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Last night's shocking opening night victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers was a play in three acts. The first act was highlighted by Andrea Bargnani's 21-point performance in the first half as the Raptors staked an 18-point lead. The second act was about the Cavs "going small" and shooting themselves back into the game, tying the game at 69 with 2:05 to go in the third quarter. The final act was Cavs coach Mike Brown making the blunder of "going big" with a frontcourt of Shaq and Big Z as the Raptors pulled away again.
It's impossible to say at this point how much of last night's upset victory was a result of the Raptors being better than last season versus the possibility that the Cavs might actually be worse off with Shaq as a featured player. For all the Raptors' great performances, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Cavs shot horribly on the night (34.9 percent from the field) and Shaq was a brutal minus-25 in his 25 minutes of playing time. Without question, he was a liability out there against a team with mobile bigs like Bargnani and Chris Bosh. Before he was benched with his fifth foul four minutes into the fourth quarter, Andrea made two critical jumpers that helped give the Raptors an 87-74 lead — Bargnani's three-pointer was made while an overmatched Shaq tried to run out to the top of the arc to contest the shot.
Bargnani's 28-point performance on 11-for-15 shooting was astonishing. His two three-pointers were par for the course but his three dunks were eye-opening. He keeps expanding and enhancing his offensive arsenal to show that he can score in a variety of ways depending on who is guarding him. The Cavs simply didn't have an answer for him.
Of course, all the gushing over Bargnani makes it easy to overlook Bosh's tremendous game. He was a MAN out there last night — I'm reminded once again that he can be one of the league's elite rebounders when he's properly motivated. In the last game of the 2008-09 season, he needed 19 rebounds to reach a 10-per-game average, and that's exactly how many he grabbed. Last night, he was undoubtedly motivated by Shaq's "RuPaul" diss as he pulled down 16 boards to go with his 21 points. Bosh is going to have to be one of the league's premier rebounders if the Raptors are going to avoid being outrebounded by most of their opponents this season, and he showed last night that he has both the body and the drive to reach that goal.
There were other notable bright spots besides the breakout performance of the Killer Bs. Antoine Wright and Marco Belinelli were both defensive standouts — Wright with three drawn charges and Belinelli with his diligent shot contesting on help defence. They helped ensure that the Cavs were unable to get into a good offensive rhythm outside of that hot streak in the third quarter.
Would the Raptors have been able to withstand the Cavs' third-quarter run and pull out a victory in a game like this last season? Probably not. It seems like Bosh, Bargnani, Calderon and Turkoglu have brought an unflappable leadership to this team that will equip them well in hard-fought games against elite teams. They're probably not going to win most games against teams of this caliber, but it already seems like they won't lay down regardless. After losing all three games to Cleveland by an average margin of 18-points last season, this year's squad appears to have a newfound truculence that could mean the difference between winning and losing in tight fourth quarters.
OK, to quote the great Winston Wolfe from Pulp Fiction: "Let's not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet." It's only one game and — as I indicated above — there's a distinct possibility that the Cavs are significantly worse than last season's version. But the win still counts and this is certainly a much more impressive team than what they presented themselves as in pre-season. By simply showing they can be competitive with one of the league's supposedly elite teams, they've served notice after just one game that these are not the same bunch of softies that was routinely dominated by top teams last season.
There was a greater significance to last night's triumph beyond just the notch in the NBA standings. Stephen Brunt wrote an excellent column after the game where he claimed that the win was important for the collective psyche of Toronto sports fans. Leafs fans are demoralized, Jays fans are crippled by a sense of hopelessness, and Argos fans have little reason to support that sad-sack team. Last night provided a glimmer of hope that perhaps one of this city's teams can be something more than a national laughingstock. The bar is set pretty low, but a playoff berth for the Raptors would be a nice palate cleanser after the shit sandwiches Toronto fans have been served lately. After last night, this is one group of fans that actually has a reason to look forward to the rest of the season. It's a nice feeling, isn't it? 
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