Raptors bench comes up big in grind-it-out win
Fred VanVleet scored 15 points as the Toronto Raptors’ bench secured a 114-110 victory over a Denver Nuggets team hungry for a playoff spot on Tuesday.
Seven Raptors scored in double figures. DeMar DeRozan and Jonas Valanciunas had 14 points each, Serge Ibaka finished with 13, Jakob Poeltl and Pascal Siakam chipped in with 11 apiece, and Kyle Lowry had 11.
The Raptors (55 -20), who played their final game against a Western Conference opponent, are one win away from tying their franchise season record for wins set in 2015-16.
Nikola Jokic had 29 points to top the Nuggets ( 40- 35), who began the night in ninth in the West, one spot out of a playoff berth. Paul Millsap added 20 while Canadian Jamal Murray finished with 15.
It was a grind-it-out game at the Air Canada Centre that saw neither team lead by more than six points through the first three quarters. The Nuggets, who’d been thumped 123-104 the previous night in Philadelphia, having a 85- 82 advantage with one quarter to play.
The Raptors’ bench went to work in the fourth, and when VanVleet drained a three in front of the Nuggets’ bench, it gave Toronto a 103-96 lead and brought the Air Canada Centre crowd to its feet. Poeltl muscled past Millsap for a highlight- reel dunk with three minutes to play, two of eight straight points f or t he Austrian youngster. The Nuggets would come within three points with 11 seconds to play, but the Raptors — with Lowry and Valanciunas the only starters on the floor — held on for the win.
After reeling off an 11-game win streak, the Raptors went i nto Tuesday’s game having won just two of their previous five.
“Every night’s a test for us,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said prior to tipoff. “We’ve got to where we are by the sweat of our brow. I’ve always said we’re not gonna out-talent people, but collectively with the sweat of our brow, we can beat people. If we work hard and stick to our job and do what we’re supposed to do on every possession. If we don’t, we’re very beatable.”
Lowry had three threes in an otherwise pedestrian first quarter that saw the Raptors race out to a six- point lead but fail to maintain it. Delon Wright put a punctuation mark on the quarter when he tossed up a 48- foot buzzer-beater to sent the Raptors into the second with a 25-23 lead.
A t hree- pointer f r om Canadian Trey Lyles capped a Denver 10- 0 run in the second that put the Nuggets up by eight. The Raptors chipped away at the deficit and the game was tied at 5858 at halftime.
Millsap led the way with 12 points in a third quarter that saw five lead changes.
The Raptors, who have seven games l eft in t he regular season, don’t play again until Saturday in Boston. They’re at Cleveland on Tuesday before returning home to host Boston on April 4.