Raptors bounce right back
Speedy Toronto club plays with focus, determination in big win over Wizards
WASHINGTON Few will argue that there have been more timely wins than the one the Toronto Raptors orchestrated here Friday night.
Coming off as bad a loss as the Raptors have had this season, Toronto turned the tables on the Wizards on their home court, responding to that confidence shattering setback a couple of nights earlier with a redemption win they needed in the worst way.
Raptors head coach Dwane Casey found nine guys he could roll with and he did so exclusively in a 114106 win. He got 32 points from DeMar DeRozan, including a dagger three-pointer with 20 seconds remaining, and the kind of focus and determination from every other player he sent out that he didn’t get two nights earlier.
The win gives Toronto the tiebreaker in the event these two teams finish the season with the same record, but more importantly, gets that sour taste a bad loss to these same Wizards on Wednesday night out of their mouths.
What the Raptors also may have finally discovered is a secondary source of offence with Kyle Lowry sidelined by injury. Serge Ibaka has been handling that job behind DeRozan, but he’s also being asked to anchor the defence.
On Friday night, Norman Powell — the guy everyone thought would logically step into that role — had his coming out game, finishing with 21 points, including 14 in the fourth quarter with the Wizards charging hard.
But this was a full team effort. You could go up and down the lineup and find positive contributions from every corner of the Raptors lineup.
Casey began the day with a definite goal in mind for his team.
“Attention to detail has to be there, but most of all, the physicality and force, the speed that we play with, has to be there,” Casey said. “The other night (Wednesday) I thought we were in third gear compared to where we were the previous games. When we go somewhere, we have to go there with speed, athleticism and force to get to that position.”
His players heeded that advice from the opening tip.
It didn’t come easily. This Wizards team, especially at home, doesn’t get pushed around.
They have scoring in John Wall and Bradley Beal and support offence in Otto Porter and Markieff Morris and more than enough defence to give any opponent fits.
What they didn’t have — but they do now — is a bench led by trade deadline pickup Bojan Bogdanovic and, more recently, the free agent signing of Brandon Jennings.
If this was a playoff preview, fans in both cities are in for a treat. There is enough animosity between these two clubs to make things very interesting.
The Washington fan base seems to realize this, turning out 20,356 strong Friday for just the fifth sellout of the year, and they weren't cheated.
Unlike Wednesday’s win by the Wizards in Toronto, this was a game from start to finish.
The Raptors had no issues with their second unit this time around.
Playing in place of the injured Lowry, Cory Joseph came out of the game with about four minutes left in the first quarter and then returned just before the period ended, reunited with the second unit for the beginning of the second quarter.
One big adjustment from Wednesday to Friday’s game was a more pronounced effort to move the basketball.
The Raptors had Washington’s defence moving all night, chasing the ball from one side of the court to the other and back, leading to open lanes and open looks.
At one point in the second quarter, it looked like the Raptors might run away with this one as they extended their lead to 19 points, but the Wizards weren’t going to go down that easily. They got that lead down all the way to six before Toronto pushed it back up to nine to end the half.
They did it primarily from behind the arc, with Beal and Porter doing the damage.
As it turned out, that was just the beginning of the comeback, but one that would eventually fall just short.