Desmond Mason cracked the starting lineup for the Thunder on Friday and helped Oklahoma City improve to a heady 3-24 with a solid all-around effort.

The Thunder's debut run in Oklahoma City has been, to put it charitably, difficult.

How difficult?

Victories have been such unusual phenomena that at least one or two hoops-loving denizens of Oklahoma City chose to interpret Friday's 91-83 victory over the Toronto Raptors as a miraculous event.

Yes, the headline introducing the Oklahoman's story on the Thunder's victory over the Raptors was, "Yes, miracles do happen."

How does this happen?

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When your shiny new franchise comes to town and promptly goes 47 days without a win on the home court, perhaps it's not all that strange to compare the rare Ford Center victory a supernatural occurrence on the order of a virgin birth or a resurrection.

Perhaps.

In any case, the Thunder hadn't won at home since Nov. 2. The list of athletic teams that have won home games in that time period is too long to detail, so we'll just list one:

As of this posting, it's only been 29 days since the Washington State University football team has won a home game.

How'd the Okies do it? The Thunder got 24 points from Kevin Durant and heady play from veterans Nick Collison (10 points, 9 rebounds) and Desmond Mason (7 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, no turnovers to hold off Toronto down the stretch.

The result was a win that snapped an 11-game home skid, ended an eight-game losing streak overall and allowed the Thunder to forestall, if only for a day, those ugly comparisons with the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers.

Well, maybe not at ESPN.com, which responded by running a chart of the most pitiful 27-game starts in NBA history.

For the record, the Thunder only tied for third in that dubious race.

With whom?

The 72-73 Sixers, naturally.