Raptors lose to Wizards
In the final eight minutes of Sunday night’s ugly loss, the Toronto Raptors’ eightpoint lead turned into an eight-point deficit. And in those frustrating minutes, as the game slipped away, the Raptors saw their playoff series lead over Washington vanish, and the storyline on such a positive season for the franchise turn sour.
DeMar DeRozan had 35 points, but shot just 2-for-8 in the fourth quarter, and the Washington Wizards scorched Toronto down the stretch en route to a 106-98 win, tying the opening-round Eastern Conference series at two games apiece.
Moments later, DeRozan shouldered much of the blame for the loss.
“I had a lot of great shots in the paint that I took back, and there were some late-game shots that I wish I could take back,” DeRozan said. “That’s just my mindset, being aggressive, wanting to win, willing to do whatever it took to push it to a win. But with that came some bad shots that I will definitely understand next time.”
Next time is on Wednesday in Toronto, where the Raptors have lost just seven times this season. The series then returns to Washington for Game 6 on Friday.
Kyle Lowry had 19 points and seven assists, Jonas Valanciunas had 11 points, Jakob Poeltl finished with 10 and Serge Ibaka grabbed 10 rebounds.
But the Raptors’ turnovers — 18 giveaways for 19 points — proved costly once again.
“Can’t happen. Can’t happen,” DeRozan said. “I think we got stagnant.”
Washington’s all-stars Bradley Beal and John Wall were firing on all cylinders, Beal scoring 31 points, and Wall chipping in with 27.
Still, the game looked like Toronto’s for the taking, particularly when Beal fouled out with five minutes to play. Wizards coach Scott Brooks was livid, while the raucous Capital One Arena crowd roared “Ref you suck!”
But the Raptors failed to take advantage.
“This (loss) was tougher because I thought we had it under control,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We had some turnovers, we had some unfortunate untimely turnovers.
“Nobody said this was going to be easy. I said that after Game 3. We’ve just got to bounce back. Neither team has won on the other team’s court yet. When you do that, then it’s a series.”