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Winning is a whole lot of fun.

No question there, but a team learns the most about itself in times of adversity.

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In a short, three-games-in-five-days trip that began in New York and ended in Atlanta, the Toronto Raptors experienced plenty of that.

That the trip ended on a winning note, evening the weary Raptors’ road record at 6-6 through the first 19 games of the season, was nice. But the wins and losses total don’t also tell the tale of the trip.

Here’s a look at some of the things we learned about the Raptors on this trip.

1. Young bench is super



That young bench mob is far deeper and more impressive than it is being credited for — and it still hasn’t reached its peak. Toronto’s second unit was youth personified in the final leg of the trip — with not one player on the court with more than three years of experience. That’s three years of mostly watching, if truth be told. Against the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, there was no C.J. Miles, no Kyle Lowry or DeMar DeRozan to turn to when things got hairy. The kids did it themselves to the tune of a 39-14 second quarter that determined the outcome of the evening. Fred VanVleet, Lorenzo Brown, Norm Powell, Pascal Siakam and Jakob Poeltl did it themselves. Earlier in the trip, when they were keeping the Raptors afloat both in Indy and New York — games they eventually lost — the bench was doing it with one of the vets. VanVleet was asked afterward if that was as smooth as he can remember the second unit operating and he correctly pointed out it has been pretty smooth this entire trip. The only difference was in the road finale, when both units were locked in. That they excelled in the final two games with Miles back in Toronto tending to his newborn daughter suggests this group has even more in the tank than we suspected.