Game No. 1: Pacers 90, Raptors 88
In their 2012-13 home opener, the Toronto Raptors looked pretty good for most of the first 43 minutes and 29 seconds as they staked an 86-78 lead. The Pacers closed the game on a 12-2 run wrapped up by a George Hill floater with two seconds left, followed by an Andrea Bargnani airball at the buzzer. This would have been a much more depressing beginning to this season if it wasn’t so predictable.
(Video by the always-awesome Turbozone.)
Start time: 7:00 PM ET
Channel: TSN
Probable starting lineups
Toronto: Kyle Lowry, DeMar DeRozan, Landry Fields, Andrea Bargnani, Jonas Valanciunas
Indiana: George Hill, Paul George, Gerald Green, David West, Roy Hibbert
Injury report
Toronto: No reported injuries.
Indiana: Danny Granger is out indefinitely with knee soreness, while George Hill is probable for tonight.
Random thoughts
Jeremy Lin's Rockets aren't worth the premium price tag, but a Raptors/Pacers opener offers great value
As the discussion intensifies and the anticipation builds with the season inching closer (24 days until training camp), it’s usually around this time that fans begin to peruse the schedule in search of games they’ll try to land tickets for. It’s also around this time that fellow season seat holders begin trying to narrow down their list of games they want additional tickets for.
On Thursday, Raptors season seat holders received an email that included the details of the 2012-13 tiered pricing at the Air Canada Centre.
There will be five tiers this season: Best Value, Value, Premium, Premium+ and Super Premium. Here’s which visiting teams fit into each category.
The overall direction and eventual landing spot of the current Raptors’ rebuild has been on my mind for much of the summer, as I know it has been for some other Raps diehards, too. Whether you want to call it a rebuild, a retooling, or simply a build, as Bryan Colangelo now refers to this stage, it’s obvious that Toronto is in Year Three of some sort of plan, and that the Raptors will head into training camp next month with what is unquestionably the best post-Bosh roster yet.
In a recent piece for NBA.com, John Schuhmann doesn’t necessarily seem sold on the idea that the ceiling for this Raptors team is very high but he does seem to like the general direction of the franchise in his column titled “Raptors moving steadily along in their rebuilding phase.”
This brings us back to the question of what exactly the Toronto Raptors are building towards.
Kyle Lowry blowing by Steve Nash is something we hope to see at the ACC on January 20
In one of the more anticipated days of the summer for basketball junkies, the NBA announced its’ 2012-2013 schedule on Thursday, and as usual, there are some games that obviously stand out from the rest.
While I doubt the Raptors are featured in many, if any, of those games for the casual NBA fan, we’re here to cater to Raptors fans. And with that, here are the games we think you should circle on the calendar:
