Raptors see silver lining in 2 losses

Raptors guard Kyle Lowry knows the situation is bad.

If there’s a silver lining, it’s this: He believes it could have been worse.

The second-seeded Raptors would have ordinarily had homecourt advantage in their Eastern Conference semifinal matchup against the third-seeded Celtics, and for the defending league champs to fall into a 2-0 series hole — as they have at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida — that means they would have dropped two straight at home and been forced to face a raucous crowd in Boston for Game 3.

But in the bubble, home-court isn’t an issue and Lowry thinks that a win when the series resumes Thursday would be enough to get the Raptors back on track.

“This is not a situation we’d like to be in,” Lowry said. “But it’s not the normal situation in the playoffs where we lost two home games. We just lost two games. We have a chance to get one game. That’s all we have to do, get one. One game at a time. The Celtics, they’ve been playing extremely well. We have to find a way to get ourselves going.”

The Celtics don’t just lead the series 2-0 — they’re 3-0 against the Raptors since the restart and are 5-1 against them this season.

“We’re going to look at things we did well and things we could do better,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “No matter the circumstances, up 10, down 10, we’re going to keep playing.”

Raptors forwards OG Anunoby and Serge Ibaka are shooting a combined 22-for-40 in the series.

The rest of the Raptors are shooting 34%.

“The shots are there,” Lowry said. “We’ve got to make them.”

Jokic lifts Nuggets in Game 7: Nikola Jokic made the tiebreaking basket with 27 seconds left and the Nuggets advanced to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs by the slimmest of margins, beating the Jazz 80-78 in Game 7 on Tuesday night when Mike Conley’s 3-pointer spun out at the buzzer.

The third-seeded Nuggets became the 12th team in NBA history to overcome a 3-1 deficit to win a series, but only after they blew a 19-point lead in this game.

After Jokic’s basket, the Jazz got the ball to Donovan Mitchell following a timeout. The Nuggets stole it from him and raced down for a fast break, but Torrey Craig missed the layup. The Jazz rebounded and pushed the ball up the floor to Conley, whose jumper looked good until it fell out.

Jokic had 30 points and 14 rebounds and Jamal Murray scored 17 points. The Nuggets will face the second-seeded Clippers in the next round.

Fines for Morris, Doncic: Marcus Morris of the Clippers was fined $35,000 by the league for his flagrant foul on Luka Doncic of the Mavericks, who was penalized $15,000 for throwing the ball at a referee.

Both fines stemmed from actions in Game 6 of a first-round playoff series, which the Clippers won to eliminate the Mavs.