Raps escape N.Y. with win
NEW YORK — They saved the best for last, the Knicks and Raptors exchanging shots and leads, trying to summon all they had and then some.
For most of the night, it wasn’t pretty, bad shots, bad defence, poor decision making, in a nutshell it was bad basketball.
But it was all forgotten in crunch time, DeMar DeRozan stepping up, but he wasn’t alone.
He scored a basket on a two for one possession with 30.9 seconds left, which, in theory, gave Toronto final possession.
They needed it as Courtney Lee buried a three on a scrambled play with 10.6 seconds remaining, one of many second-chance opportunities Toronto needed to avoid.
On what seemed to be the game’s final possession, DeRozan shot over Rose with 1.9 left, his shot finding nothing but the bottom of the net.
Toronto escaped with a 92-91 win when Anthony missed an open look just inside the arc.
Typical of the NBA, the evening turned serious and competitive with five minutes remaining.
An inability to protect the defensive glass and being sloppy with the basketball would result in Toronto trailing 78-75 and then a three from the top of the circle tied it.
Back and forth the game went, each possession gaining in importance, each stop critical, every rebound magnified.
P.J. Tucker was given the assignment of trying to stop Carmelo Anthony, whose turnover with help coming late found net as the game was once again all even, 82-82, with 2:37 to play.
Melo completed the and one when he made his free throw to give the Knicks the lead.
New York came with a hard double team on DeRozan only to foul him from beyond the arc with DeRozan in the act of shooting.
He made all three of his free throws, but then Toronto yielded a three of its own.
Back came DeRozan, who drilled a deep three-pointer followed by a charge taken by Tucker on a driving Derrick Rose.
Rose made amends by getting into the paint and scoring on a layup with 33.3 left, the game yet again tied up, 88-88.
After making an extended run in the third quarter, when Toronto had a chance to tie it had an open three dropped, a lineup of Fred VanVleet, Delon Wright, DeRozan, Tucker and Patrick Patterson was on the floor, one of the most unorthodox looks of the season.
VanVleet made an emphatic move to the hole late in the period as Toronto trailed 67-63 heading into the fourth.
A big part of Toronto’s comeback was its defence and activity, limiting the Knicks to 25% shooting in the third quarter.
Toronto began the fourth with two empty trips on offence before a three dropped, setting the stage for an 8-0 with the Raptors played well on both ends of the floor.
The second quarter began with the lineup of Jonas Valanciunas, Patterson, Wright, Norman Powell and Tucker.
What struck out was the absence of a true shot maker, the kind of player who can take his man off the dribble, either attack the rim or dish out to a spot-up shooter.
At times, and in certain matchups, Patterson, Tucker, Powell and Wright can put the ball on the floor, but no one is going to exactly strike fear into an opponent with the dribble.
The key was to exercise ball movement, play defence and get out in transition.
The play wasn’t great and when Knicks shooters were coming off screens and heaving shots, shots began to fall.
Playing the back end of a back-toback has its challenges, head coach Dwane Casey justifiably reluctant to ride his horses, namely DeRozan and Serge Ibaka.
In the first quarter, DeRozan played all 12 minutes, attempting more free throws (8) than shots from the field (7) to score 13 points.
Ibaka was held scoreless on 0-for-3 shooting and even fed the post from the high post on one sequence, getting the ball into the hands of Valanciunas, who had sealed his defender.
To be blunt, the Raptors were labouring in the second period on both ends, slow in rotation, poor in their execution on offence.
New York, which played minus two frontcourt starters in Joakim Noah and Kristaps Porzingis, led by as many as 11 and then 13 when Melo scored over Tucker on a post-up with the Knicks going small playing Anthony at power forward.
There was no atmosphere inside the Garden until the crowd began to come to life when Ron Baker buried an open three-ball with 3:40 left in the period, giving the home side a 49-34 lead.
There was no energy generated by the Raptors, no life and their plight looked hopeless.
In such circumstances, character gets revealed and following Baker’s basket the Raptors would call a timeout to regroup.
On Toronto’s ensuing possession, Ibaka popped to the top of the circle beyond the arc, but his heave hit back iron.
Not even a driving Powell could produce a basket, leading to a run out and a Knicks bucket for a 17-point lead.
Another open three by the Raptors would result in a missed shot.
The stretch of futility ended with Joseph getting into the lane and scoring.
By the break, the Raptors were staring at a 53-40 lead, which could have been worse had DeRozan not followed up his miss with a putback bucket and then scored on a sublime baseline turnaround.
There are many ways to break down the opening 24 minutes, but the disparity on the scoreboard was best revealed in how each team shot the three-ball.
The Knicks would make five of their nine three-pointers, while Toronto missed all of its deep balls, many of which came off good to great looks that simply did not fall.
In a make or break league, the Raptors found themselves on the wrong side, forced to play catch up at a time when nothing was going their way.
And when shots come up short or hit back iron, recording assists becomes problematic as Toronto had a combined two by intermission.
If it wasn’t for DeRozan and his 17 points, the Raptors would have been blown off the floor.