"Yeah, I'm pissed off," he said. "Hell, yeah, I want everybody pissed off."

What had irked the short-timer so much was Toronto's utter capitulation at the hands of the New York Knicks on Friday, a 30-point shellacking from a team with almost as bad a record as the Raptors that was marked by a distinct lack of fight.

Toronto was on its heels from the opening tip and there's a case to be made the game was effectively over when the Knicks scored the first nine points. The Raptors played tentatively and without emotion, shell-shocked from the first few possessions and unable to find any fight to get back in the game.

For Marion, it's unacceptable.

"The mood (yesterday) was to come here and get some work done," said the 10-year NBA vet. "Everybody was kind of pissed off, nobody likes losing by 30 points, I don't care who you are.

"If you have any kind of pride or any kind of integrity, you don't like losing by that many points. We have to come in here (this afternoon against the Knicks again) and be ready to fight like cats and dogs."

Of course, all this talk is just that, and if there's one thing the Raptors have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt this season, it's that talk is cheap.

They spent all of Thursday talking about the importance of Friday, the first of four games this season against a team between them and the final playoff spot.

Then they went out and backed up those words with arguably the worst quarter of the season, giving up 44 points (the third-worst quarter in franchise history) and rendering the final 36 minutes inconsequential.

It should prove that any correlation between what they say and what they do is simply a fluke, a fact even Chris Bosh pointed out yesterday.

"I really don't pay attention to what we do in practice any more, I pay attention to what we do in games," he said. "We've had great practices, we've had good practices and then we've gone out and got smashed. I really don't pay attention to practice any more. I want us to practice good, I think that's very important. But until that translates into the game ...

"The same thing we do here we have to do on the court and I don't understand why sometimes we don't do it. We're capable, we've very capable, we just have to do it and stop thinking about it."

A true cynic might suggest the Raptors practise well because they are practising against themselves at practice speed, and once presented with fast-moving opposition at game speed, they're overwhelmed.

That certainly seemed to be the case at Madison Square Garden, even though the fact the Knicks play fast and like to shoot quickly is as big an NBA surprise as saying the Lakers and Celtics are good.

"We knew what they were going to do," said coach Jay Triano. "We were on our heels to start the game and you can't start out like that.

"I think we were on our heels like: 'Oh, are they really going to shoot that fast?' And sure enough they do and they get going and they get rhythm. We gave them too many open looks."

Could it be different today?

Could the Raptors show up realizing what might hit them and be prepared for it?

They'd like to think so.

"We watched tape (yesterday) and we watched a little bit more than we normally do," said Triano.

"It's not only corrections from (Friday) night but it's preparation for (today). It wasn't pretty to watch - we made a lot of mistakes and hopefully we can correct them."