Woeful third quarters all the talk at Raptors’ practice

TORONTO The morning after another third-quarter collapse, the Toronto Raptors good-naturedly tossed around ideas for some halftime motivation.

Jot down the score as 0-0. Hand out fake box scores that have the Raptors trailing after two quarters instead of leading. Send the players upstairs to the practice court to shoot during the break.

The Raptors (13-7) host the Indiana Pacers (12-10) on Friday, and all the talk Thursday at Biosteel Centre was about ending their third-quarter slumps.

“We’ve got to understand that teams are going to come at us, they’re coming at us out of the locker room with some type of adjustment or something,” guard DeMar DeRozan said. “We’ve got to understand it and not treat it like it’s the same game.” The Raptors came away with a 126-113 win over the Charlotte Hornets on Wednesday, but their woeful third quarter — they allowed a 100 run that sliced their 19-point lead in half — had coach Dwane Casey erupt in a post-game tirade. “It’s still bad,” a calmer Casey said on Thursday. “And a trend I was told by the analytics people that in the previous games we were a plus-25 or 27 or something like that, and those three games we were a minus-58.” The three games were Charlotte, a 108100 loss in New York, and a 107-104 loss at Indiana. The New York loss actually made history — the Raptors were outscored 41-10, and their minus-31 point differential tied for the worst quarter the franchise has ever had. The mark was previously set by the team that went 16-66 in 1997-98.