RAPTORS VS. PACERS DeRozan’s rebound highlight on wild night
For a week, he’s been consistent in his appraisal of himself and constantly self-confident, not the least bit ruffled by the numbers or the criticism or the noise.
DeMar DeRozan knows what he is, as do his teammates and coaches, and on one of the wildest nights in Toronto Raptors history the all-star guard came through when it counted most.
DeRozan’s 34-point effort — the kind of game he’d put up in the middle of an all-star regular season — helped the Raptors salvage not only a game but perhaps their season with a 102-99 victory over the Indiana Pacers before a joyously stunned Air Canada Centre crowd.
The win gives the Raptors a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven playoff series, which they can wrap up in Indiana on Friday. Game 7, if necessary, would be back in Toronto on Sunday. The game was simply stunning with wild swings and high drama, and it wasn’t over until after it was over. It took a video review of Solomon Hill’s three-pointer at the buzzer, ruled too late, before the improbable win was sealed.
DeRozan was instrumental. His three-pointer with just over four minutes left put Toronto ahead for the first time all night, and his assist on a Cory Joseph three about a minute later gave the Raptors a lead they’d never relinquish.
“It felt like my normal self,” DeRozan said. “Me and this guy (postgame podium partner Kyle Lowry) work extremely hard . . . It’s all about patience. You can’t get flustered. You can’t get frustrated. You have to stay the course, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do, whatever it takes to win.”
DeRozan was part of one of the funkiest small lineups that coach Dwane Casey could have come up with, a group that outscored the Pacers 25-9 in the fourth quarter.
It was basically a position-less group: Cory Joseph, Kyle Lowry, Norm Powell, DeRozan and Bismack Biyombo on the court for an astonishing finish.
“That group that was in there had the toughness, the want-to, the inner, ‘OK, I’m tired of getting my butt kicked and we’re going to war,’ ” Casey said. The group — and Casey made sure to point out it wasn’t just one player — also managed to limit the damage by Indiana’s Paul George. George did finish with 39 points, but only two on three field-goal attempts in the final quarter against the odd lineup.
“It was just a group out there that was playing hard, playing together. We were one string,” Lowry said. “. . . Biz set screens and we got good shots.”
And DeRozan made his count, as he said all week he would, and as his teammates expected.
“I always trust DeMar, he knows that,” said Biyombo, who gobbled up 16 rebounds. “And every day I tell him: You do you. And he knows I’m going to ride or die with him. He knows that. I always trust him. When things start falling they’re going to fall, and nobody’s going to stop him.”