DeRozan: Reeling Raptors will be ‘a different team’ in Game 4
Kyle Lowry had barely slept. DeMar DeRozan was still smoldering from the indignity of being held without a field goal for the first time in his playoff career.
The Toronto Raptors gathered for practice Friday on the same inhospitable Bradley Center floor where hours earlier they’d been handed one of the ugliest post-season losses in franchise history.
If there was a message mixed in with their outrage, it was about channelling their anger into Saturday’s Game 4.
DeRozan, who averaged 27.3 points a night during the best regular season of his career, finished with just eight points in Game 3, all on free throws. According to Elias Sports Bureau, DeRozan is the first 25-pointsa-game scorer in history to go 0-for-3 or worse in a playoff game in the same season.
Did he take it personally? “Tremendously personally,” DeRozan said. “It won’t be the outcome (Saturday). Things happen, there’s a side of me that’s going to come out after I feel like I let my team down, and every individual out there feels the same way.
“It’s going to be a different team (Saturday).”
Heading into what the Raptors call a “must-win” Game 4, they trail the Bucks 2-1 in their bestof-seven opening round playoff series. The Raptors are 4-6 alltime in Game 4s, and have traditionally struggled on the road in the post-season.
“We just got to use it as motivation, man,” DeRozan said. “It’s embarrassing to lose like that, especially in the post-season, to play like that on both ends.”
“It’s on us to come out this next game and tie it up.”
Playing in front of a deafening Milwaukee crowd that made the Air Canada Centre feel like a library, the Raptors looked completely unhinged from the opening tipoff against a young Bucks team that featured two rookies in Thon Maker, who was playing high school basketball at this time last year in Ontario, and Malcolm Brogdon.
“I’m a young coach so I think we all fit with the experience level,” Bucks coach Jason Kidd said. “Thon and Malcolm being two rookies, believe they can do the job, and they’ve show that all season. . . We try to keep things simple and have fun with it, and they do all the work. Watching those two guys play right now is fun.”