Last-place Suns make Kawhi-less Raps work for win
It wasn’t supposed to go down to the buzzer between the league-leading Raptors and the Western Conference bottomdwelling Phoenix Suns, but it took a last-gasp layup from Pascal Siakam to seal a 111-109 victory for Toronto.
Toronto led the Suns by as many as 16 points early in the game, but came out flat-footed in the second half, looking very much like a team without Kawhi Leonard on the second night of back-to-back games. That allowed the Suns to get back in the game, and they entered the final quarter with a one-point lead.
But sometimes all a team needs is a little drama to wake them up, as the Raptors learned in the fourth.
Phoenix’s Joshua Jackson was charged with a flagrant foul on Chris Boucher and ejected as the clock ticked past the eightminute mark in the fourth quarter. The momentum had been building at Scotiabank Arena, thanks to a pair of back-to-back threes by the struggling C.J. Miles, but it was Kyle Lowry’s defiant reaction to Jackson’s two-handed shove on Boucher that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
That reaction was rivalled only by the response to Siakam’s game-winner. He finished the night with 10 points and 12 rebounds, one of six Raptors players to reach double digits in points.
Serge Ibaka led the Raptors with 22 points. Devin Booker had a game-high 30 for Phoenix.
Man of action: Kyle Lowry was expected to sit out Thursday night’s game until less than two hours before tipoff, when coach Nick Nurse deemed him fit to start. And he almost had a triple double for his efforts, with 16 points (on 4-for-15 shooting), nine rebounds and eight assists. Kawhi Leonard still has yet to play in both games of a back-toback this season. But he made a rare off-night appearance on the bench in the second half, a move sure to give fuel to the will-he-or-won’t-he-stay debate among fans.
The good: A few threes can really come in handy. The Raptors went on an 11-0 run about six minutes in, spurred by baskets from beyond the arc by Lowry, Danny Green and Fred VanVleet. Miles would add another three before the end of the quarter. It’s closer to what coach Nick Nurse wants to see from his team from the field.
The bad: Toronto went cold from deep after that, going through an 0-for-11 from stretch before the first of Miles’s late pair. They shot 25 per cent from three-point range overall. The struggling Miles tied a season high with 13 points, going 5-for-7 from the field.
Up next: The 19-25 Memphis Grizzlies come to town Saturday. Game time is 7:30 p.m.