OVERTIME. GAME CENTRE,
Less than 24 hours after Raptors coach Nick Nurse said Terence Davis II’s eight minutes against the Portland Trail Blazers were “probably five too many,” the guard found himself in Toronto’s starting lineup for the second night of back-toback games with something to prove.
The rookie shooting guard did just that in Tuesday’s 112-110 overtime win at the Charlotte Hornets. If the 17 points and nine rebounds Davis put up in regulation time wasn’t enough, a pair of threes and a pair of rebounds in the extra five minutes likely got Davis back in Nurse’s good books. Davis also did enough defensively to ensure hot-handed Terry Rozier III, who led the Hornets with 27 points, was off the mark with a buzzer-beating three-point attempt. That miss sealed Toronto’s win.
“I can play a little bit,” Davis told Sportsnet’s Eric Smith post-game. “I can play a little bit.”
Nurse called Davis out Tuesday night, saying the 22-yearold undrafted rookie — heralded earlier in the season as another diamond-in-the-rough find by the Raptors — was not playing very well. In his three games before Wednesday, Davis shot 30.8 per cent from the field, 12.5 per cent from three and totalled just 12 points.
Davis took the back-to-back games as a blessing and went into Wednesday night with an aggressive mindset that translated into 13 points in the first 10 minutes.
“Coach told me I had the start before the game,” Davis said. “I just took that as motivation. Just wanted to come out and do
the best I can.”
He finished with 23 points, a career high, and added 11 rebounds for his first career double-double
Balancing act: The ongoing injury crisis has forced Toronto to adopt a “next man up” philosophy and the Raptors produced a solid team win Wednesday.
It was the supporting cast that held things down for Toronto in the first half as the Raptors’ top two offensive threats, Kyle Lowry and Serge Ibaka, went a combined 3-for-11 from the floor. Davis, Matt Thomas and Patrick McCaw, who produced a gamehigh 11 assists, picked up the slack with 32 of the Raptors’ 60 first-half points. When a McCaw-led group including Thomas, Oshae Brissett, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Chris Boucher started to wilt in the third, letting the Hornets cut a 12-point lead to a one-point game with a 9-0 run to end the quarter, it was the starting lineup, led by Lowry and
Ibaka, that stepped in to see things out.
Running on fumes: Tired legs were clear in the dying minutes, but Lowry and Ibaka, who played a combined 151 minutes over two nights, had each other’s backs. Lowry gave Toronto a one-point lead with 17 seconds to play in regulation, only for Ibaka to squander it by tugging on P.J. Washington’s jersey on a Charlotte inbounds play, conceding a free throw that sent the game into overtime. But Ibaka paid Lowry back in the final minutes, hitting two gamewinning free throws after Lowry missed a pair 30 seconds earlier.
Ibaka had 23 points and 11 rebounds for his seventh straight double-double, matching the best streak of his career.
Up next: A few needed days off for Toronto before a familiar face, DeMar DeRozan, visits Scotiabank Arena with the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday. Game time is 6 p.m.