The unlikely victory to tip off 2009 came with point guard Jose Calderon sidelined for all but the first quarter with a hamstring injury, and with Jermaine O'Neal on the bench in street clothes.

Joey Graham added 10 points, while Anthony Parker and Jake Voskuhl led Toronto in rebounding with eight each.

Von Wafer topped the Rockets (21-13) with 18 points, all in the fourth quarter. Yao Ming added 14, while Luis Scola had 13 rebounds.

The Raptors struggled mightily in December, dropping to the bottom of the Atlantic Division, and the sense of desperation around the locker-room was palpable.

They finally showed a decent dose of confidence, especially during the dreaded fourth quarter, which has been their undoing this season. The Raptors led for most of the night, and took a 68-49 lead into the fourth quarter in front of a capacity crowd of 19,800 fans at the Air Canada Centre.

With the second unit on the floor for much of the final 12 minutes, Kris Humphries converted a three-point play, his basket coming from a behind-the-back pass from Roko Ukic that brought the fans to their feet and gave the Raptors a 25-point lead. Ukic then scored on a driving layup that put Toronto up 86-59 with 5:25 to go, a lead Toronto wasn't giving up on this night. The closest the Rockets would come again was 21 points, as the crowd ushered the team off the court with a standing ovation.

The win was No. 5 out of 16 for head coach Jay Triano, who succeeded Sam Mitchell a month ago.

Calderon strained his right hamstring -- the same injury that kept him out of two games in November -- just before the end of the first quarter when he was lunging for the ball. He tried to return in the second, but lasted less than a minute.

O'Neal missed his second straight game with a sore right knee.

Sustains small fracture

Cavaliers centre Zydrunas Ilgauskas could miss up to a month after suffering a small fracture when he twisted his left ankle last month.

Ilgauskas sprained his ankle during a Dec. 10 game at Philadelphia, when he tried to block former teammate Donyell Marshall's shot and landed on the Sixers forward's foot. Tests at the time showed only a sprain and Ilgauskas returned after missing just three games.

But he has been bothered by pain and stiffness since returning and an MRI taken yesterday revealed Ilgauskas chipped the talus bone in his ankle.

The seven-foot-three Ilgauskas said he's likely to be "out three to four weeks, but we really don't know."

The Cavaliers third leading scorer at 13.8 points per game, Ilgauskas said the pins and screws in his foot from a restructuring operation were not affected by the injury.

"One good thing is that it's not related to the foot problems that I have," he said. "It's in the ankle. If anything, the MRI showed that all the previous foot surgeries, everything looks beautiful and all the bones are healed. That was the positive."

The Cavaliers' ball movement and offensive production slipped while Ilgauskas was out of the lineup. Despite his size, he's one of the club's best outside shooters and has dropped seven three-pointers already this season after making just five in his first 10 years in the NBA.