What started out as a blowout/statement performance turned into a stress-inducing nail-biter as the Raptors narrowly edged the Miami Heat 99-91 in a game that was closer than the final score suggests.
But despite the lapse in the second half (and, really, given how this series had gone did you really expect other than for this game to be decided in the final minute?), it was perhaps the most encouraging win against the Heat thus far.
Bismack Biyombo put his stamp on the game with four blocks and his signature relentlessness, making a Valanciunas-less world seem a little more acceptable. And, more importantly, the Raps got major contributions from both Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, replicating the formula that earned Toronto a franchise-best second-seed and 56 regular season wins. Couple that with the Miami Heat’s struggles (read: every player who’s not Dwyane Wade) and there is reason for optimism.
On Thursday the team travelled to Miami, where they’ll have an opportunity to stamp their ticket to the Eastern Conference Finals, a sentence that long-time Raptors fans may have never thought they’d never read. But before they embarked to South Beach, some players met with the media. Here’s what they had to say.
Carroll injury fallout
It didn’t look good when DeMarre Carroll exited Wednesday night’s game after falling squarely on his left wrist during the third quarter. Carroll was clearly in pain and made a beeline for the locker room where an MRI determined there was no bone breaks. Which came as a surprise to Carroll, who says he assumed it was broken when his entire wrist immediately went numb upon impact.
Carroll, perhaps the most likely on the Raps roster to play through an injury, was quite optimistic about the injury and voiced more concern over the fact that while he was nursing his wrist during the 4th quarter, the Raptors let the Heat back into the game:
Calming Casey
Whether it’s dealing with his own teams’ injuries or figuring out how to matchup with atypical lineups (ie. Miami playing Joe Johnson at centre and Justise Winslow at power forward for long stretches on Wednesday), Raptors coach Dwane Casey has certainly been put to the test throughout the playoffs—and is putting up some strong grades in the process.
But on Thursday the coach, who has won a championship as an assistant in Dallas, stressed how important it is to remain even keeled after both wins and losses. That same sense of calm, he said, applies to the injury bug that has befallen his team, noting that the Raptors have already showed they are capable of playing without both Valanciunas and Carroll, who missed a combined 77 games during the regular season. It places an even greater workload on the likes of DeRozan and Lowry, but also leaves the door open for the “next man up”, something that Biyombo, Terrence Ross, and Cory Joseph have all embraced so far in the Heat series.
Casey also mentioned that he has no real update on DeRozan’s thumb injury— because his star player doesn’t like to talk about it—but acknowledged that a slumping scorer just needs to watch the ball go through the hoop a few times (as was the case early in Game 5), and that DeRozan’s defense had been solid when his shot wasn’t falling. Still, the coach saw some things he knows his team needs to correct heading into Friday’s Game 6, perhaps none more critical than their transition defense, which resulted in a number of wide-open three-point attempts for Miami down the stretch.
Open for Bizness
Bismack Biyombo has been a revelation all season long, the kind of player the Charlotte Hornets were hoping he’d develop into when they acquired him at the 2011 draft. It never quite happened in Charlotte, but Biyombo has found a home in Toronto where he’s been given a role that suits him perfectly. Too bad there’s a chance that home could be temporary. Biyombo is due for a hefty raise this summer and should the Raptors re-sign DeMar DeRozan they almost surely won’t have near enough to bring Biyombo back, too.
Which is too bad, because Biyombo not only plays the right way but when you put a mic in front of his face he says all the right things, too. Here he is talking about what the Raptors need to do to finish the job vs. Miami:
BONUS!
Hey look, it’s a non-story story! LeBron James didn’t watch the Raptors-Heat game last night because his kids wanted to watch a movie instead. Was he being a good parent, or disrespecting the Raptors again? You be the judge: