Lesser lights shine for Raps
Bench accounts for 52 points in win over Grizz
It was one of those days for the starting five of the Toronto Raptors. A few minutes of sustained success and then, well, then head coach Dwane Casey went looking for his bench.
Maybe it was the noon start, maybe it was the excitement of watching the Super Bowl later in the day. Veteran guard DeMar DeRozan had his own theory.
“I made a joke saying the old guys can’t get up this early in the morning for the game and ( the bench) came up with a lot of energy and they did what they were supposed to do and got us this win today.”
The 101- 86 win over the Memphis Grizzlies saw Toronto’s six- man bench unit including C. J. Miles back from injury and the little used Norm Powell amass 52 points compared to 49 for the starters in the win.
The bench appeared to blow the game open with a 31-point second quarter only to see the starters give all of it and then some back in the third when the Grizzlies went off for 30.
To begin the fourth quarter, Casey went back to his bench and stuck with them as the unit including Miles, Fred VanVleet, Jakob Poeltl, Pascal Siakam and Delon Wright played the entire quarter holding the Grizzlies to just 12 points while scoring 25 of its own.
“We’ ll take any minutes we can get,” VanVleet said. “I think we earned it in that situation to come in. The game was kinda teetering back and forth so our goal was to come in and get the lead. And then for coach not to go back to the other guys ( starters), I think that was just because of the way we were playing, and the timing. I think there was only about four minutes left so I figured he’d keep us out there. So now we had to do the rest of the job to make him look good and finish it out. We were able to do that. Obviously, that’s a big nod of respect from the coaching staff and we gotta continue to try to earn that trust as role players.”
Wright led all Raptors with 15 points on 6- of- 9 shooting including a Eurostep that left Wayne Selden dizzy and DeRozan mimicking the move from the bench in appreciation.
Miles missed three consecutive games with some knee soreness but he got back onto the court with just over two minutes left in the third quarter on Sunday. In his absence, Powell got some much-needed action. Powell was limited to five minutes while Casey eased Miles back into the lineup with eight minutes, all of them in the second half.
Miles attempted two from three- point land and made one, one of just six the Raptors made all afternoon. But the Raptors are going to need the Miles they had in the first month and a half of the season once the playoffs come around so expect to see his minutes trending upwards as the season progresses.
Professional athletes are creatures of habit when it comes to game days so a noon start for a sport that is normally played in the evening is not necessarily a good thing. But exceptions get made on days like Super Bowl Sunday and this was one of them.
Casey preferred to look at it as an opportunity to get ready for the playoffs and maybe, just maybe, remind the league this team that plays north of the border, that has been to the playoffs four years in a row and looking like a fifth, perhaps warrants a little more consideration from a scheduling standpoint.
“A different start but again, to get ready for playoff basketball, we’ve been here long enough to know (we can get some bad game) times,” Casey said. “It’s good work for us to get a game like this. Hopefully we can get more. The concern is that we’re out of rhythm, out of routine. We’ve got to be pros and get ourselves going.’’
In lieu of his normal postgame scrum, Kyle Lowry sent his regrets via a sign left on his chair that read simply: Super Bowl bound. Go Eagles. And then, just in case anyone was going to question the veracity of the document, he signed it as well.
Lowry, who makes no secret of his affection for his hometown Eagles, had to be particularly happy with Sunday’s game given it was over in just more than two hours and afforded him ample time to get to his charter and get to Minneapolis for the game.
A pump fake from behind the arc by Jonas Valanciunas got no less a player than former defensive player of the year Marc Gasol airborne allowing Valanciunas an easy path to the rim and an uncontested dunk.
It was the first time an opponent has bit on the Valanciunas pump from that distance and while it seemed unlikely that it would be a player of Gasol’s basketball IQ to be the first to fall for it, VanVleet offered an opinion as to why it happened.
“I think Marc is a smart guy,” VanVleet said. “He’s watched the film and he’s seen JV making two a game or whatever it is the last couple of games. And he tried to run him off. Maybe that’s the right play. I don’t know. We’ll take it.
“But if you don’t, it’s tough for big guys. That’s what makes Marc Gasol so good. It’s his ability to shoot the three,” VanVleet said. “Big slow guys gotta get out there and try to chase him around and then he puts the ball on the floor. If JV can keep adding that to his game, he’s gonna be, obviously, a really special offensive player.”