the Raptors? Well, a bit of the opposite team the NBA has been used to seeing over the past few seasons as the D is up, and the O is down. Let's not confuse this group with the Bulls or Heat defensively, but they're at least middle of the road right now in most defensive statistics under new coach Dwane Casey.

However their offense is another story. Collectively the team just isn't making shots to a large extent, and are having troubles executing in the clutch, as shown in losses to Indiana, Dallas and Orlando, all winnable matches. And individually guys like Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon are humming along, but that's about it. DeMar DeRozan has been up and down, and other players like Ed Davis and James Johnson just haven't produced as expectedly on O.

Some of this offensive malaise can be chalked up to learning a new system under Casey, but if the Raps want to hang around tonight against the Knicks, they'll likely need more than decent defense

Meet the new Raptors!

Rasual Butler- Rasual spent the lockout designing and building a pea-sized grand piano that he plays using the tips of two needles. He cannot currently find it and is worried that it maybe lodged in one of his lungs.

Anthony Carter- Anthony's only been in Canada a few weeks, and he's already made a habit of "poutinizing" everything he eats. Just today, Anthony has already ladled gravy over a bag of marshmallows, an empty container of dental floss, and Jerryd Bayless.

Gary Forbes- "Forbes 500" also refers to a ranked list that Gary made of Middle Eastern women whose feet he'd like to massage.

Aaron Gray- Aaron's goal is to knock opponents' teeth out, then collect enough "loosies" to make a "truly badass anklet" one day.

Jamaal Magloire- Jamaal is owner of the world's largest hand-woven 100 percent alpaca Snuggie.

Adventures in Impersonating Jamaal Magloire on Omegle!

Because I took too long to answer that last question and it was probably my fault that conversation got cut short, here's a bonus Omegle:

Renaldo Balkman's Pre-Game Recipe

Humpty's Dessert Lasgna

Ingredients:

A dozen or so fruit roll-ups

Three scoops of three different flavors of ice cream

Pop Rocks to taste

1. Coat small lasagna pan with non-stick Warheads Super Sour spray.

2. Line bottom surface of pan with as many unrolled fruit roll-ups as it takes to cover it from wall to wall. Do not punch out any of the zany shapes.

3. Spoon all three scoops of one of the ice cream flavors onto fruit roll-upped surface.

4. Press more fruit roll-ups on top of ice cream layer, flattening as needed. Again, cover the whole surface from wall to wall.

5. Repeat for all three layers of ice cream, then top off with final fruit roll-up layer.

6. Sprinkle Pop Rocks to taste. Also, add chocolate syrup if you want and also sometimes a few Skittles.

Steve Novak Has A Beautiful Mind

If you add up all the Raptors' jersey numbers, it equals 253. Convert those numbers to their respective letters of the alphabet, and you get "BEC", which is my nickname for Rebecca Romijn. Add Rebecca Romijn's birth year (1972) to Dwane Casey's (1957), and you get 3929. 3/9/29 is the birthday of Zillur Rahman, president of Bangladesh.

Coincidence?

You tell me.

And now you're ready for Knicks-Raptors!