The Toronto Raptors did not play particularly well on Tuesday night. The starters struggled throughout the game, but once again the Raptors’ bench was able to secure a victory.

It has been said a multitude of times, “There are no moral victories” in sports. If this is true, it stands to reason that the opposite must also be true, meaning that the Toronto Raptors victory was no different from any normal win.

But man, the Raptors got an ugly win on Tuesday night. A back-and-forth battle between Toronto and one of the worst teams in the league, the Atlanta Hawks, resulted in the Raptors trailing by one heading into the fourth-quarter.

The Hawks, a team that’s best player is Dennis Schroder, gives considerable minutes to the likes of Jaylen Morris and Isaiah Taylor (who very well could develop into nice players, just are not there yet), and is currently in the midst of one of the NBA’s greatest tanking contests ever.

As the Raptors looked terrible, struggling to find any sort of rhythm, once again the bench unit saved their a**. The bench came out on fire to start the fourth quarter, and by the time the game finished Toronto won by a comfortable 16-point margin.

As you would expect, individually much of the Toronto starting unit struggled. The starters combined to shoot a ghastly 36-percent from the field, remove DeMar DeRozan from the picture and their percentage dips to just 30-percent. The starters also did not appear to be doing the little things, as only Kyle Lowry and DeRozan finished with a positive +/-.

Where the starters struggled, the bench picked up the slack. Although the shooting numbers weren’t much better, the bench’s energy and defensive effort forced the Hawks into a bevy of turnovers, allowing the Raptors to lock the Hawks up when it mattered the most. Atlanta finished with just 13 points in the fourth-quarter and the bench’s defense was a big reason for that.

Another game and another victory for the Toronto Raptors. Of late the team certainly has not looked its sharpest, but it is perhaps an even greater sign of progress the team no longer needs to look their best to earn a victory.