<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Like a lot of NBA players, Chris Bosh wears a clingy black tank top beneath his uniform, fitted with pads to protect his rib cage. Saturday afternoon, in his first playoff game in the world's best league, Bosh was thankful to be sheathed in a layer of armour beyond his skin and bones. "I didn't know it was going to be that physical under the boards," said Bosh. "You gotta see it, man. You've got to experience it. I can't even describe it. It's a war down there. And the refs, when it's a loose ball ... they're not really calling loose-ball fouls. It's whoever wants it the most. ... Pushing, shoving. ... If you get caught watching, you might get (run) over. And you're not going to (draw) a foul." Such was Bosh's initiation into the pandemonium of the post-season paint. You can argue that the Raptors all-star didn't exactly bomb; he had 22 points, 16 of which came in the second half, when Toronto rallied from a 15-point deficit to cut the New Jersey lead to one. But Bosh didn't exactly prosper, either. Plagued as he was by early-game foul trouble, he registered just five rebounds. Still, as badly as they played in Saturday's 96-91 loss to the Nets, Bosh and his teammates seemed to be drawing confidence from the result. The Raptors spent some of yesterday looking at the digitally edited footage of their many crimes against common sense in Game 1. And the way Bosh told it, the over-arching question in the room wasn't, "How are we going to beat them?" It was more like: "What was I thinking?" Why, for instance, did various Raptors give the Nets so many uncontested layups instead of forcing two free throws? Why, when the Nets were playing a formidable zone defence, were various Raptors catching the ball a few feet behind the three-point line, in a position that didn't pose an immediate threat? Why was Bosh, in picking up the first of his two first-quarter fouls, so easily suckered by a pump fake from Jason Collins, a foe not known for his offensive proclivity? "When he up-faked, I just went for it," said Bosh. "I let my emotions get the best of me in the beginning of the game, and I was just jumping for everything. The next game I just have to be calm and start the game off cool and get more intense as the game goes on." It sounds great, in theory. And considering the gap in experience between the battle-hardened Nets, who've been to two NBA finals with their marvellous point guard, Jason Kidd, it's easy to pass off the Raptors as na?ve hotshots who have no idea how much deeper their hole can get. But Toronto has a history, albeit not a post-season history, of bouncing back from bad games. They've been speedy adaptors to changing conditions all season. And what are the odds Collins gets the best of Bosh tomorrow night? "It's nothing they did. It's nothing we can't overcome," said Sam Mitchell, the Toronto coach. "We just didn't play well."</div> Source: Toronto Star
