Going 3-1 on a road trip sure beats going 1-3 and even if the Raptors were never really at their best for any sustained portion of the journey, it ended as well as could be expected, I’d say.

Now to gird the loins for a weekend at home and then a whole lot of in-and-out quick trips over the holidays.

First, this:

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THREE POINTERS

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Learning, but a slower pace

Kyle Lowry’s an all-world practitioner of the hurry-up two-for-one, frenetic with the ball and maybe 32-35 seconds left in a quarter, willing to take some deep pull-up three in transition just so the Raptors can milk one more quick possession out of the clock.

Well, Fred VanVleet’s getting there.

End of the third quarter, he’s running the show and there’s maybe 44 seconds left. Fred dribbles and dribbles and waits and waits before running screen-roll with DeRozan, who gets the switch and makes a bucket.

It’s a time-delayed 2-for-1, the Suns get their shot and even though the Raptors missed a final shot, it was pretty good clock management.

Kyle? With 45 seconds, he’s probably thinking three-for-two, even if it takes a foul to accomplish.

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Making his shots

One of the things that goes a bit unappreciated about Jonas Valanciunas is his proficiency at the free throw line. His teammates know, though, it’s why they are not hesitant to him on the short roll in the lane, knowing that if he doesn’t score, he will probably get fouled and they’re fine with him going to the line.

When he missed three foul shots last night, they were the first three he’d missed since a game at home against New Orleans on Nov. 9, a span of 15 games.

He’d been 31 for 31 before his first miss last night, he’s shooting a career-best 86.7 per cent from the line and that gives his coaches and teammates an extra boost of confidence when they get him the ball.

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Not normal

No, I don’t know precisely what’s going on with Norm Powell but, man, is he in a funk or what.

At times last night, he wavered between playing a bit out of control and a bit tentative, looking over his shoulder after every botched play as if he expected Miles or Anunoby or someone to be racing to the table to replace him.

On the four-game trip he had more turnovers (6) than baskets (4), he hasn’t made a three-pointer since the Indiana game on Dec. 1 in Toronto and he hasn’t attempted a free throw in three-games.

We’ve seen that he can get the job done so there’s no reason to think this is a permanent slump but a fair amount of the recent bench woes can be chalked up to the fact one key component is scuffling horribly.

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Santa Satchmo?

Why, of course.

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It’s minus-13C, the wind’s up a bit and for some reason Super Dog 2.0 decides to spend part of her pre-dawn constitutional standing around deciding whether she catch a tiny wild rabbit that lives in the bushes behind Casa Doug. Unimpressed.

Animals, man.

Animals.

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I’m just going to drop this here. Put it out on the tweeter machine yesterday afternoon but I imagine there are Irregulars who don’t do that nonsense – good for them! – and they should see it.

Plus, I can’t believe I’ve been writing about her since 2009!

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Well, MLSE buys the Argos and, well, yawn.

A bit of a flurry of news, coming as it did at about 5 p.m., but, really, is it that big?

I don’t imagine it will change a single part of the operation at any level; MLSE probably won’t impose any huge corporate governance on the Argos since they were owned by two-thirds of the current MLSE ownership group, and the football team had the most stable and supportive ownership it’s had in decades in Larry Tanenbaum (Kilmer) and Bell.

So, does this represent any kind of sea change?

Nah.

Maybe there’s some corporate leveraging that can now happen that didn’t before – and heaven knows the Argos could use a boost in knowledgeable pro-active marketing – but, really, does anyone see anything changing dramatically?

I don’t.

Besides, MLSE should have bought a WBNA team anyway.

But there is one thing to think about:

At some point, would Rogers want a seat at the CFL table when the broadcast deal is up? Possible they want to maybe add some stuff while cutting into one of the competition’s biggest properties?

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It’s askdoug@thestar.ca.

That’s the place to click and give me some brilliant submission for the weekend mail.

You know it. Now do it.

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I don’t know about these things but it would strike me that somewhere in the ranks of major league managers, someone’s more homely than Gibby, right?

The list that has as the 30th most attractive manager among 30 MLB managers made for some top Gibby yesterday, according to The Great Griff from the winter meetings.

“… Hey, beauty’s only skin deep but ugly is to the bone” is prime self-deprecating Gibby and I hope they never get rid of him.

But I also hope his bosses get even a minor move made today because this is turning into the most boring winter meetings ever for that organization.

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