Mike Ulmer has worked for seven news organizations including the National Post and, most recently, the Toronto Sun. Mike has written about the Toronto sports scene for more than 10 years and has penned several books on sports and culture.

April 24, 2007

(TORONTO) -- The New Jersey Nets expect the Toronto Raptors to be better in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference Quarter-Final tonight.

Too bad, say the Nets, because they will be too.

The Raptors need Bargnani to be better in Game 2. (Ron Turenne/NBAE/Getty Images)

“They know they need to win a game,” said New Jersey forward Mikki Moore. “Each game is crucial. They’ll get up and down the court more. Chris Bosh is going to more aggressive on offence.”

Going into the 7 p.m. contest at Air Canada Centre, the Nets and Raptors are saying many of the same things.

Neither team shot the ball particularly well. Take Vince Carter who went five for 19.

“There’s definite room for improvement” Carter said this morning after the club’s shootaround. “They (his teammates) carried me. They really stepped up and did the job.”

The Nets were also a stale (six for 22) from the three-point line.

The Raptors, meanwhile, saw Joey Graham contribute just four points and Andrea Bargnani bag just three.

But by focusing on the first-game jitters encountered by the youthful Raptors, people are overlooking an important truth, said Richard Jefferson, the Nets’ eloquent provocateur.

“So much has been said about what they didn’t do, their lack of experience, of them being nervous,” Jefferson said. “We had some guys here who didn’t have their best game either and I don’t think we got any credit for our win. Let’s be realistic here. We are a veteran group. People should not be that surprised that we were able to steal a win.”

On the menu for Game 2: more and more pressure.

“The team that is coming off the loss innately has this sense of desperation,” said New Jersey coach Lawrence Frank. “We were fortunate to get one but at the same time, we need that same kind of hunger to get number two.”

How successful the Raptors are will depend in large part on their ability to beat the Nets zone defence with penetration and outside shooting. The success of the zone was the wild card of Game 1.

“We weren’t planning on playing that much zone, but we saw that it was bugging them so we stuck with it,” said Moore.

In that scenario, Bargnani and Anthony Parker, good for 16 points in Game 1, will be key figures.

That, in turn, gets easier, if the Raptors tighten up on defence, Parker said.

“We can’t allow so many fast break points. It’s so hard to score in the playoffs in a half-court game. To allow 20-plus fast break points is backbreaking.”

The Nets garnered 20 fast break points against eight of their own in Game 1. Even more backbreaking was the points in the paint, where the Nets outscored the Raptors 46-22.

Changing that falls in large part to Bosh who has adjusted his mindset from hyper to slow burn.

“I don’t want that aped up feeling to get the best of me,” he said. “I have to stay relaxed. If I’m playing well, I think the team is going to play well, not only on offence but defence too.”