Back In The Saddle In San Antonio

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and is having a good holiday season. The Raptors season took a turn for better prior to the Christmas break with a 5 game winning streak. The most impressive of those wins came against the Houston Rockets in terms of quality of opposition. It is another team from the Southwest Division that provides the opposition tonight  in the San Antonio Spurs. The Raptors had one of their better performances of the year vs. the Spurs losing in double overtime. That was a breakout game for Ed Davis who had to sit and watch Andrea Bargnani continue to suck in overtime. No Bargnani now and will see about Kyle Lowry for tonight.

The Spur has an impressive 12-4 home mark all-time versus the Raptors. Toronto’s last win in San Antonio is almost 5 years to the day winning on December 28th in 2007. Spurs sit tucked behind Oklahoma City in third in the Western Conference. They enter tonight winners of two straight but have a very impressive 10-2 record on their home floor.

You can never predict what Pop will do with his line-up but the Spurs are a deep and dangerous squad. If the Raptors make it 6 wins in a row this would easily be their biggest win on the season. That said, don’t count on it, as that double overtime game in Toronto likely was a wake up call not to take the Raptors lightly.

Also both Bargnani will not play (Which might be a good thing considering how he played in first one) and Jonas Valacuinas who broke his right ring finger prior to the break will not be in the line-up.

In any case even if things take a turn back towards reality at least Raptors fans got to go into Christmas feeling good about the team for the first time since the pre-season. Also, the Raptors have to much more winnable games in from of them on this road trip with stops in New Orleans and Orlando before returning home to welcome in 2013.

So shake of the rust it has been five days but the Raptors are back in action tonight at 8:30. While you access the damage you did to your bank account be it for Christmas or at the Boxing Day sales you can see if the Raptors can give us yet another surprise with a win over the Spurs.

Just 3 games left in 2012 for Toronto and they need to keep winning if they hope to climb back in the playoff race.