With just over five minutes remaining in the third quarter of Monday night's late game, a West Coast road affair against the Portland Trail Blazers, the Toronto Raptors were in trouble. (As they tend to be these days.) Injuries to top scorers Kyle Lowry (who hurt his right shoulder in a first-half fall) and Andrea Bargnani (who fell awkwardly while attempting a first-quarter dunk and injured his elbow) left Toronto with just nine healthy bodies on the bench. Shorthanded, shooting 34 percent from the floor and already in dire straits, the Raps stared up at a 10-point deficit, in desperate need of a spark.
Of course, because this is life for a 4-17 team spinning its wheels and circling the drain, Raptors forward Amir Johnson responded by getting himself ejected, leaving the Raps with just eight available players to climb out of the 10-point hole, and then decided to ratchet things up in a way that's going to earn him a call from the commissioner's office.
