DeRozan misses shot to be hero against Celtics
No one will argue DeMar DeRozan taking an open look at the top of the free-throw line for the win. Not even DeRozan fading away to make that shot. He’s practised it countless times, made it countless more and this time it didn’t go in as the Raptors came up on the short end of a 9594 loss to the Celtics.
As Kyle Lowry pointed out after the game, stretching out the word “every” for full effect, he will “roll with that shot every time.”
DeRozan was no less confident in his own abilities.
“Man, great look,” he said. “I make that in my sleep. Felt good, I thought it was going to roll in, but you know it didn’t.”
The easy leap to make here is that once again with the game on the line, the Raptors went the predictable route eschewing all that talk about philosophical changes to the offence.
The point is, though, this is not going to change. The Raptors are going to ride or die, as the kids say these days, with their best shooters down the stretch. That was always going to be the case and it will be the case until someone comes along who is a better scoring option than DeRozan or Lowry depending on who is holding the hot hand at the moment.
The share-the-ball edict is still very much in effect — just don’t expect that egalitarian approach in crunch time.
“I thought it was a great look,” head coach Dwane Casey said. “He shook him. He was wide open. He vaulted up. I’ll take that look 999 times out of a thousand. He came up short. He got to where he wanted to go. We got him open. The play was well executed by everybody. A guy just missed a shot. I’ll take that shot all day — the best player taking the shot he wants at that time.”
Casey took issue with a number of elements of the Raptors’ game Sunday, but putting the ball in his best shooter’s hands in crunch time was not one of them.
“In the last two minutes of the game, you’ve got to get the ball to the right person,” Casey said. “I think the second unit did an excellent job of getting the lead, getting us in the game, keeping us in the game until the third quarter, moving the basketball with our movement game, but at the end of the day you’ve got to get the ball in the right hands.”
The issues for the Raptors began with the turnovers and an inability to keep opponents to a single chance per possession.
The Raptors turned the ball over 11 times in the first half alone leading to 14 points. But it was on the offensive boards, where Boston owned a 15-6 advantage, that the Celtics made hay.
Toronto outshot Boston from the field and from behind the line, but all those extra possessions were their downfall, leading to 21 second-chance points.
“They are the best team in the NBA right now, won 12 in a row and they are playing unbelievable,” Lowry said of the Celtics. “Everyone is picking up the slack. They lose Kyrie (Irving) or he doesn’t play and (Terry) Rozier, (Marcus) Smart, those guys step in. (Jayson) Tatum stepped up.
“They all played aggressive. They beat us with 15 offensive rebounds and 21 second-chance points. It’s kind of tough to come back on that.”
This one had a similar feeling to the losses in San Antonio and Golden State earlier this season, two other elite teams the Raptors seemed to get the better of everywhere but on the scoreboard.
Now it’s on to Houston, where the Western Conference-leading Rockets will pose yet another tough matchup on Tuesday.