Raptors withstand the Heat to win

It came back to the Toronto Raptors starters and they did not disappoint.

After the much appreciated Toronto bench carried the load the past few games, the bench mob ran into a pretty solid bench opponent in Miami that actually took it to Toronto’s reserves and outscored them.

With Goran Dragic going off as he seems to just about every time the Raptors and Miami Heat meet on the schedule it came down to finding the difference in the starting five and the Raptors two biggest names and their two all-stars answered that call.

Through a half Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan had 20 points between them.

They got it going in the second half with DeRozan leading the club with 27 and Lowry bumping his point total to 22 to hold off an underrated Heat squad by a 115112 score.

The Heat bench led by former Raptor James Johnson and their own CJ Miles clone in Wayne Ellington were a stern test for Toronto’s bench which has been the talk of the town for the last little while.

Johnson, the former Raptor had 16 while Ellington chipped in with 15 to keep the Heat in this one throughout. Bam Adebayo with 11 and the returning Dwyane Wade rounded out a strong bench presence for the heat.

The Raps finish up the first half of the season Wednesday in Chicago before a deserved weeklong break for the all-star game.

The coaching fraternity is a strong one so it’s no surprise that Erik Spoelstra had a strong opinion on what he thought Dwane Casey’s recent milestone of 300 wins in a Raptors uniform meant.

“I think it’s great for coaching because coach Casey, like myself, has needed great stability and consistency and support from the organization and from ownership and management to be able to weather some storms and build a culture and find some success,” Spoelstra said. “Without that stability so many of us would have been cast aside. I think it’s a great reflection right now in some areas but in a lot of other places it’s still a turnstile.”

Spoelstra talks from experience having heard his own job called for and speculated about on numerous occasions only for the Heat organization to shut out the noise and stick with the man they know.

“Yeah, it’s unfortunate,” Spoelstra said of the rarity of that in today’s game. “That is how we all feel as coaches. I mean how many more coaches would have an opportunity like I’ve had or coach Casey has had if they had just had some stability?”