15 in a row!
Raptors extend winning streak with victory over Timberwolves,
They’ll lose, eventually. It could happen anytime. The Toronto Raptors went into Monday night without their starting centre, and their only other centre, and their best bench scorer, which meant three of the top seven guys on the team. A different three this time. Last game they were different.
And they won again, 137-126 over the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Raptors have won 15 straight games, the longest streak in franchise history, the longest streak by any major Canadian team ever.
“I think these guys have proven enough that they can win,” said head coach Nick Nurse, his voice raw. “We’ve had a lot of injuries this year and everybody just keeps stepping up and playing, so I think we’re kind of used to it. I think one thing you gotta do is, you gotta at least go out there and give a great effort. Right? Give yourself a chance to win. Don’t let them play harder than you. If you think you’re undertalented or undersized or whatever, maybe take your level of energy and toughness and all that stuff up a notch. I think we do that most nights.”
It’s been absurd, really. The first two games came without Fred VanVleet. The last seven have come without Marc Gasol, and the last five without Norm Powell. Kyle Lowry missed the last game and a half. He came back Monday, but Serge Ibaka — flu-like symptoms, and presumably home swathed in a mound of extravagantly comfortable scarves — was out. Apparently this Raptors season is aiming to score points for degree of difficulty.
But they’re having fun. Before the game the Raptors recognized Pascal Siakam, Lowry and Nurse at half court
Raptors 137 Timberwolves 126 GAME CENTRE, S2
for making the all-star game; Lowry mugged for the camera like a kid, but only after Siakam did it first, and when Siakam got the microphone for a short speech he opened by saying, “Yeaahhhhhh.” Nurse had already dryly noted that this wasn’t his longest winning streak: He thought the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the G League once ended a season with 16 straight wins.
And Toronto started the six-foot-six Rondae HollisJefferson at centre against a team with relatively elite centre Karl-Anthony Towns, and the confidence was still palpable. Lowry, fresh off a whiplash injury, chucked up a three early on that he absolutely did not need to shoot, and it bounced, bounced, bounced and dropped. The echo of Kawhi can still be heard in these parts, if you listen to the wind.
But they turned the ball over, too, and the defence isn’t so good with no true big men in the lineup. At halftime it was 75-74 Timberwolves. For the first time in a while the Toronto bench wasn’t good. That happens, eventually.
And even though it was a Monday night against a bad
Minnesota team in February of a long season, you could feel the streak in the building, too. The ball would find a Raptors shooter, and the noise rose before the ball did. The crowd was ready for the team to do it again.
They did. OG Anunoby reminded you that there is a brute masher slumbering beneath the surface, and Hollis-Jefferson scrapped like a badger, and Siakam and Lowry were simply all-stars. Oh, and VanVleet ended the third with a steal and an over-the-head blind pass to set up a dunk, and eyed up the seven-foot Towns before splashing a 27-foot fourth-quarter three. The starters scored 123 points, and Toronto outscored the Wolves by 22 in the paint. You almost had to laugh. Last week, VanVleet was talking about this season and why it’s been so prideful, so good.
“I think that the same answer for why it is, this is the same reason why we won a championship,” says VanVleet. “If we aren’t the guys who went through it, and are as good as we are, then we don’t win a championship last year. As great as Kawhi was, as unbelievable a playoff performance as we’ve seen, what took it over the hump was the other guys.
Greats are going to be great. They’re going to get you 30, 35. And you need them to be unbelievable in the clutch.
“But if you don’t get a 12-point fourth quarter here, or a couple of threes, or a couple of big plays, or Kyle Lowry starting the game off (like he did in Game 6 of the Finals) — if you don’t have those in the middle, then you lose the game. It’s just that simple. And obviously the playoffs, you know, whatever. We’ll see what happens when we get there.
“But for the regular season, that’s a no-brainer for us. We know that we can do that.”
It was mentioned that the Raptors know how to work a game — how to figure it out. VanVleet nodded.
“We do that in our sleep,” said VanVleet. “You know what I mean? I don’t want us to say it’s easy, because I don’t want to be disrespectful, but we can do that. For us, it’s about being healthy and continuing to get better, and then we’ll see what it looks like when we get to the playoffs.”
They have won in the clutch and they have blown teams out. They lost the game before the streak started by a point, and the loss before that was by two. They have beaten tomato cans and playoff teams and more tomato cans, if we are being honest, but all you can do in this league is not make excuses, show up every night and try to beat whoever’s in the building. Fifteen straight wins, the longest winning run by a major team that this country’s ever seen. The streak lives. Long live the streak.