COLD IN COLORADO
Undermanned Raptors fall to Nuggets in battle of conference leaders,
It was a tough finish for the Raptors on Sunday as they scored just 14 points in the final quarter of a 95-86 loss in Denver. Greg Monroe, playing in the absence of Jonas Valanciunas, had four points in his 13 minutes.
A short-handed Toronto Raptors team had little business being in Sunday night’s 95-86 loss to the Denver Nuggets, but to their credit they fought their West Coast adversaries until the bitter end.
The Nuggets were without starters Paul Millsap, Garry Harris and Will Barton, among others, but missing Kyle Lowry (thigh), Pascal Siakam (back), Fred VanVleet (back), Jonas Valanciunas (thumb) and Norm Powell (shoulder) at the end of a four-game road swing meant Toronto was even shorter.
The Raptors shot just over 20 per cent from three, relying on nine bodies for just over 46 minutes. Still, they found themselves within three points with just over two minutes to play.
Toronto was led by a 29-point, 13-rebound night from Kawhi Leonard and got double-digit nights from Delon Wright and Serge Ibaka, who fouled out late. But they couldn’t offset hot second halves from Nikola Jokic and Canadian Jamal Murray, who finished with 26 and 19 points, respectively.
With the season sweep by the Nuggets, the Raptors finished their final West Coast road trip of the season 2-2.
Game of runs: Leonard and Delon Wright made way with 1:14 to go in a back-to-back first quarter, leaving Lorenzo Brown, Green, C.J. Miles, OG Anunoby and Greg Monroe on the floor. The group managed to pull away from Denver with a 5-0 run to end the quarter tied at 23. A 7-0 run coming into the sec- ond, capped by a drive into the paint by last year’s G-League MVP Lorenzo Brown, who fed Anunoby on the weak side for a three, gave Toronto its biggest lead of the game at that point. But the bench struggled to hold onto that margin and, after a Denver timeout, the home team responded with a 10-0 run of its own. It took Toronto more than two minutes to hit a field goal after Anunoby’s three.
Toronto’s turn: Raptors coach Nick Nurse knows how to use his timeouts, too. After a patented Jokic spin move that turned up the noise in Denver, the Nurse called a much-needed time out that cut the home team’s momentum. Toronto went on an 11-0 run from there, engineered in large part by Leonard, to give the visitors an eight-point lead at the half.
The Wright Way: Delon Wright, making his sixth start at point guard, came up with a big three-point play at the fiveminute mark, grabbing an errant pass by Miles and splitting two defenders as he drove from the left side, getting the foul on the way. It was one of many successful drives in an aggressive game for Wright.
Hitting a wall: It all went sideways for the Raptors toward the end of the third quarter. Leonard and Wright sat as altitude in the Mile High City started to take effect. The sluggish Raptors couldn’t get their offence going and the Nuggets took their first lead since the second quarter, as Toronto went 0-for-11 from the field until a dunk by Leonard more than six minutes after the team’s previous basket and Denver never looked back.
Up next: The Indiana Pacers at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday.