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Did any of you recognize that basketball team playing tough defence and making clutch stops at the Air Canada Centre Sunday afternoon? That sure didn't look like the Toronto Raptors I'm used to watching this season. The Raptors held Chris Paul to just 10 points (on 3-for-13 shooting), seven assists and five turnovers yesterday and Andrea Bargnani made a couple of key blocks late in the fourth quarter — on help defence, no less! — as they won 98-92. It was just the 10th time this season the Raptors have held their opponents under 100 points — and they've won all 10 of those games.
Jarrett Jack, Marcus Banks and their teammates did an excellent job of keeping Paul out of the lane yesterday, forcing him to take jumpshots that just weren't falling. You have to love the backhanded compliment coach Jay Triano gave Banks after the game: "The one thing Marcus can do is defend." Funny, since that's the one thing Jose Calderon can't do. Seriously, I really hope the Raptors figure out a way to trade him once he's healthy again.
The emergence of Banks and Sonny Weems as significant contributors is worth noting. If Weems hasn't officially moved ahead of Marco Belinelli in the rotation, he should be with the way he's played the past two weeks. Weems brings athleticism and hustle that has been lacking in this lineup — although Amir Johnson has been providing that consistently this season and he was phenomenal in the the wins over the Nets and Hornets.
As surprising as the contributions of Weems and Banks were, nothing shocked me more than the two late blocks by Bargnani. That's exactly the kind of awareness a team requires to play good defence, and that's not something we see from him very often. Bargnani doesn't block many shots (just 1.17 per game this season — 28th in the league) and the ones he does block are usually on his own man. Yesterday's rare show of lane intidimation is something we need to see a lot more of if this team is going to play passable defence in the long run.
Yesterday's game qualified for the RaptorBlog Clutch Stats tabulator (last two minutes of the fourth quarter or all of overtime, neither team ahead by more than five points) so here are the updated numbers.
The key play in clutch time yesterday was Chris Bosh singlehandedly fighting off three Hornets to grab a rebound off a Bargnani missed trey, and then laying it back in to put the Raptors up 96-92 with 46 seconds to go. "Clutch" can be more than hitting a big shot, it can also be letting the adrenaline take over and beasting on the boards. While the season is still early, note that Bargnani is the one Raptor who hasn't performed well in clutch time so far. 
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