Now with the Miami Heat, center Alonzo Mourning says he is sorry if Toronto fans feel ?duped? over him not playing for the Raptors after being sent there as part the Vince Carter trade with the New Jersey Nets.

?I knew I wasn't going to win in Toronto,? Mourning said.

"I apologize," Mourning said in his first public discussion of the Dec. 17 trade which made him a Raptor ? at least theoretically?and sent Vince Carter to New Jersey. "That was my main purpose of not stepping foot in Toronto at all, not to raise anyone's hopes or anything like that.

Mourning is adamant that the Toronto staff was made aware by the New Jersey execs that there was a good chance Mourning would not report to the club.

"I'm 35 years old and I've been a part of rebuilding teams and considering my health situation, I didn't want to be in a situation where I was going to waste my time out on the court," Mourning said.

"I want a reward for my efforts and I'm not saying Toronto didn't have the talent to get into the playoffs, especially if I had come there to contribute but it's not about getting into the playoffs for me any more. I'm at a stage in my career where I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to do this so if I do it, I want to do it on a level where I can see a reward at the end of it."

Chris Bosh scored 32 points for the Toronto Raptors to lead them to a 109-104 victory at Atlanta.

``Just stay positive, that's my biggest thing,'' Bosh said of his conversation with Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt. ``No matter what happens, just stay positive. The minute you start forcing things, that's when you shoot yourself in the foot.''

``We talk al the time about getting off to a good start,'' Rose said. ``I'm pretty sure every team in the league does. You've got to find a way to get it when it counts. Fortunately for us, we were able to get it in the fourth quarter when things were crucial.''

Atlanta's last victory came against the Raptors in Toronto.

``I try to tell people, 'Don't look at records,''' Raptors coach Sam Mitchell said. ``Everybody's playing for something. Whether it's the playoffs, respectability or jobs. Everybody's got something that's important to them.''

Toronto?s fragile center Loren Woods was placed on the injured list on Friday with a sprained left shoulder.  Forward Eric Williams was activated and will take Woods? place on the roster.

Williams had missed the previous 11 games with a right calf injury.

Allen Iverson hit a 15-foot jumper with 2.4 seconds left to put the cherry on top of a 36-point performance, and Chris Webber had 32 points, six rebounds and four assists in the 76ers' 103-101 victory over the Toronto Raptors on Friday night.

``He's helping us, not just with scoring the basketball,'' Iverson said of Webber. ``He's passing the ball like I've never seen a big man pass it.''

``It feels good at the end of the game, whether I want this shot or not, to see the little fella say, 'Clear out' to me,'' Webber said. ``I loved it because it felt good. The way he looked at me, if I had it, it would be the same way. It just felt comfortable and that's the key.''

The Chicago Bulls won their eighth straight versus the Raptors on Wednesday, beating Toronto 94-85.  Eddy Curry led the Bulls with 16 points.

``It feels good to beat these guys, especially when you arrive in your hotel room last night and see Jalen Rose on TV guaranteeing a win,'' Curry said. ``That's even more incentive. At this point we just wished we could have won by a little bit more.'

Rose did do his part to back up the guarantee, scoring 30 points, but it wasn't enough for the Raptors.

``They wouldn't have said that if they lost,'' Rose said. ``If they need me to say something to get them motivated to play, they'll be getting bounced in the first round.''

Donyell Marshall will be a free-agent this summer and his former team, the Chicago Bulls, may be the frontrunners for his services.

''While I'm going to be looking at many situations, Chicago is definitely one of the teams I wouldn't mind playing for,'' Marshall said after practice Tuesday. ''I'm looking for a team where I can get meaningful minutes, a good contract and a chance to play for a winner. The Bulls have all those. I didn't want to leave in the first place, and my family [fiancee Leea Kielpinski and their four children] still live in that same house in Long Grove I bought when I signed with Chicago.

''I first signed with Chicago because I felt they had an up-and-coming team and because the city is equal distance from my home in Philadelphia and Leea's home in Minnesota. But this is a business, and trades are part of it. [Bulls coach Scott] Skiles got hired just a couple of days before I got traded. I had a couple of practices under him, and the last one was the best one I had had with them since I was there because he moved me to small forward and saw that a front line of me, Eddy Curry and Tyson Chandler would really be a productive one.''

LeBron James became the youngest player to score 50 points in an NBA game, but his franchise-record 56 weren't enough to prevent the Toronto Raptors from beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-98 on Sunday.

``I probably played the best game of my life but it means nothing when it comes with a loss,'' James said.

His previous career his was 43 points verus Detroit.

``I don't care about individual stats, especially when you lose. I was disappointed to have as good a game as I had and still come out with a loss,'' James said.

At 20 years, 80 days old, James eclipsed Rick Barry as the youngest player to score 50 points. Barry was 21 years, 261 days old when he scored 57 for San Francisco against the New York Knicks, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

``He's going to set a lot more records, you know, if he develops,'' Cleveland coach Paul Silas said. ``He was just on fire tonight, he was just amazing and it was great to see.''

Jalen Rose led the Raptors with 30 points.

One of the few shining points in a dismal Toronto Raptors season, Chris Bosh is now listed as day-to-day with an injured lower back he wrenched in Wednesday?s loss to the Boston Celtics.

The Raptors may be without their 20-year old phenom for their game against Detroit tonight.

Paul Pierce and Antoine Walker each scored 24 points, and the Celtics nearly blew a 16-point fourth-quarter lead before pulling out a 110-109 win over the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday night.

The win was the fifth straight for the Celtics and their ninth in 10 games since acquiring Walker from Atlanta on Feb. 24 just before the trade deadline.

``Were not really happy with the way we played in the fourth quarter,'' Pierce said. ``We know we could improve, especially on the defensive end.''

A report in a Toronto newspaper on Monday suggested Raptors' GM Rob Babcock passed on two trades, inspiring another round of second-guess the GM.

The report said Babcock could have landed New Orleans Hornets center and Toronto resident Jamaal Magloire in a deal involving Carter. In addition, a draft night deal would have brought Seattle SuperSonics guard Antonio Daniels to the Raptors and still provided Toronto with the No. 12 pick, likely high enough to get Araujo, whom the Raptors took at No. 8.

"There was not a deal to be done with New Orleans," Babcock said. "Anything to the contrary would have been false."

He added that the draft night deal, as reported, was not plausible, either. "You can't trade a player for a draft pick unless you have a [trade] exception," Babcock said. "So again, that trade [as reported] was completely false."