Raptors turn crises into comebacks
"There was a huge amount of confidence on the bench," coach Jay Triano reported of the darkest moments in the game. "Alex (English, one of the team's assistant coaches) said, `We're down 22 but we're going to come back and win.'
"And I told the players in one of the timeouts we were going to come back and win the game so let's start playing sooner rather than later. There was just a feeling about it – we knew we could come back."
Steve Nash: Sunshine superman
"Don't ever tell him he can't do something," said Jay Triano, the Raptors head coach innately familiar with Nash's will from the years they spent together with the Canadian national team. "Don't tell him he can't play at 35 the same way he did at 25. When he was the MVP, everybody was like, `Ah, he didn't deserve it, didn't deserve it' and then he backs it up with two games of 40 points. Don't tell him that he's 35 and his career's winding down.
"He's defied the odds since he was a kid playing high school basketball."
Toronto Sun
Raptors offensive run helps kick start their defence
"More than anything, the guys showed there's no quit. They showed a lot of character."
When the night began, the Raptors showed very little of anything.
Shots weren't dropping, heads began to drop and there was absolutely no semblance on how to defend the Clippers, who made 15 of their first 20 shots from the field to lead 34-17 after the opening quarter.
But the Raptors persevered, got a huge boost from reserves Amir Johnson and Marco Belinelli, and trailed 54-45 at the break.
If anything, the Raptors have shown that once they start to make shots their energy level on defence switches on.
Arizona Republic
Stoudemire looks past dismal night
Sunday against the Toronto Raptors, the Suns big men similar to theirs. Like Stoudemire, Chris Bosh is an inside-outside player. Like the Suns' Channing Frye, the Raptors' Andrea Bargnani is a 3-point threat at center. Toronto's Hedo Turkoglu is a wing who shoots and creates like Phoenix's Grant Hill. The Raptors' Jose Calderon is a probing, pass-first point guard in the mold of Steve Nash.
Stoudemire might guard Bosh, whose NBA-leading 10.7 free throws per game is helping him to a career-best 28.0 points-per-game scoring average.
"Chris is a guy they go to 30 times a game," Stoudemire said. "With us, we have a different style of play. You're not going to see too many one-on-one plays, as far as me going offensively at him."
Guard Leandro Barbosa had his right wrist drained Friday and sat out practice Saturday. He was cleared to play Sunday night.