After nearly two months off due to injury, Andrea Bargnani walked out to check in at the six-minute mark of the first quarter.

Play on the court stretched out for another couple of minutes. Bargnani crouched at the scorer’s desk. The tension in the building was as thick as it ever gets. Even Boston coach Doc Rivers sensed it. He made a point of walking over to the Italian to welcome him back. Bargnani smiled painfully.

Coach Dwane Casey felt it too. He came out to half court to stand with his player, shielding him from what everyone knew was coming.

As Bargnani was finally announced, there were widespread boos.

Half the arena had the sense to cheer, but the jeers were louder.

“They booed? I was in the game. I didn’t hear. But they booed?” Amir Johnson said, either genuinely taken aback or making a good show of it. “Not Bargnani. Man, I was just glad to have him back.”

“I’m disappointed,” Casey said of the reaction. “This young man has done nothing to deserve that. He’s been hurt. Fans have a right to boo, to cheer, to boo me. But I don’t think Andrea deserved it, coming back from a serious injury. But he was a pro about it.”

If that doesn’t make you feel a little sheepish, it should.

You may dislike Andrea Bargnani. You may wish him gone. That’s understandable. He’s a frustrating underachiever. But presumably you still care about the team, right? Unless you are a pecuniary masochist, that’s why you buy the tickets.

Fans who care don’t take pleasure in booing their own players. They may occasionally lose it late in a bad game, or as a reaction to lazy play, or after a flagrant provocation (Hello, A.J. Burnett).

But they don’t ambush a guy in home colours for the sin of showing up to work. They don’t take pleasure in embarrassing the team in front of the competition.

Maybe this is what losing has turned this town into. We’re the dog that bites every hand.

Whatever it is, it’s bad form. If the goal is to encourage the team to be better, it’s the equivalent of slapping a kid to get him to quit crying — an action contrary to its purpose.

Bargnani’s reaction?

“No reaction,” he said, which is sort of post-modern. “I tried to focus on the game. I heard there were some cheers, some boos.”

Were the boos fair?

“That’s not my role to say if it’s fair or unfair. I’m a player, so I’ve just got to go in and try to contribute to the team.”

Given the length of his absence, Bargnani’s contribution was impressive.

He looked ragged, breathing heavily after only a couple of minutes. By the fourth quarter, as the Raptors tailed off in a 99-95 defeat, he looked exhausted.

After his first five minutes, he hadn’t taken shot. After seven, he had seven points: a 17-foot jumper, a pair of free throws, a strong move to the rim and another foul shot made. He scored nine in 11 minutes in the first half — the team high at that point — and finished with 13 in 24 minutes.

For the first time in a long time, he looked active on defence. Not particularly effective, but active. He was talking to his teammates on the floor, something he should always do and hardly ever does. He was — and this is the important thing — trying.

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Six minutes into the second half, Bargnani checked in again. More boos. Were these people not paying attention, or were they just working off some frustration on the most convenient scapegoat? Bit of both, one suspects.

A few more minutes. A good Raptor run. Kyle Lowry found the ball in a thicket under the rim after a long Bargnani miss. The Italian crashed the basket. Lowry flipped it to him on the run. Uncontested dunk. And the cheers erupted.

“Should we reserve some time on Sunday to retire (Bargnani’s) No. 7?” someone alongside the bench wondered drily.

No danger of that, obviously, but let’s hope the fits of pique that greeted Chris Bosh aren’t also waiting for Bargnani once he’s gone somewhere else.

It’s not going to work out for him here. That’s obvious. It’s not his team anymore. It’s a team moving away from Bryan Colangelo’s pick-’n’-roll Euro model back toward old-fashioned, drive-’n’-dish American hoops.

There’s no place for Bargnani in that sort of team, not at his cost. And certainly not when there are so many other spots in desperate need of filling.

The team is effectively working with one point guard now, and given Wednesday night’s line — Lowry (plus-8); John Lucas (minus-12) — that can’t go on much longer.

Again, if you want Bargnani gone, you want him to play well enough to earn something of substance back. Again, it’s either about making fun of the guy or getting the most out of him.

He’ll be gone soon enough. Maybe not by the end of the month, but in the off-season almost certainly.

Given that, there’s no need to do this with pitchforks and an ugly smile.

It embarrasses this organization, and alienates the very people fans come here to cheer.

Was it fair for Raptors fans to boo Andrea Bargnani last night?

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