The First-year Captain Of The Dallas Stars Optiuni

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CLEVELAND - As the old saying goes, if you play with fire, youre going to get burned. Dwane Casey, who has used the phrase as a cautionary tale after lethargic starts of the recent past, came just short of saying I told you so Tuesday evening. His team had been getting away with it, far more often than any team should. Yes, theyre a resilient bunch and that was the case again in Cleveland as they clawed back from a 21-point deficit - even taking a brief fourth-quarter lead - but its been masking the underlying issue. Theyre an open-faced sandwich, missing the top bun. "You cant play in this league that way and expect to come back each and every night," Casey said after Torontos 102-100 loss to the Cavaliers. "Its bit us more than weve won, it feels like." "Until we fix that, among us, among ourselves, then its going to be an uphill battle every night." For the second time in three days, the Raptors trailed by nine after the first quarter, allowing another team with a losing record, also missing their best player, to shoot above 52 per cent to open the game. The start was eerily similar to Sundays, at home to Atlanta, lacking effort, focus and purpose on both ends of the floor. Even without injured point guard Kyrie Irving, Cleveland killed the visiting Raptors with speed and precision, exposing a reoccurring hole in their interior defence by darting into the paint at will. The comeback was inevitable. Its what they do. Down by 21 early in the third, Toronto staged a 21-9 run to close out the quarter. Kyle Lowry - running back and forth from the locker room all night, battling an upset stomach - scored half of his team-high 22 points in the frame. Greivis Vasquez would give the Raptors their first lead since the opening minutes, draining a three-pointer midway through the fourth before reality set in. "I think everybodys energy was low from having to come back," Lowry said. From that moment on they hit just one of their final 10 shots and on the last possession, down only two, they failed to even get one off. It was a play they had just run with success. Amir Johnson was looking for Lowry to turn the corner, but he was cut off. Instead, Vasquez took the handoff and, trying to spin right, towards the bucket, he lost his footing. "It was me going to my weak hand and I lost my balance, stepped kind of weird," said Vasquez, who scored 16 points of Torontos bench. "I turned the ball over. Ill take responsibility. Im not going to run away. Im a man." A noble gesture but, as Casey pointed out, its not the reason for the loss. "Thats not the game-decider," the Raptors coach said. "The game was decided the way we approached the first quarter." "Its easy to get up for OKC, its easy to get up for Miami, its easy to get up for Indiana but the teams that are not in the playoff picture, they are playing for something, too," he continued. "Theyre playing for pride, which is probably a little bit more dangerous than guys trying to save minutes and save themselves for the playoffs." Theres a lesson to be learned from this loss and it shouldnt take long to figure out whether or not its been absorbed. The Raptors - now the Easts fourth seed, leapfrogged by the Bulls with Tuesdays defeat - will travel to Boston in the second night of a back-to-back and first game of a home-and-home set with the Celtics, another scrappy team looking to play spoiler. "Weve got to get the mindset of being the hunter instead of the hunted because," Casey added. "Thats how we got where we are, being a desperate team, a hungry team and not believing the press clippings or where we are in the standings." Birthday blues Although Lowry would have preferred to celebrate his 28th birthday with a win, the Raptors point guard recorded his 18th double-double with 10 assists to go along with his 22 points. Lowry extended his career-high streak of 19 or more points to 10 games and also became the first Raptor to score 20-plus in eight straight since Chris Bosh did so in 2010. Amir passes VC on blocks list With his third-quarter swat on Spencer Hawes, Johnson recorded his 416th block as a member of the Raptors, passing Vince Carter for second on the teams all-time block shots list. Johnson, who had 12 points and nine rebounds on Tuesday, still has a ways to go to catch Bosh, topping the franchise list with 600 blocks. Patterson nearing a return Patrick Patterson, who has missed 10 straight games with an ulnar collateral sprain in his right elbow, was reassessed on Monday