Raptors grind out a win over scrappy Spurs
As the NBA season goes on and the games become more important, there are nights when grit needs to supplant flash, when pace and space and taking as many three-pointers as you can disappear.
The Raptors now have one of those games under their belts.
There was nothing overly flashy about their 86-83 win over the San Antonio Spurs at the Air Canada Centre on Friday, but finding a way to grind out a win against a good team can be a wonderful feeling.
“We’re going to have a lot more of them,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. “We’re going to see a lot more like that than . . . any other type game right now.”
Jonas Valanciunas continued a weeks-long stretch of solid play with 15 points and 11 rebounds, while Kyle Lowry might have made some Eastern Conference coaches think more seriously about their all-star reserve ballots with a 24-point game.
“I thought he had some bounce going downhill in the first half,” Casey said. “I thought they had a good run going into the third quarter, (I) maybe left him in a little bit too long; (Lowry) normally comes out (with) two and a half (minutes left in the quarter) but I thought he had a lot of bounce.”
DeMar DeRozan celebrated his allstar starter selection with a 21-point game that included two clutch baskets in the final 21⁄ minutes. He did
2 miss two free throws with 4.6 seconds left that would have iced the game.
The Spurs were without all-star Kawhi Leonard (quadriceps), Rudy Gay (heel) and Manu Ginobili (thigh), taking almost half the rotation out of play. But the Raptors knew not to take them lightly because of the way coach Gregg Popovich can manipulate available bodies.
“With Pop and the way he orches- trates and puts guys in there, he could put five of y’all out there and coach y’all to some type of victory,” DeRozan joked with reporters Friday morning.
The Spurs have been impressive in amassing 30 wins and maintaining a grasp on third place in the Western Conference despite missing key players for significant time. Leonard has played only nine games and is now shut down indefinitely, and Tony Parker had missed 26 of the team’s 46 games heading into Friday night. Only backup guard Patty Mills has played every game.
“They just seem to persevere no matter what and try to fulfil their responsibilities,” San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said before the game. “It’s on them and they’ve done a good job of it.”
The Spurs found a way to stay in the game Friday when they were doing very little right. Aldridge missed 12 of his first 14 shots but went on a personal 8-0 run that helped the Spurs cut a 14-point third-quarter Toronto lead to three going into the fourth.
Aldridge finished with17 points and 14 rebounds but on a 6-for-25 shooting night. The Spurs shot an abysmal 34 per cent for the game, the lowest by a Toronto opponent this season.
It was Valanciunas who was primarily responsible for holding Aldridge in check.
“He kept his feet, he moved his feet, he used his arms in the right way, and then he got deep post position himself, and made him pay, left hand, right hand,” Casey said of Valanciunas. “He’s playing with a lot of confidence right now, which he should, he’s been in the league long enough now to be able to handle all the situations.”
Still, the Spurs were within a point late in the fourth quarter and, when DeRozan missed two free throws with less than five seconds left, they were a last-second heave from sending the game to overtime.
The Spurs, of course, represent what the Raptors want to become, a franchise that is always in contention and one that operates under principles Toronto would like to emulate. The culture, as Casey calls it. “I think we’re on pace, on par,” Casey said. “We don’t have the championship yet, that’s our goal. But we’re building that type of structure . . . starting with Masai (Ujiri, the team’s president), all the way down to the equipment guy and the next man up mentality. All the components we work on. We’re not on San Antonio’s level yet but we’re getting there.”