So, two starters and a prime bench player are injured. What is a coach supposed to do? If you are Sam Mitchell, you just tighten up your rotation by one and go two players deeper down the bench. When you do that, two of your bench players outscore everybody but one of your opponents and you wind up with 6 players in double figures.

 Okay, so in this case the opponents are the lowly Charlotte Bobcats, but who cares. The Raps outrebounded them by 11, had 7 more assists shot 50% while holding Charlotte to 33.3% and managed to hit the 3 point shot with a blistering 61.5% accuracy rate. What happened? It looked like Charlotte came in expecting a relatively easy ride and then just got knocked off their stride by the effort of the Raptors reserves.

Defensively Moon came up big again, with 12 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. The blocks don’t tell the story of the number of altered shots he forced. Nesterovic played BIG, limiting Okafor to 2 offensive rebounds and effectively blocking him out on most plays, while also forcing him into early foul trouble. Okafor had no foul shots, 10 points, only 3 rebounds in total, no assists and 3 turnovers. His best stat of the night was his total of 3 blocked shots. Delfino was huge off the bench again. He only shot 42% from the field, but was 4 for 6 from 3 point land. Every time Charlotte seemed to get a little momentum going, the Argentinian dagger came out and stabbed them in the heart.

Without Chris Bosh to dump the ball into (where if frequently slows down to a pace similar to summer time molasses) or Ford playing (which means the team avoided the wild dribbling though the paint while everyone played guessing games about what was going to happen next) the team was forced to run Sams plays, just like they practiced them. The ball moved around the perimeter and the team used the inside/outside game to perfection.

Of course, they were playing the Charlotte Bobcats, who seemed intent on perfecting their deer in the headlights impressions from about midway through the second quarter on. Whatever. We Raptor fans will take any victory that comes our way. And this night, I will personally raise a glass of my brew-your-own red wine and toast Bryan Colangelo for bringing in Delfino and Moon, and thank Wayne Embry for the acquisition of Kris Humphries.