Wizards hand Raps loss
Instead of a battle of two all-star point guards on Sunday evening, Toronto basketball fans got a quarter of Kyle Lowry in an at times dreadful game the visiting Wizards won 107-96.
John Wall, who made the AllNBA third team last season, a year after Lowry did the same, didn’t suit up at all due to a shoulder injury, while Lowry lost his cool after playing 12 minutes and picked up a pair of technical fouls and an automatic ejection after arguing with an official following a foul call.
There went Toronto’s supposed huge advantage at the point guard spot — though that hadn’t played out before Lowry’s dismissal anyway, with the Raptors shooting blanks and turning the ball over far too often throughout the first half. Lowry didn’t hit a field goal and notched only a single assist before his night ended early. After getting the kiss-off from the referee, Lowry planted a kiss on youngest son Kameron after exiting the court and heading to the tunnel.
The Raptors looked horrific for much of the evening, but sparked to life in the second half through the strength of the young reserves, whittling a 19-point Wizards lead down to three.
However, the group that played so well was replaced by the starters (and Delon Wright subbing for Lowry) and a 12-2 Washington run put to rest any hope of a Raptors robbery on a night the visitors deserved to prevail.
The Raptors fell to 5-4, losing for the first time at home, while 5-4 Washington got back in the win column following a tough stretch.
Bradley Beal was the best player on the court, going off for 38 points, five rebounds and four assists. DeRozan had 26 in a so-so effort, Norman Powell had 19 and Fred VanVleet, Lucas Nogueira and Pascal Siakam had excellent efforts off of the bench, making a game of what looked to be a blowout early on.
The Raptors hit only five threepoint attempts (20.8%) and missed 10 free throws.
SAW IT COMING
Head coach Dwane Casey had warned pre-game that the first home tilt following a long trip is historically
“Very difficult. This is the toughest game, the scariest game, just because of energy level, time changes. Not only this, we’re still fighting the time change from two weeks ago. We went out to Hawaii, come back, had a few days here, went back out to the west coast, now we’re coming back,” Casey had said ominously.
“The energy level, feeling sorry for ourselves, saying oh we’re a little tired or whatever, that’s what we’ve got to fight as much as a talented Washington Wizards team who’s coming in upset and angry they lost what, four out of five.”
Casey’s charges missed the memo, coming out nearly as flat and lethargic as they had in Denver during the worst defeat of the season.
It took until the second half before the Raptors brought some energy to the affai =r — first by Serge Ibaka and then by a bunch of the kids, especially VanVleet, Siakam and Nogueira who were everywhere defensively and consistently got what they wanted at the other end.
LOTS OF OPTIONS
The Raptors were battered throughout the recent long road trip and C.J. Miles had to sit out with the flu, but the group was at full strength for this one.
“I don’t know if he’s 100 percent but he was zapped, probably shouldn’t have played in the Denver game ‘cause he was struggling then,” Casey said of Miles, before adding that Wright’s sore shoulder was fine.
Miles couldn’t locate his jump shot, missing all five attempts, but played hard on defence.
Casey has a problem most coaches would love to have: Too many NBAcaliber rotation players and not enough minutes to go around.
“A lot of equal, talented guys that are equal skillset,” was how Casey put it before the game.
There’s gonna be nights where somebody’s just gonna get the short straw, which is unfortunate, because all the guys, OG (Anunoby), Pascal, all of those guys, (Jakob Poeltl), have been playing really, really well. But it’s just almost impossible —other than fighting altitude and getting extra bodies in there — to play that many people. Now you’ve got C.J. coming back (into the lineup, making it even more difficult). It’s the people who are performing and playing who are going to determine those minutes,” Casey said.
Poeltl was the first centre off of the bench against Washington after Nogueira had been filling that role in recent games, but Casey went with the hot hand, Nogueira much of the way, before bringing starters Jonas Valanciunas and Serge Ibaka back, which didn’t go as planned.
With Nogueira and Siakam changing the game, they warranted a longer look. Siakam has played so well recently that as hard as it is, the staff must find a way to get him 20 minutes or so of action for as long as this keeps up.