<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> Let's turn away from coverage of yesterday's Raptors-Celtics pre-season game for a daily update on Sam Mitchell's European mood of the moment.</p> "My ankles and my knees are hurting walking on these cobblestones," he said. "Hey, man – uneven surfaces. My body ain't built for this."</p> The Toronto coach's team, luckily for him, doesn't count among its playing members a limping, complaining 44-year-old NBA retiree. And just when you were thinking the able-bodied Raptors might be getting a little tired of their continental odyssey – which ends in Rome tonight with a game against local pros Lottomatica Roma – the pre-season opener, in the early going, at least, was the scene of unexpected energy and intensity.</p> The Raptors lost, 89-85, and certainly the match degenerated into something less than a beauty eventually, as is the pre-season inevitability. But for a while it felt slightly more important than your typical pre-season neutral-site snoozer.</div></p> The Toronto Star</p>
