Raps win despite crummy first half
NETS CUT DOWN: Boys from Brooklyn put up a good fight, but Van Vleet, J.V. lead Toronto all the way back
NEW YORK — Eventually it’s going to catch up with them. Eventually, though, did not arrive Tuesday.
Outside of the odd game — certainly last week’s Houston Rockets win comes to mind — the Toronto Raptors’ starters have been rather ordinary of late. They’ve closed out games well, but those opening quarters have been dicey.
That was the case again Tuesday as D’Angelo Russell got red-hot from behind the arc, hitting seven in a row before he finally missed and was subbed out.
That was seven minutes into the quarter, and he left with 24 points on his linescore.
The Raptors bench, as they normally do, came in and restored some order, getting the game back to even before turning it back to the starters for the final six minutes of the second quarter.
Again the starters faltered, this time without the excuse of a redhot Russell.
By the half, the Raps were down 10 points again.
Then it turned again — but not until Fred VanVleet, the engine that makes that bench mob go, came out to join the starters.
From the point of his arrival at about four minutes into the third quarter, the Raptors went on a 15-0 run. By the end of the third, they had a two-point lead on their way to a 116-102 win.
It was the season-high ninth win in a row for the Raptors.
There’s something that happens when VanVleet enters a game. He gets into his man and it catches through the rest of the lineup.
Suddenly defence is no longer a chore, it’s a necessity. Whether that’s because no one wants to get shamed or it’s just catching, everyone else’s defence picks up.
VanVleet was the guy who came out in the first half and helped turn the water off on Russell. His entry in the second half made any scoring significantly tougher for any of the Nets as the rest of the Raptors followed his lead.
VanVleet wound up with 15 points and four assists in 27 minutes, but the stats did not reflect the impact he had on this game.
Casey knew coming into this one that this Nets team was capable of pushing the Raptors.
“This team is a scrappy young team and we only got out by the skin of our teeth the last time here,” he said, recalling an overtime win in Brooklyn in early January. “They give us problems in different situations and it took us overtime to beat them last time. If that doesn’t get
your attention, nothing will.”
While it was VanVleet that helped get the Raptors engaged in this one, it was his benchmate C.J. Miles who helped the Raps start to pull away.
In a span of just over two minutes midway through the fourth quarter,
Miles, who had been scoreless to that point, hit three three-pointers and was fouled on another, converting all three from the line for a 12-point burst that gave the Raptors a little breathing room.
The Raps got little in the way of
offence from either of the two biggest producers in Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, but got 26 out of Jonas Valanciunas to stay in this one.
Valanciunas also had 14 boards as Casey stayed big when the Nets went small, giving his Lithuanian
centre space to go to work with a huge advantage over some smaller defenders.
For the game, the Nets hit on 15 of 35 threes. Lowry had a game-best 11 assists.