By special Rick Report correspondent Ess-dog.

Overheard at the Rick Brunson .com offices before last night's tilt with the Celtics:

Dude #1: "Dude, have you heard? OMB and B-Huge are both out of town for the next few days!"
Dude #2: "Zuh? Who the hell is gonna write the Rick Report dude? None of the rest of us know basketball like they do, let alone the English language. Being lonely internet hack-type dudes takes up all our time!"
Dude #1: "That's your problem dude. I'm outta here"
Dude #2: "No dude! Please don't go! We've got the dreaded second half of a back-to-back tonight! Brunson doesn't even play for us anymore, why do we need a Rick Report! Don't make me watch *and* write about it! Duuuuuude!!!!"

...and so the stage was set for me to watch my first NBA game this year sober.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of the Raps. In fact I'm probably the biggest sports fan here in the hallowed halls of Rick Brunson .com (nobody else follows MLB or English Soccer or Lacrosse, as well as the Raps and the NHL and NFL). But the Raptors I've read and heard about this year aren't a professional basketball team, they're a whipping boy. I wasn't exactly relishing the thought of watching the Raps lose badly over watching Arsenal vs Fulham.

Needless to say it was pleasantly surprising to not only witness our first back to back win of the year, but to see the Raptors doing some laughing for a change. It wasn't all good though. Sure we raised the bar on the NBA season high for threes with 17 (shooting 71% from beyond the arc), but we were our typical, brutal selves shooting 31% from everywhere else. If we hadn't set a franchise record for threes last night (accounting for 51 points I might add), and instead shot our average for threes instead (.361 or 27 points), we would have lost 95-81. Then it's the Celtics putting in the scrubs with two minutes to play.

Yes, it is a cynical outlook at an entertaining game that resulted in a fairly important win. But I can hardly proclaim the Raps a new team after only two games with Rose, Marshall, and Baxter. They haven't even been to a Raptors practice yet - which means O'Neal hasn't had a chance to mold them into Defence-First zombies yet.