and is headlong well, the team revealed before Tuesdays game in Cleveland. Although hes been cleared for contact, theres still no timetable for his return to game action. "Its a lot up to the medical staff and when they feel he can go," Casey said. "Its one of those things where if he gets hit in the wrong way it could be trouble for a lot longer so thats why they want to make sure its well enough." The stat The Raptors fell just short of matching their largest comeback of the season. They last overcame a 21-point deficit in their home win over Dallas on Jan. 22. Toronto hasnt had multiple wins in which theyve trailed by 20 or more points in the same season since 2004-05. The quote "Weve just got to understand what were playing for," Vasquez said. "Weve got a big one tomorrow [in Boston]. Its a must-win because were actually playing for something. If you dont get up for that youve got to get your gas up. Weve just got to be motivated, man. This is crunch time. This is important for us. Tomorrows a must-win, no matter what. No excuses." Kent Emanuel Jersey . 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Carlos Beltran Jersey . - Zac Leslie scored two goals and assisted on two more, and Justin Nichols made 34 saves as the Guelph Storm blanked the Kitchener Rangers 6-0 in Ontario Hockey League action on Sunday.SOCHI, Russia – It was late August at the Olympic orientation camp in Calgary, more than five months from the official start of the Sochi Olympics, and Canadian head coach Mike Babcock delivered a message for those players not invited to take part. “Do something about it,” Babcock said defiantly. “The great thing about life is you get to control what happens to you the majority of the time. Do something about it if youre not here.” Jamie Benn was not among the 25 forwards selected to participate in that late summer camp, but it was the 24-year-old from Victoria B.C. who managed to emerge in Canadas tournament-opening win over Norway. Though he played just under nine minutes in his first Olympic game – a team-low – Benn turned in the eventual game-winner and made himself a noticeable presence alongside John Tavares and Patrice Bergeron on an energetic Canadian fourth line. He beat out 12 of the aforementioned forwards for the opportunity in Sochi, including the impressive likes of Claude Giroux, James Neal, and Eric Staal. “It was just motivation,” Benn said of not being selected to the orientation camp, which saw 47 players gather in Alberta for a brief three-day meet-and-greet. “Obviously Canada can put some pretty good teams together and every guy that went to the orientation camp deserved to be there. It just gave me a little bit more motivation coming into this year.” The first-year captain of the Dallas Stars, Benn totaled 22 goals and 51 points in the first half, his tantalizing combination of size, speed, grit and skill too appealing for Steve Yzerman and the Hockey Canada brass to pass up. “I just went out there inn the first half and focused on the Dallas Stars and what I had to do to win hockey games over there,” said Benn, a fifth round steal in the 2007 draft.dddddddddddd “I didnt change anything. I didnt try to impress.” Upon arrival in Sochi, Babcock stressed that opportunity and ice-time would be earned amongst his 14 forwards. And though Benn didnt play a lot against Norway he did more than enough to get noticed, most notably in a dominant second frame of Canadas 3-1 win. It was Benn who drew a penalty in the offensive zone just moments before Shea Weber scored the first Canadian goal, a blast that eased some tension from a jittery first frame. And then it was Benn just a few minutes later – he was nearly rocked by Ole-Kristian Tollefsen moments earlier – making no mistake on a terrific cross-ice feed from the intuitive Bergeron. “Benn can skate and hes hard, shoots the puck,” said Babcock, who raved about Benn, Bergeron, Tavares and Martin St. Louis, the bottom group of Canadian forwards on this night. “It was a key for us to win our shift each and every time we went out there,” Benn said. “Its taking a hit or getting a hit to get in it and I think thats what happened in the second there.” One of eight Canadians making their debut on the Olympic stage on Thursday, Benn said whatever nerves may have been there in the furious buildup to a hard-fought match against the Norwegians disappeared quickly. And by nights end there was sweet redemption for a player who fought his way onto the team. “Its great to be a part of, represent your country,” he said. “It was exciting to get it going today.” ' ' '