DeRozan gets last laugh in Toronto
TORONTO Nick Nurse spent the better part of the past few days working out the best way to work Norm Powell and Pascal Siakam back into the lineup.
It appears to have been time wasted.
After looking like a team fully in sync to begin the game and into the third quarter, the wheels started to come off for the Raptors about midway through the quarter and just when it looked like the Raptors never got the car back on the rails, they flipped the script again in the final two minutes only to lose the momentum one more time late, along with the game by a 105-104 score.
It marked the second game in a row at home that the Raptors were up big against an opponent well down in the standings and let them come back to win. The first time was last week against Portland. Those losses were sandwiched around an overtime win in Charlotte.
Up 18 with 4:16 to go in the third quarter, the Raptors saw it all disappear as former Raptor DeMar DeRozan, who had been deathly quiet through most of two and a half quarters, got it going midway through the third and not only got the Spurs all the way back, he had them sitting pretty with a nine-point lead with just two and a half minutes remaining.
But a trio of threes from Kyle Lowry, Norm Powell and finally Serge Ibaka put the Raptors right back in this one into the final minute.
Siakam then put the Raptors up by one, making one of two from the free throw line before Marco Belinelli, another former Raptor on this Spurs team, calmly drilled his own three from the top of the three-point circle with just 20 seconds remaining to put the Spurs up to stay.
Still smarting from the uneven return to the lineup of Lowry and Ibaka after month-long absences, Nurse settled on putting the returning players out for a short spurt and then staggering their minutes from there.
Siakam came out of the gate like he had never missed any time at all despite missing 10 games.
He had 12 points after just seven minutes played in that first quarter. Nurse, hoping to ease him back in, got him off the floor early but the move backfired when Siakam returned and was more or less stone cold the rest of the evening.
Siakam played 30 minutes but would only score three more points in the final 23.
Norm Powell also returned to the lineup after the same length of absence and started with Fred VanVleet still out.
Powell had a solid return scoring 20 points on 8-of-14 shooting.
DeRozan, playing his second game in Toronto since he was dealt in that franchise-altering trade for Kawhi Leonard, had 25 and won for the first time here since leaving.
His Spurs beat Toronto in San Antonio last season but lost when he was stripped by Leonard in the dying seconds of the rematch in Toronto.
DeRozan wound up with a game-high 25 despite scoring just three points in the first half.
MIXED FEELINGS
When the Raptors won the NBA title last June, DeRozan was a bit conflicted. But it sounds like his friendship for his former teammates carried the day over any resentment about being dealt away.
“I was happy for all them guys I played with. I think every single guy on that team will tell you they had a text from me as soon as they got to their phones after, congratulating them, being happy for them,” DeRozan said before playing against Toronto Sunday night.
“I think I talked to everybody that night they won, I was just happy for them. It’s an opportunity that players playing in this league don’t get, and to be connected to those guys and to this country, to see them do that, I was definitely happy for them.”
DeRozan indicated that it took some time to push aside any feelings of being left out and to appreciate his significant contributions to helping the franchise build itself up (not to mention being good enough that the Spurs would swap Leonard for him).
“I mean, after a while (he felt some pride). In the moment you’re like ‘damn.’ Damn. There’s never no ill feelings toward anything, we all ... sure if (someone else) gets a raise, you’d be like, ‘Damn I want a raise too,’ right? So that’s all it is, you just try to go out there and put yourself out there with those guys that you had a relationship, feeling that feeling. That’s all it was,” DeRozan said.
DYNAMIC DUO
DeRozan formed an extremely effective partnership with his close friend Lowry. The all-star point guard said familiarity went a long way toward that success.
“I think just the dynamic of we knew what each other was gonna give and the communication. I think that was the big thing, the communication,” Lowry said.
“Some nights where he’s like, ‘whatever,’ or I say, ‘hey, I got it.’
“No ego. If he got it going, I’m going to keep giving him the ball, if I got it going, he was going to find a way to get me the ball,” Lowry said.