-Topping last Sunday's win over the Dallas Mavericks, the Toronto Raptors edged Kobe Bryant and the LA Lakers 106 to 105 in their biggest and most exciting win of the season.
-Bigger than beating the Mavericks you say? Perhaps Toronto's defence was superior in that one, but tonight, Toronto had to fight tooth and nail to get the victory, whereas against the Mavs, the Raps got up big in the second half and never looked back.
-The biggest reason for the Toronto win? A complete offensive attack from all angles, perhaps the best display so far this season. The Raps had five players in double figures with Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani leading the way (18 and 22 points respectively), but also got a nice boost from Jarrett Jack again (18) and got a huge lift from Marco Belinelli off the bench. Belinelli had 15 and TO got contributions down the line; from Amir Johnson to Jose Calderon. Even Rasho Nesterovic and Antoine Wright were effective in limited minutes.
-And our buddy Hedo? Well, his 1 of 6 performance from the field didn't exactly put him on the way to being in my good books, but he did make all six of his free-throws, including two monumental ones with less than two seconds left and the Raptors down by two.
-After Hedo's two makes, the Lakers ran a play for Bryant outside the arc and despite some great D by Antoine Wright, Bryant actually got the shot off and it simply rimmed out as Raptors' nation collectively exhaled.
-Kobe was an assist shy of a triple double with an incredible 27 points, 16 rebounds and 9 assists. He got some good help from Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, but despite a good showing from Jordan Farmar off the bench, offensive struggles from Ron Artest and Lamar Odom didn't do the Lake Show any favours.
-It's hard to put into words how big this win might be, but safe to say with this win, and a slew of games at home coming up against the likes of the Knicks and Heat, Toronto really has a chance to cement their playoff status. We'll get into this some more tomorrow morning but for now, it feels pretty damn good to be a Raptors fan...