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TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - It had been just over six years since LeBron James last suffered a loss in Toronto, dating back to his first stint with the Cavaliers.

October 28th, 2009, to be exact. That was a day DeMar DeRozan will never forget, but for a completely different reason. It was his first ever NBA game.

What does he remember most about that night?

"Shaq was playing," he recalled. "I remember that."

Then there's James. Sure, DeRozan and the Raptors haven't had much success against his teams - the Cavs and the Heat - over the years, but they're certainly not alone. He's made it to the Finals every season since.

"It's definitely crazy," said a nostalgic DeRozan. "I grew up watching him. I had a relationship with him before I was in the league so just to go against him, even to this day is definitely crazy to see how much [things] have changed."

Not everything has changed. James' team is still on top, holding onto a slim lead in the much improved Eastern Conference, and he - despite all that Stephen Curry has accomplished over the last 13 months - remains the best and most dominant all-around player in the game.

What has changed? The Raptors believe they can go toe-to-toe with the King or anybody else in the league and, on Wednesday, they proved why.

"I think a lot of times you have to go through some adversity to bring each individual closer," DeRozan said after his team defeated Cleveland 103-99 at the Air Canada Centre. "That West Coast trip was a little bit of adversity for us [but] we still told ourselves we could take a lot of positives out of [it]. Just growing together and coming closer and gaining that chemistry we need to be one team."

DeRozan had a strong performance, scoring 20 points on the night. They don't win that game without him, but that same argument could be made for five or six different Raptors players.

Toronto doesn't win that game without Kyle Lowry - the lifeblood of this team. The simplest explanation for the Raptors' success, when they're succeeding, is Lowry. When he's at his best, which has been the case for most of the season's opening month, they're capable of reaching a level that would be impossible otherwise.

On Wednesday, he was the best player on a court that included James. Toronto's all-star point guard shot 9-for-12 in the second half, when he scored 20 of his game-high 27 points and recorded five of his six assists. Lowry just so happens to lead the NBA in steals but the four he was credited for against the Cavaliers actually do him a disservice. He generated at least three or four more possessions for his team, out of nothing.

One of them came towards the end of a dominant third-quarter. Lowry, the smallest player on the floor, dove into a crowd of Cavaliers to secure a loose ball and call a timeout. Coming out of the huddle, the 6-foot guard barrelled his way into the lane, got Cavs forward Tristan Thompson to bite on a pump fake and completed the play with a lay-up.

"That’s what he do," DeRozan said of his teammate. "That’s what he do. When you are that type of player that is your job. He is going to get everyone involved in the game and he’s going to score. We all do a great job of reading that and understanding [that] when he has it going we are going to ride him."

"I'm happy he did it because Kyle, he can do it whenever he wants to," DeMarre Carroll added. "He just picks and chooses when he wants to do it. Kyle is a great point guard. I think he's one of the top point guards in the league. He just showed tonight why he's Kyle Lowry."

The Raptors don't win that game without Carroll - one of the league's top perimeter defenders and the only player who has ever given them a fighting chance against James. Recruited this summer with match-ups like this in mind, Carroll spent most of the evening locked in on the four-time MVP. James still put up his numbers, as he always does. He scored his 24 points, dished out his eight assists and got to the free throw line 12 times, but nothing came easy. He shot just 6-for-16, including 1-for-5 from beyond the arc. Carroll made him work for everything, just as he promised he would.

"Like I said before," Carroll reiterated after the game, "you try to be that gnat on that summer day, when you're eating that barbecue, you know what I'm talking about? And it's in your face and your can't get it out. That's all I was trying to be, man. He's a great player. You can't stop him, you can only slow him down and that's what I tried to do tonight."

"We got a hell of a defender in DeMarre Carroll," DeRozan said. "That is one of the main reasons we brought him in and he did a heck of a job. You seen it last year in the playoffs and he’s carrying it over and helping us. It’s not just him. We try to make it a team concept as well. Make everything as tough as possible."

No, it wasn't just him defensively. The Raptors don't win that game without Bismack Biyombo, who has filled in admirably without the injured Jonas Valanciunas. More often than not, Biyombo's impact comes on the defensive end and, as such, can go unnoticed. But by the fourth quarter, as Toronto was getting stop after stop - holding Cleveland to 35 per cent in the frame - you couldn't help but admire his efforts. In his best performance as a Raptor, Biyombo was all over the glass, grabbing half his 12 rebounds in the fourth. As always, he was talking on defence, directing traffic and deterring the opposition from attacking the paint. On a couple occasions late in the game Biyombo stopped James at the rim and although he was whistled for a foul on the second, it was clear, Cleveland was not getting any easy buckets inside with him on the floor.

Despite his obvious offensive limitations, Biyombo can be a real game-changer on the defensive end and, with Cleveland keying in on Lowry and DeRozan, he even came through with a couple clutch buckets.

"Me and him have similar mindsets," Carroll said. "Bis just focuses on defence, he understands what got him in the league, he understands what his strong point is and that's being defensive, blocking shots and grabbing rebounds. When you do those things offence will fall right in your lap and I feel like that's what happened tonight."

With Toronto struggling to put points on the board early in the game, Luis Scola kept his team in it, scoring 15 of their 25 first-quarter points while his back-up, Patrick Patterson was also solid in crucial minutes down the stretch. They don't win that game without the power forwards.

On a night and against an opponent where there was little room for error, the Raptors were all in. It wasn't just DeRozan. It wasn't just Lowry. It wasn't just Carroll, Biyombo, Scola or Patterson. LeBron is the best player on the best team in the East, that isn't expected to change in the foreseeable future but, at least for one night, the Raptors looked like they belonged.

"My uncle always said, enjoy it till midnight," Carroll stated. "So we're going to enjoy it till midnight, then we're going to get back in the lab and work. We can't get too high on wins. I understand that, especially being over there in Atlanta. These wins matter but you can't get too high on them because the only thing that matters is when you get in the playoffs."