Hot News: Hey Raptors fans, believe the hype

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An 12-2 record through 82 games, if sustained, would result in a 70-win season for the Toronto Raptors.

That is highly unlikely to happen.

No, we're not here to rain on the Raptors parade.

The start they have fashioned is as stellar as it is surprising, as jaw-dropping as it is a curiosity.

But for now, that is the pace the team is on and there is no refuting that.

There are all kinds of reasons that this run can't continue.

But rather than go that way, we've decided to point out why it might.

It might because this team is no longer the fragile, lacking-in-confidence team many had come to equate with the franchise since Vinsanity left for New Jersey.

That all changed last season when the trading of Rudy Gay brought back enough bench depth to give the Raptors starters the wiggle room not to be perfect, while opening the door to more space and opportunities for DeMar DeRozan to show his skill set.

It also opened up starters minutes for Terrence Ross as well, and while Ross remains a work in progress, he has been far more good this season than he has been young.

The 2013-14 season allowed the Raptors to grow while still developing.

And to a point, that hasn't changed. Ross and Jonas Valanciunas still are developing, but now rather than live with the shortcomings of youth that periodically show up, head coach Dwane Casey has enough bullets in his chamber to reload and hit the opposition with a second and different barrage of artillery.

That depth has been on full display throughout this sizzling start.

Even on the rare occasion where DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, the two mainstays of the starting five have faltered, Casey has found an answer on the bench.

Early on it was the hard-nosed defence and more offence than one would expect from James Johnson.

Johnson was brought back to Toronto after a two-year hiatus first in Sacramento and then Memphis.

He returned a more mature player, a player who knows his role and a better overall player because of it.

He's part of the reason this team has more options.

Lou Williams is another part.

Williams is lethal with the basketball in his hands. He can get his shot off whenever he wants, can get to the line just about any time he wants and is capable - as we all saw in Cleveland - of taking over a game by himself.

That is what is new to this team.

What has returned this season is far better than it left off almost seven months ago when they came within a Paul Pierce block of moving on to the second round of the NBA playoffs.

The biggest difference, at least Casey has seen, is how this team has no give-in in it anymore.

In the past, a bad quarter by the Raptors or a stellar quarter by the opposition was too often enough to settle the night's score.

But even in their two losses, the Raptors have not given in.

And you can count at least three of the wins that had the look of one of those games that used to get away - the large early deficits against first Boston and then Cleveland and the furious fourth-quarter comeback by Phoenix Monday night - as examples of this team showing the kind of resolve contenders have.

As for the two losses, first against Miami and then Chicago, the first loss came in a game in which the team inexplicably forgot how to shoot free throws. The second was a very poor third quarter in which they rallied in the fourth but came up short.

'I think the experience of going to the playoffs has hardened us a little bit,' Casey said. 'Toughened us up a little bit so that when we do get punched, we stagger a little bit but we don't fall down.

'I think that is the biggest step.'

Casey could have picked any individual off his team as an example of this. He chose DeRozan on this occasion.

'I look back at DeMar DeRozan, who had a tough shooting night in Cleveland but I thought he played some of his best defence of the season. Two or three years ago he might not have got the defence part going,' Casey said.

'That is the sign of growth, of toughness in those situations and it's good to see. We still have a ways to go. It's still early and I'm preaching that because I still see so many situations we have to get better in.'

But it's clear that Casey is enjoying seeing that maturity play out.

Finishing games off has also improved. These days when the Raptors take a lead into the fourth quarter, it's still there at the final whistle.

There were certainly some scary moments in the fourth quarter of Monday's win over Phoenix when the run-and-gun Suns almost put an end to the 35-game streak the Raptors have of preserving a lead after 36 minutes, but they managed.

'Team unity, our ability to trust one another, being in those situations last year with the same core group and then adding guys like Lou Williams and James Johnson who are the same calibre of player and the same type of players we have - unselfish with that mentality to never give up, never surrender and never back down attitude,' Patrick Patterson explained of why they are so much better closing other teams out this year. 'It just builds as the season progresses.'

The Raptors will try to keep that building going Wednesday night in Atlanta when they take on the Hawks.

Patterson likes where the team is right now.

'I think right now we are in a good groove,' he said. 'Everyone is focussed. Nobody is overconfident. We all believe in ourselves right now and we are just focussed on the game at hand.' JOHNSON BIDING HIS TIME

James Johnson is back and ready to contribute but he knows he has to be patient.

Johnson, who sprained his ankle badly on a camera person's foot behind the basket as he tried to save a ball from going out of bounds a little over a week ago, was back in the lineup Monday but played just four minutes.

The Raptors lock-down defender off the bench admitted there was some initial hesitancy pushing off on the injured foot but put that behind him pretty quickly.

'I'm pretty much doing everything,' Johnson said. 'I just have to keep doing the right things on the bench until my number is called.'

Watching though has been hard and he's itching to get back into the middle of the action.

'It sucked,' he said of staying in Toronto while the team headed to Cleveland on the weekend. 'But I got faith in my guys. I trust that they will do the right thing and play the right way regardless of who is in or who is out. They went up there without Tyler and myself and got it done.'

Johnson said this is a team that doesn't like to lose no matter who the opposition is.

'That stuff in practice, that white squad vs. black squad stuff?' Johnson said. 'People think that is funny but that competition is real. We really go at each other.'

Johnson missed three games since injuring the ankle in the win over Utah. mike.ganter@sunmedia.ca

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