Heat 104 – Raptors 89: OK D, No O
By Brian Boake
The Raptors knew they would be in tough against the NBA’s hottest team. Toronto fell behind early against the Heat, and never threatened a comeback.
A tired and short-staffed Toronto Raptors team needed full participation from everyone still standing to have a chance for a W in Miami last night. They didn’t get it. The Raptors’ pitiful shooting from beyond the arc choked off the offense, and negated any serious chance for a comeback against the hot Heat.
The Raptors lost their last pair of games on this road trip, and understanding why isn’t difficult. Everyone who follows the team knew the departure of Terrence Ross and Kyle Lowry’s injury would create a severe dearth of 3-point scoring. Yet even pessimists like me didn’t foresee a 2-game total of 6 for 40, or 15%.
The Heat started this game making every shot they tried; despite a solid start for Toronto, they were down 10 early. To their credit, the Raptors chipped away as Miami started to miss, and got to within 3 several times. A Wayne Ellington 3-ball, one of their 11 on the night, closed the quarter.
Can we skip Q2?
The second quarter has become the one to dread for Raptors fans, and it was again. With only 7 made field goals, and one free throw, the offense sputtered mightily. The Heat were humming, meanwhile, and the margin was 18 at the break.
Goran Dragic, Miami’s sparkplug point guard, took an elbow in the face from Cory Joseph early in Q3 and was done for the night. (CoJo got nailed for an offensive foul on the play, one of many dubious calls on a rocky night for the officials. Earlier in the game, DeMar DeRozan earned a Tech for complaining that Norman Powell had just received a foul for a play exactly the same as a no-call suffered on a DD shot attempt seconds prior. Patrick Patterson got tossed after arguing an out-of-bounds play in Q4. Everybody’s tired, including the zebras.)
The Heat shrugged off Dragic’s loss, and stretched the lead to 25. With the Raptors firing blanks, and the kids on the floor in Q4, any reasonable person would have thought garbage time had arrived. Certainly many Miami fans did; there were lots of empty seats before game’s end – is the traffic bad? They missed a Raptors surge which shrank the Heat’s lead from 23 to 11 with about 5 minutes to play before coach Erik Spoelstra brought his main men back on the floor. What threat there was dissipated quickly.
Not much to applaud
There are more brickbats than bouquets to be handed out to Raptors players, starting with a hapless 7 assists in total. Fred VanVleet was 1 of 10, and 2-Pat made one bucket in 17+ minutes. At least Delon Wright helped his cause with 13 points and 3 steals. Norman Powell’s jump shot has gone away; his misses are one reason the assists count is so bad. DeRozan was harried all night; collecting 17 points was respectable under the circumstances.
Let’s hope our guys have a quiet Sunday to rest and rehab at home. The resurgent Dallas Mavericks are in town on Monday night.