TORONTO — It took nine seconds for the crowd at the Air Canada Centre to turn November into May.
It was a long way to overtime in Sunday afternoon's game between the Toronto Raptors and Boston Celtics, but that didn't stop the sellout crowd of 19,800 from breaking out the "Let's go, Raptors" chant, a staple of last year's brief playoff run.
Even the Celtics' Kevin Garnett noticed.
"There was a lot of intensity and a playoff atmosphere here," the Celtics' newest star said after Boston downed Toronto 98-95 in overtime. "We knew it was not going to be an easy game — an afternoon game, a building with a lot of energy, a team that is playing really well with a lot of confidence. What else could you expect?"
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Unfortunately, the Raptors laid brick after brick, silencing their own crowd better than anything Boston's Big Three was doing. The Raptors shot so poorly, you kept looking at the crowd to see whether anyone was wearing those team-issued red T-shirts that backfired so badly in the Raptors' opening-game loss to the New Jersey Nets in the NBA playoffs last spring.
Hoping to follow up their deconstruction of the Nets on Friday with another key message to the league and the Celtics, the Raptors instead shot just 36.7 per cent from the floor, including only seven of their first 30 shots.
Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani, the Raptors' Big Two, didn't have a field goal between them at the half. Which is perhaps the surest sign that the new-look Celtics' combination of future Hall of Famers Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce may pay dividends elsewhere than on paper and at the box office: It's a team that defends when it hits the wood.
For Raptors fans, it's the surest sign yet that their secret is out. The Raptors' potential is no secret to their Atlantic Division rivals. They got the Celtics' best game.
"The league is the league, man," said Garnett, who seems to have injected his every-minute-counts edge into his new team. "[The Raptors aren't] division champs for nothing. No one gave them anything."
The Raptors could feel it and were hoping to respond in kind.
"We expected it, we had the same mindset going in," Raptors guard Anthony Parker said. "It's going to be like this every time. Against New Jersey as well, against New York. It's the division. We're all kind of looking around and sizing each other up."
At least they responded defensively. Even as the Raptors were drowning in a sea of their own misses, they continued to push Boston on the defensive end, holding the Celtics to 39.1-per-cent shooting through the first four quarters.
That kind of defence plays in the playoffs. Overtime was a different matter. In a short format, the advantage has to go to the Celtics and the diversity of the three weapons they can put on the floor at once.
After being burned in the fourth quarter, Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell decided against sending a double-team at Garnett in the extra period.
Failing to double Garnett was just as painful, as he gave Bosh fits, using a turnaround to the baseline on one possession to set up a right-handed jump hook, then another turnaround to set up a baseline move as he scored 10 of his 23 points in the overtime period.
Just as clutch was T.J. Ford, the one Raptor who seemed to most fully embrace the competition, as he scored 11 of his team-best 31 points in overtime, tying a team record for points in an extra period. Included in that total was a three-pointer to tie the score with four seconds left in regulation time. The crowd was loud then.
The Celtics had an answer. Run Ray Allen off a Garnett screen. It was all the more effective when Allen grabbed Parker and shoved him into Garnett so Allen could hit the game-winning three-pointer.
"I guess they call that setting up the screen," Parker said.
The next roar that went up next came inside the Celtics' dressing room when Allen jogged in and was greeted by his teammates. That one could be heard throughout the Air Canada Centre.
Sure, it was just the Celtics' second game of the season, not the second game of a playoff series. But the Celtics were ecstatic to win a big game on the road against a quality opponent.
The Raptors can take that as a compliment and be happy it came in the fall, not the spring.
