Music: {allcanada} Bosh: Tough seeing Raptors struggle

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

{allcanada} Bosh: Tough seeing Raptors struggle

While Chris Bosh is focused on the home stretch of the regular season with the Miami Heat , he can't help but feel bad for his former Toronto Raptors teammates.

Bosh and the Heat roll into town to take on the Raptors on Friday and the seven-time NBA all-star said he doesn't enjoy watching his old squad suffer.

"It's never fun watching your friends struggle," Bosh told Tim & Sid on Sportsnet 590 The Fan Wednesday. "It's just tough to see these guys struggle, especially with Andrea (Bargnani) and Jose (Calderon). To see guys go through that struggle it's hard, but you find out what you're really made of (when you go through tough times during a season)."

While Friday's game won't be Bosh's first trip back to the Air Canada Centre, the seven-time NBA all-star said it's still an odd feeling coming into building as a visitor.

"I wore that uniform for a while," Bosh said. "I felt backwards (the first time back at the ACC). It's always a challenge (going back to Toronto) but eventually I'll get used to it."

Bosh was selected fourth overall by the Raptors in the 2003 NBA draft, but left Toronto to sign with the Heat following the 2009-2010 season in a highly-publicized move to join LeBron James and Dwyane Wade in Miami.

Even though Raptors fans still have strong feelings about the fact he left, Bosh said that he has no regrets as to the way things played out, and that the split was made to be more dramatic than it really was.

"It was a very tough decision (to leave Toronto). A lot of people think it was easy but it was a very stressful time for me," Bosh said. "That was something that was wearing on me for a while, but I think I handled it well. I don't regret anything at all."

When Bosh and James signed in Miami, the Heat organization received a lot of flak from basketball fans and media for the way they loaded up on superstars and presented them to the public.

However, there isn't as much of a spotlight on Miami this season and Bosh believes that has benefitted the team.

"If it's not helping us win a championship, we don't care about it," Bosh said.

"We aren't under the microscope as much as we were last year," Bosh said. "We put all that behind us and just concentrated on basketball (this season). We came up short (last year) and that's all we care about now."

Statistically, Bosh is having his worst season since 2004, his second year in the league. In 45 games this year, Bosh has averaged 18.1 point, 7.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 0.7 blocks and 35.4 minutes per game. The Heat are currently on a two-game losing streak, with both defeats coming on the road. Before flying to Toronto, they host the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday in a rematch of last season's NBA championship.

"We've hit kind of a rough spot in the last couple weeks," Bosh added. "We're not playing the way we want to (but) we're motivated we know what we want to do."

With a record 35-13, the Heat currently sit in second place in the Eastern Conference. And despite their desire to redeem themselves against the Mavericks, Bosh said the Heat's rivalry with the NBA-leading Chicago Bulls is more important and heated than it is with Dallas.

"It's more competitive with Chicago," Bosh said. "We know that to get to where we want to go, we have to go through them."