Raptors Report Week 2: Raps Can't Wait to Be Home

The Raptors had a pretty ugly week. When you go winless, it's always going to be a bad week, but there were actually some sparks to give the fans of Toronto confidence going forward.

The Raps never do well on the road, and never seem to do well against the West, so when it's the West on the road, it can't be a good combination.

The first game of the road trip was against the Sacramento Kings, a game in which the Raptors led by as much as 17 points, but the Raptors let Tyreke Evans take over and that one slipped away.

The second game was against the Utah Jazz, and the Jazz took over early and grabbed a huge lead. The Raptors cut the lead to one point, but the Jazz were too much to handle.

The third game of the week was against the Lakers, and was probably the Raptors best game of the season despite losing. The Lakers are arguably the best team in the league, and the Raptors stayed in the game the whole night on their home court, but just couldn't control the Gasol-Kobe tandem down the stretch and lost by a respectable margin of 5 points.

The last game of the road swing was an embarrassing blowout to Portland.

Record: 0-4

Performance on a scale of 1-10: 5.5

Positives

While the team did go 0-4, they showed their ability to put up runs and have shown that they are able to get back into games, something which they had trouble with last season.

Andrea Bargnani has been great offensively, Reggie Evans has been an absolute beast, and Amir Johnson has finally woken up. Jose Calderon and Leandro Barbosa have been providing great sparks off the bench. DeMar DeRozan has shown great confidence.

Negatives

Turnovers have been killing the Raptors, and they can't seem to start the game well. Jarrett Jack and Linas Kleiza have been pretty bad, and overall, the Raptors still can't seem to get it done on the road.

Execution down the stretch of games has been a major problem.  The Raptors have been in many games, but can never seem to finish them. They are going to be in a lot of close games this season, and will have to finish them.

Overall, not the record you want to see. The effort is there, they just have to figure some things out, but this team has certainly shown some potential.

Be sure to check out next week's report.

GO RAPS!

More great articles such as this one can be found at sportshaze.com