By Andy Charles

What a strange pre-Christmas game that proved to be for the defensively inept Toronto Raptors!

Going into Wednesday’s game in Detroit ranked 29th of 30 teams in the NBA in scoring defense, the Raptors somehow managed to hold the Pistons to only 64 points, one of the lowest totals in the league this season.

Detroit shot only 27.9% from the floor and scored less points than in any game since the shot clock was introduced in 1954-55, a performance that helped Toronto end an 11-game losing skid in Motor City.

The game proved to be a real departure from recent weeks for the Raptors, although there was more than one piece of questionable shot-selection from Detroit, who managed to lose by 30 despite throwing up 21 more shots from the floor, many in desperation with a defender in their face.

Hopefully the game can be something of a turning point in terms of NBA Picks for Toronto, who got 21 points from Andrea Bargnani and proved more than efficient with the ball in hand, totaling 26 assists, with 11 of those going to Hedo Turkoglu.

The win lifted Toronto back into sixth place in the Eastern Conference, but such is the tightness of the standings they are still only three games ahead of 13th placed Indiana as we get to a third of the way through the season (time flies when you are having fun huh?) It is certainly hard to judge NBA Predictions in terms of where they will finish this year.

And at least it did prove the club can win big games on the road, albeit against a team which appears to be in rebuild mode this season – sadly a repeat of a 5-12 record over the next 17 games away from Air Canada Center will bode poorly.

“We really needed this win, because we’ve struggled here and we didn’t want to give them a window of opportunity,” Chris Bosh told AP after the game. “I didn’t know the streak was that high, but I knew I had never won here.”

“This was good—I still think we could have rebounded better, but we had very active hands,” Toronto coach Jay Triano added. “I think we counted 27 deflections and we had energy. We defended and we shared the basketball. We’re a pretty tough team when we share the ball.”

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