DeMar DeRozan, NBA player of the week (again), sparked the Raptors with 36 points in a 131-112 win.
The Raptors stretched their winning streak to six against the Orlando Magic on Monday night, but there were few smiles or pats on the back after the final buzzer.
Toronto posted 73 points in the first half alone on the way to a 131-112 victory, but allowing the Magic to shoot 49 per cent from the field left Raptors coach Dwane Casey wanting more.
“We’ll take the win, but we can’t be happy with our defensive performance, trading baskets like that,” he said.
“Like I told the team, we have bigger goals in mind, and if we’re intent on achieving them we’ve got to have a better mindset than we had tonight defensively.”
It was an emotional night at the Air Canada Centre, including the return of former Raptor Terrence Ross, who dominated the game’s opening minutes — putting up seven of his 17 points before a tribute video was played midway through the first quarter.
He was matched up against DeMar DeRozan, though, and the Raptors all-star — and NBA player of the week for the fourth time — put up 18 of his 36 points in the opening quarter alone.
Some shaky defence by the home team, though, left the Raptors up by just one after 12 minutes.
The second unit tightened up for about five minutes before the half, and the still-firing offence — shooting a sizzling 62.2 per cent at that point — stretched the lead to16 at the break.
The lead was back down to single digits midway through the third quarter when the Raptors got to work and back to the defensive basics that have served them well since wrist surgery knocked all-star Kyle Lowry out of the lineup.
A Delon Wright steal, off an in- bounding pass by Biyombo, and buzzer-beating three put Toronto up by 10 to end the third quarter and set the tone for the fourth. Raptor Norm Powell, who made four of six three-point attempts on the way to16 points, said Toronto has proven it can defend, but the consistency is not there: “We’ve got to sustain it during parts of the game for longer periods of time. We can’t have lapses and we can’t go back and forth coming out of half or coming out of the quarter.”