<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">After two rough days on and off the court, Jalen Rose stood up and took the heat. The Raptors' highest-paid player, who missed practice Saturday to attend the funeral of a long-time friend in his hometown of Detroit, returned to Toronto yesterday and shot blanks in a game where he could have made the difference. Instead, the Raptors (0-6) remained winless, losing 126-121 in overtime to the not-very-good Seattle SuperSonics before 15,033 at the Air Canada Centre. The Sonics had lost their previous three games by an average of 31 points. "It was just a big-time loss," Rose said when asked about his friend, while not elaborating on the circumstances. "Hopefully, it will just make me stronger. I don't want to say it had any influence on (yesterday's) game. I still had the opportunity to make plays, just like the rest of the guys. It's just disappointing when you get plays and you don't make them. I felt like I had a couple of shots, especially one toward the end of the game, I felt I should have knocked down. It felt good, but that doesn't matter when it don't go in."</div> Source
