By Andy Charles

Raptors coach Jay Triano finally lost his patience with his players after the defeat by Portland on Sunday that dropped the team below .500 for the first time in a couple of months and left them on the verge of dropping out of the NBA playoffs.

That fifth defeat on the bounce saw an opponent once again (I am now officially bored of saying it) top 100 points, although the Raptors did at least shoot well and showed signs that a victory might be on the way (this was written, because of deadlines, before Wednesday’s clash with Atlanta).

The real Chris Bosh finally turned up, with 28 points, but coach Triano hinted that changes were on the way with Jose Calderon the likely addition to the starting line-up after playing ‘pretty darn well’ off the bench during the losing streak.

But, with the Bulls just a game back (as of Tuesday), changes have to come ahead of a key run over the next week or so, which sees three really tough home games against Western Conference playoff hopefuls and two road games that would, back at the start of February, in the NBA betting markets, have been eyed as victories.

Triano called Toronto’s players in for training on Monday after a long flight from Portland, although he revealed that he did not see it as a statement decision; he was just being sensible.

“When you travel across the country, guys who played a lot of minutes need to break down the lactic acid, guys who didn’t play need to do something anyway, so we figured we might as well do it as a team. We went an hour and it was intense and it was good. It wasn’t any kind of statement,” he explained afterwards.

But he continued to ignore those who feel his team is too soft to compete at the high end of the Eastern Conference, something Bosh admitted when he told reporters that: “We like to ride the train that’s easy” when asked where their mental toughness was.

And that is the $64,000 question: is this Raptors team strong enough to deal with the bad times? At the moment, it seems like the answer is a resounding no.

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