Defence rests in Carroll’s absence
MIAMI— If millions of childhoods wasted playing Mortal Kombat taught us anything, it’s that the second your opponent has its backbone pulled out, it’s game over.
That’s the unenviable/science-defying task the Toronto Raptors faced here on Sunday, playing without the backbone of their league-wide respected defence. Forward DeMarre Carroll missed his first game of the season, suffering from plantar fasciitis. He’ll be evaluated day to day.
Carroll’s presence may not have been enough to stop Miami centre Hassan Whiteside, though, whose huge body and equally huge third quarter (nine points, three blocks) were a death blow to the Raptors in a 96-76 game. Whiteside finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and six blocks.
“We’ve got to find Kryptonite when we play him,” said Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan, who had 16 points in the loss and met rejection at the hands of the fourthyear centre two different times on Sunday. “He always gets it going against us.”
Whiteside’s play sparked the now 4-3 Heat, who trailed 47-44 at the half. Miami survived the strong first-quarter start that the Raptors have been after much of this season and rallied behind Whiteside as the blocked shots and put-back buckets started to pile up. The Heat outscored the Raptors 30-16 in the third. Whiteside’s volleyball spike-type block on James Johnson was the highlight of the six pack.
Johnson started in place of Carroll, his first start since March 4, 2015 against Cleveland. He had sat out the previous three games, at coach Dwane Casey’s discretion.
“Whiteside was coming from I don’t know where,” Johnson said of the block. His night wasn’t an easy one, getting somewhat short notice on the start and then having to guard Dwyane Wade. Johnson had seven points and seven rebounds in 25:37. Wade finished with 12 points in 24:56.
It was Whiteside and Chris Bosh that did the damage for the Heat. Bosh got hot in that third quarter and carried it into the fourth, hitting 4of-7 from three-point range and adding eight rebounds. He had a gamehigh 23 points.
“This was one of our stinkers of the year. We’re going to get better, I promise you that,” Casey said, getting into the root of his team’s issue in their two losses.
“We held them to 42 per cent and shot 39 per cent; we have to get better offensively with execution and protecting the basketball. That’s the ball game.”
The offensive deficiencies glared in the second half, a reversal of what worked against them in their Friday loss to the Orlando Magic. The Raptors only scored 29 points in the second half.
Jonas Valanciunas led the team in scoring with 17, but had only one point after the half.
“We just let down,” Valanciunas said. “We were not aggressive on our offence. We were not aggressive on our defence. We gave up easy points. I don’t know, we just weren’t ready.”
With the Heat up 74-63 to start the fourth, Whiteside sat and it didn’t matter. The Raptors were caught repeatedly in transition and gave up dunks to Tyler Johnson, Josh McRoberts and Justise Winslow, bringing an announced sellout crowd of 19,600 at AmericanAirlines Arena to life. Bosh and Wade connected on three-pointers and stretched the lead to 22.
“When they went on that big run (in the third) it was like dunk, dunk, three, three — just easy shots,” said point guard Kyle Lowry, who had 15 points, eight assists and five rebounds.