MONTREAL — DeMar DeRozan is ready to get the NBA regular season started.
The Raptors guard scored 12 points as the Toronto beat the Washington Wizards 92-82 on Friday night in the final pre-season game for both teams.
DeMarre Carroll led the Raptors with 16 points while Kyle Lowry had 13. Jonas Valanciunas also had 12 points and Cory Joseph added 10 points off the bench to give the Toronto (5-2) five players in double figures.
The Raptors open their season at home on Wednesday night against the Indiana Pacers.
"This is what we train so hard in the summer for, get ready for opening night and get the marathon started," DeRozan said.
Marcin Gortat had 16 points to lead Washington (4-3), which also opens the season Wednesday in Orlando against the Magic.
"Pre-season is for ups and downs and trying to see what you can (get) better at, and it’s great that we have an opportunity to go home and get a couple of practices in before the regular season starts and get some guys healthy," Wizards guard John Wall said.
Wall played almost 24 minutes and scored five points.
"You’ve got to give credit to them, with having John Wall pushing the tempo like he can," DeRozan said. "Not too many point guards can push the tempo like he could, and once we made an adjustment to it we understood what we had to do and get back to slow him down."
Toronto overcame a slow start to take a 46-45 lead at the half before extending it to 11 with a solid third quarter. Luis Scola scored each of his nine points in the second quarter for the Raptors.
"Luis is a world-class scorer inside and guys did a good job of finding him in there and him taking advantage of the size, and he just knows how to score," Toronto coach Dwane Casey said. "I couldn’t tell you what move he makes but he knows how to do it."
The Wizards led by as much as 10 points early, and 28-21 at the end of the first quarter. Terrence Ross made the only one of Toronto’s 10 three-point attempts in the first half.
Carroll and DeRozan each hit a pair of three-pointers in the third when the Raptors extended their lead to 11 with a 29-19 run.
Notes: Canadian tennis star Eugenie Bouchard, Montreal Impact striker Didier Drogba, and former UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre were seated courtside.
