The Raptors take a 2-0 playoff series lead
This role as front-runners seems to agree with the Toronto Raptors.
With their first lead from the opening tip of an NBA playoff series already secured, the Raptors went out and did exactly what they have been doing all season and took care of home court with a near wire-to-wire 130-119 win to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven first-round series.
Now, the adage is a series really hasn’t begun until one team or another loses at home, so by that logic the Raptors haven’t done anything yet. But you would be hard-pressed to convince any of the 19,800 on hand Tuesday night at the ACC that the Raptors haven’t firmly established themselves as the dominant team in this series. The Raptors set playoff franchise marks for most points in a quarter with 46 in the first, most points in a half with 76, and the 130 in a game.
At the half they were up by a comfortable 18 points. That lead dipped to just 10 as the unsustainable three-point shooting prowess of the first half — the Raps were 11 for 22 — came back to Earth with seven misses from distance in the third.
Then, just as that segment of the fan base that hasn’t quite bought into this team wholeheartedly started to waver, the Raptors responded again.
The Wizards, to their credit, managed to make a game of it in the third as John Wall got it going and Washington managed to keep the Raptors from so many wide-open looks from the corners that had been killing them, but in the end, it was just a little face saving.
The closest Washington got was five points with just over eight minutes to go in the game after a Lucas Nogueira layup got blocked by Wall at one end and Mike Scott hit an open three in transition from the corner for his 20th point of the night.
Wall then hit a pair of free throws to get it down to five until C.J. Miles waved off Kyle Lowry and hit a deep three to get it back to eight.
Delon Wright followed with a block on Wall and then DeMar DeRozan hit a turnaround jumper to get it back up to double digits.
The Miles three, his fifth of the night, came from 30 feet out and was a game changer: The suddenly quieted crowd got loud again and the Raptors seemed to pick up right where they left off before the Wizards made things a little nervy.
From that point on it was all Raptors as DeRozan put his game into high gear on his way to a 37-point night before sitting down to a much-deserved ovation with about two minutes to go and the Raptors up comfortably.
There was some bad news on the night for Toronto.
The Raptors welcomed Fred VanVleet back to the fold after a one-game absence but his return lasted all of three minutes.
VanVleet, who was coming back from a sore right shoulder and still had a heating pad on it before entering the game in the second quarter, lasted just those three minutes before Dwane Casey pulled him out and sent Norm Powell in. VanVleet did not get back in the game, and it appears that shoulder will need a little more time to heal.
The Raptors were so dominant in this one and had things so much their own way for most of the night even Paul Pierce, that noted Raptors hater, had to be having second thoughts about his long-held beliefs about Toronto’s basketball team.
Outside of Wall and his 29 points and an impressive 20-point night off the bench from Scott, the Wizards never really looked in sync.
Bradley Beal, who absolutely torched Toronto in the regularseason series, was held to just nine points on 3-of-11 shooting and was a complete non-factor in either of the first two games.
The Raptors and Wizards will now take the series back to Washington, where the Wizards will undoubtedly come out with a different look Friday night.