Raptors 112 – Brooklyn Nets 100: Backcourt to the forefront
By Brian Boake
The Raptors’ guards were the difference as Toronto defeated Brooklyn to start a home stand off right.
The Toronto Raptors, who hadn’t played a home game since a painful loss to the Chicago Bulls on January 3, took on a Brooklyn Nets team in freefall. The visitors didn’t play like a team with one win in their previous eight games, and the Raptors needed a huge Q4 to claim victory.
The terrific finish was in sharp contrast to Toronto’s start. Once again their first quarter play was sloppy; an early lead was brushed aside by Brooklyn, which went on a 26-9 run to take a ten-point lead. I’m getting just as tired writing about slow Raptors starts as you are reading about them, or watching them.
Toronto’s starting backcourt of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan made an emphatic statement about their fitness to join the Eastern Conference All-Star team. They combined for half of the Raptors’ points, thoroughly dominating their Brooklyn counterparts. While DD tried, and missed, two shots from beyond the 3-point arc, Kyle feasted from deep. He hit seven of his nine shots from there, including all 3 in the decisive final frame.
DeMar bedeviled the Nets’ defense from in close, repeatedly finding seams in which to drive, or pull up for a mid-range jumper. He got to the free-throw line (there’s a surprise!) eight times, and distracted opposing defenders well enough to dish out five dimes.
Terrence Ross had a rare night – every shot he took went splash. Three of them were power dunks off Nets turnovers, and he hit both long balls he took. Twelve points on five shots? Do it again, please.
Jonas Valanciunas missed a ton of easy shots, and was badly outclassed by Brook Lopez. Anyone who thinks having a quality centre doesn’t matter in the modern NBA needs to see a replay of this game. Lopez was the Nets’ top scorer with 29 points, and he added 10 boards. Bismack Biyombo didn’t have much success against Lopez either, although 7 points, 5 boards and 2 blocked shots wasn’t terrible. Joe Johnson, who seems to bathe in the Fountain of Youth in advance of a Raptors game, took any shot he wanted and made enough to score 22 points.
Patrick Patterson took a long time to reward coach Dwane Casey’s faith in him – better late than never. 2-Pat played every second of Q4 and scored 7 of his dozen points. He appears to have turned up his defensive intensity; as a result, his man seldom gets a step on him, and he takes fewer fouls.
The Raptors’ Q4 was remarkable in so many ways. They enjoyed 8 assists on 12 field goals, while committing only one foul and one turnover. The Nets shot over 56% in the first three quarters, well above their seasonal norm of 44.6%, but returned to Earth in crunch time. The Raptors’ swarming defense held the Nets to 7 of 19 shooting, while making 4 steals.
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Luis Scola and James Johnson started the game for Toronto, but didn’t finish. Scola was in foul trouble and missing shots. We barely saw either man in the second half. Those two were a combined minus_10 for the match, whereas every rotation player had a positive number, led by Ross’ plus_18.
Lowry was plus_22. Perhaps better than any other number, that gives you a sense of how big our little guard played.
The Raptors will need better games from JV and others, starting Wednesday night. The hungry Boston Celtics are in town.