Ever-improving Bosh fuels Raptors' unexpected rise

	Chris Bosh is averaging career highs in points and rebounds in his fourth season. Manny Millan/SI

Also in this column:
• Sizing up the West playoff race
• Q&A: Hawks coach Mike Woodson

The hardest part of Chris Bosh's day is when the alarm clock nudges at his inner ear each morning in Toronto. He was probably up late the night before, unable to sleep whether his Raptors won or lost. Young athletes sleep as parents wish their babies would -- long, quiet and deep. They sleep on planes, in cars, on couches, during team meetings, on locker-room benches before games and especially when the check comes after dinner.

But Bosh is 22, and he has a big day ahead. He has a division to win.

"I had a little trouble getting here early and getting my shots up before practice,'' he says after a recent practice in the Raptors' gym. "I didn't know how important it was until I talked to [veteran teammate] Darrick Martin and coach [Sam Mitchell]. They really got on me, because the guys look at things like that, and the thing is if I do it, then everybody has to do it.''

When Bosh used to come dragging into practice at the last minute, it might have looked as if he thought he was so good that he didn't need the extra work. "It's not that I was trying to separate myself from everybody,'' he says. "It's just that I couldn't get up early enough.

"I finally found my snooze button on my alarm clock. I set it two hours before practice, hit it twice. Get up, get a good breakfast, and I'm here 45 minutes before practice.''

These are the little things that make the bad teams good, and they all begin in the heart of the best player. Bosh pushes himself, and then he pushes everyone else.

Last season the 6-foot-10 Bosh averaged a breakout 22.5 points a game to earn his first All-Star invitation. He received a lot of credit for extending his shooting range near the three-point line while converting a career-best 50.5 percent from the field. But that wasn't good enough. He knew better.

"It was falling,'' he says of his jump shot, "but that was only during quarters one through three. Quarter four was a little bit different.''

Did the Raptors bring forth statistics to convince him that he needed more work?

"I just knew it, I felt it,'' he says. "I didn't need a stat sheet or anything like that to let me know. I knew that in the fourth quarters of most games my play went down, and that's from making the right passes to making open shots. When it came down to things like that, I was lacking. I wanted to improve my game to help us become a better fourth-quarter team, to help us win more games down the stretch.''

So he rebuilt his technique. Today he shoots with a more supple wrist, with his hand under the ball, with his legs in an athletic stance before the pass comes his way. Today he is shooting 50.1 percent overall and 37 percent from the three-point line (10-of-27) after missing all 13 of his attempts from that distance last season. Bosh is averaging career bests of 22.8 points and 10.7 rebounds for the season.

After enduring 153 losses over Bosh's first three years in Toronto, the Raptors (25-23) are pursuing their first winning record in five years. They hold a 3˝-game lead over the broken-down Nets; even more impressive is that they are just two games away from claiming, momentarily at least, homecourt advantage as the No. 4 seed in the East.

Early this season the Raptors fed Bosh incessantly, and he was unhappy because they were 7-12. Then he was sidelined by a left knee bone bruise for three weeks, liberating point guard T.J. Ford to establish himself and others in the offense while the Raptors went 6-6. Now Bosh is one of many options alongside Ford, Anthony Parker, Morris Peterson, No. 1 pick Andrea Bargnani and Jorge Garbajosa, which makes Bosh happy. The Raptors have won 12 of their last 16, earning Bosh the Eastern Conference Player of the Month award for January.