As Chris Bosh and Andrea Bargnani made shot after shot, as they worked their plan against Yao Ming to near perfection, they had to be glancing over their shoulders for some help last night.
They had to be looking for someone - anyone - to provide a spark, to hit a shot, to do something substantial to allow the Raptors to steal a road win. But no. No help. No shots. No plays. No win.
Bosh and Bargnani combined for 50 points - and 28 from Shawn Marion and Jose Calderon was a pretty good contribution - but the rest of the team came up empty in every way as the Rockets pulled away for a 107-97 win that marked Toronto's third loss in a row.
And while they talk loudly about heading home for a stretch of the schedule dominated by games at the Air Canada Centre, if someone doesn't step up each night to help the top players, there will be more losses and more disappointment.
Last night, when Bosh and Bargnani ran circles around Yao on offence and were solid enough to limit him to 20 points, and when Marion and Calderon were good but not great, the combination of Anthony Parker and three subs simply wasn't good enough.
Jason Kapono, Joey Graham, Roko Ukic and Parker were a combined 7-for-31 and that was the tale of the game.
To hammer the point home even further, Houston was led by backup Carl Landry, who had a career-high 22 points while Yao and Luis Scola had 20 apiece. The Rockets' bench outscored Toronto's 44-16; the Rockets' shooting guards and small forwards held a 46-30 bulge.
"They're a very good perimeter defensive team," said Raptors coach Jay Triano. "When you look at (Ron) Artest and (Shane) Battier, those are two of the better defenders in the NBA and we knew it was going to be tough to squeeze points out of our perimeter guys."
The lack of assistance for the two bigs was especially glaring because Toronto actually had a chance to steal a road win on the strength of what Bargnani and Bosh were doing.
They beat Yao down the floor repeatedly for quick looks and tried to goad him into coming out to guard them on the perimeter. When he didn't, whichever Raptor had a clean look made it, with Bargnani connecting on 5-of-6 three-pointers.
The game started getting away from the Raptors in the second quarter and underscored the importance of Bargnani on the night. He got a couple of first-quarter fouls and Triano rolled the dice by having him in the game to start the second because the Raptors needed his offence. But Bargnani got his third foul three minutes into the quarter and sat out the rest of the half as Houston finished on a huge run to lead by nine at the break.
"We were going to try to squeeze as many minutes as we could," said Triano. "I'm not going to play a guy with three (fouls) but I'll play a guy with two in the second quarter.
"We could feel the momentum starting to slide when he was out and we needed to play him. That's when they made their run, when he was out of the game."
The Raptors did get back in the game when they got Bosh and Bargnani going once more, but once again they came up short. They were down by four with just under eight minutes to go but gave up a 10-0 Rockets run that put the game away.
"The biggest thing that was hard for us to do was sustain the energy," said Marion. "We got kind of cold there (in the first half) and they went on a run. We knew they would; they're the home team and they've been playing very well here.
"In that fourth quarter, they got a lead on us and it seemed like we couldn't get that burst of energy we needed to get over that hump."
