Raps survive second-half stumble
Weak start to third quarter has coach fuming despite win over pesky Hornets
Dwane Casey was having none of it.
He wasn’t interested in the best three-point shooting night of Kyle Lowry’s career, he wasn’t about to chat about the 66 points that Lowry and DeMar DeRozan combined for, and his post-game chat, which maxed out at about 90 seconds, covered one subject.
He was mad and frustrated and it really didn’t matter a lick that the Raptors had beaten the Charlotte Hornets 126-113 at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night. The coach was seething — as publicly upset as he has been at any time this season — about his team’s awful start to the second half.
And it was probably just the anger and the moment but he held out the possibility of a radical move.
“We’ve got to fix it,” the coach said. “We talked about it. Other than start five other people (to open a third quarter), I don’t know what to do.”
That would be a stunning departure from the basketball norm and one Casey may well reconsider. But the way the Raptors are lallygagging into second halves these days, it might be time for something totally off the wall.
Toronto had a seemingly comfortable 19-point lead at the half over the Hornets, who were without all-star guard Kemba Walker. But instead of burying a weakened opponent, Toronto watched as the Hornets rattled off 10-0 run in the first 2:15 of the second half before they pared the Raptor’s lead to two with only four minutes gone in the quarter. “I don’t have words,” Casey said. Then he had some. “That’s totally unacceptable. We’re not going to win anything if we come out with that attitude, if we don’t fix it. Again, we’ve talked about, I don’t know, start another five to start the second half? It’s just mind-boggling.” To all concerned. “That’s just the feel, like, everybody can feel it,” guard Fred VanVleet said. “I mean, you guys are in there, you feel the air. It’s just something we’ve got to correct and clean up going forward. Whatever it is that we have to do, there’s a way we can correct it and not go on those long droughts of whether it’s not scoring, not getting stops, whatever it is. Just play a little bit better coming out of the third quarter.”
The Raptors were bailed out by big offensive nights from Lowry, who had 36 points; and DeRozan, who had 30.
Lowry made a career high eight three-pointers in his best offensive game of the season, VanVleet set a career high with eight assists, and DeRozan had six points in a row to stop the bleeding when Charlotte got within two in the third.
“You just trying to find him, whatever,” VanVleet said of Lowry. “I think I had one I could have shot and I saw him, I gave it up right away. Eight-for-11 from three is pretty impressive and, when he’s got it going like that, it’s pretty hard to guard.”
“Great. Great. That’s great,” was Casey’s facetious reaction to the scoring exploits. “You’re not going to outshoot people to win in this league … we just had too many bonehead things.”
The Hornets were playing without all-star guard Kemba Walker, who missed the game with a shoulder injury and it limited what Charlotte could do offensively.
Walker is among the more proficient guards on pick-and-roll plays and his ability to stop on a dime and get up a shot make him a difficult cover.
His replacement, Michael CarterWilliams, is bigger but not as quick and not nearly dangerous.
Carter-Williams ended up going an atrocious 1-for-10 from three-point range and finished with nine points. Dwight Howard had 22 point and 18 rebounds to lead the Hornets.