WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND
Kyle Lowry found enough room to rack up 27 points but the Raptors fell 125-121 to the Hawks at the Air Canada Centre — just two weeks after crushing Atlanta by a whopping 44,
Dwane Casey saw it coming and warned anyone who’d listen.
He knew the Atlanta Hawks, stung by a 44-point drubbing administered by his Toronto Raptors less than two weeks ago, would summon some pride and be ready to exact some revenge.
He also knew his team’s defence, shaky at times, was due to be fully exposed. Right on both counts, he was. The Hawks blistered the Raptors from the opening tip, then held on for a125-121victory at the Air Canada Centre as Toronto couldn’t find a way to shoot itself out of a poor defensive showing.
Dwight Howard had 27 points and 15 rebounds — part of a 43-27 advantage on the glass in favour of the Hawks — as Atlanta handed Toronto just its second loss in 12 games and snapped a four-game Raptors winning streak.
Possessors of one of the NBA’s most prolific offences, the Raptors had been getting by on the strength of scoring far too often to suit Casey. He’s been hammering home the need for attention to detail and singular defensive focus for the entire season, and Friday’s game showed why.
Even though the Raptors shot 55 per cent from the field and went over the 100-point plateau for the 13th straight game, the defensive lapses were too great to overcome.
Even a furious fourth-quarter rally, fuelled primarily by an improbably small lineup for the first nine minutes of the quarter, wasn’t enough.
Using a group that basically had no centre until Jonas Valanciunas came back into the game with about 31⁄
2 minutes to go, Toronto got within four points with 21 seconds left.
DeMar DeRozan had 34 points for Toronto and Kyle Lowry 27, while Cory Joseph equalled his season high with 17.
Dennis Schroder had 24 for the Hawks, who shot 54 per cent from the field.
It wasn’t only Casey who expected the Hawks to come out firing on all cyclinders after the Dec. 3 drubbing. The players realized it as well. Ex-Hawk DeMarre Carroll had first-hand knowledge of how Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer would try to motivate his team. “Me knowing coach Bud and knowing who he is and his pride, he’s going to really get into those guys and tell them: These guys beat you by 40, so we’ve got to have a better effort,” Carroll said Friday morning. “They’re going to come out. We’ve got to throw the first punch. We can’t let them throw the first punch.”
The Hawks, who began the season 9-2 before a 3-11 swoon, not only threw the first punch, they tossed a continuing series of haymakers that rocked Toronto from the opening tip.
The Hawks shot 59 per cent in the first quarter and went up by eight, then got better — amassing a17-point halftime lead.
Casey did again make a lineup shift to start the second half, going with Patrick Patterson rather than rookie Pascal Siakam, as he did Wednesday in Philadelphia.
While he tied a season high with three blocked shots, Siakam had been ineffective in just eight firsthalf minutes, failing to pick up a rebound.