TORONTO — It was a little unusual watching the Toronto Raptors bench struggle in the second quarter Tuesday night. It had just been so long. The Raptors came in on a five-game win streak, and four of the team’s starters hadn’t seen the floor in a fourth quarter throughout. Toronto’s bench wasn’t just playing like one of the best second units in the NBA — it was one of basketball’s best units period.
But the Raptors bench combined for a -28 in that quarter, and finished the night only +2, a startlingly low number considering their almost season-long run of overwhelming success. Maybe it’s just hard to play at such a high level every night. Maybe they were due.
Either way, the Raptors finally needed their starters to play like, you know, starters. And that’s what happened — DeMar DeRozan poured in 27, Kyle Lowry scored 22, and Serge Ibaka contributed 14 as Toronto stifled a late comeback attempt and topped the Miami Heat, 115-112.
"We know we’ve got to close the game better. We know we’ve got to be better down the stretch. We’ll look at the film and see areas where we can improve and get better," said Fred VanVleet, who had 10 points off the bench. "I thought we just got on our heels a little bit, and they were aggressive at the same time. And that’s never a good combination. We’ll take the win, obviously. Be we need to keep growing and get better."
For the first time since the first day of the month, Toronto’s two all-stars — plus Jonas Valanciunas — had to play fourth quarter minutes. And they certainly looked like they hadn’t been in that situation for a while, as the Heat put up a 31-17 fourth quarter and very nearly snatched this win right out of Toronto’s mouth.
"We’re professionals — we’ve seen games like this before and we know what to do in those games," Raptors head coach Dwane Casey said. "It’s a matter of attitude and making sure we execute. Not just on the offensive end. We had some piss poor performances on the defensive end, too, with our switches."
It was at least an improvement over the last time these two teams met, a 90-89 Miami win in early January that sticks out as one of the uglier games the Raptors have played since the turn of the calendar.
Toronto shot 39 per cent that night, hitting only seven threes and getting outrebounded to an almost embarrassing degree, 64-37. Ibaka was ejected for trading punches with James Johnson. The Heat clinched the win by exploiting a brutal defensive miscommunication for an easy bucket in the dying seconds. DeRozan exchanged post-game shoves with Goran Dragic. It wasn’t a banner night.
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Perhaps trying to make up for the lack of three-pointers the last time around, the Raptors were clearly looking to shoot early on Tuesday, taking 11 threes in the first quarter alone. There was just one problem — they hit only three. (DeRozan tried to add a couple more, but had his foot on the line each time, ending up with a pair of very long two’s.)
Toronto was still up, and began the second quarter on a mini run before the Raptors bench suffered its rare hiccup, missing four of five attempts and coughing up the lead. Casey called a timeout midway through the frame to try to settle things down, but it had little effect as the Heat continued to surge, extending their second-quarter run to 22-7.
Another Casey timeout late in the first half finally sparked something, as Ibaka went on a solo 7-0 run and Lowry hit a pair of three’s in a two-for-one situation as the second quarter ended, giving the Raptors a two-point halftime lead. The second three was one of the more ridiculous shots you’ll see, as Lowry caught an unexpected pass behind his head and lobbed a rugby lineout throw towards the basket, which miraculously fell in.
"We almost conceded, as a bench, that we weren’t going to get it there. And [Lowry] was just ballsy enough to shoot it anyway," VanVleet said. "That crazy, stupid shot he made at the end — I’ve seen him actually shoot like that in practice before. So, it was pretty funny."
It was a prelude to the third quarter, which started with all kinds of offensive fireworks, including a fast break Lowry-to-DeRozan lob — finished one-handed — you’ll be seeing on highlight reels for some time.
The issue was, while Toronto’s starters were doing their best to pick up the team’s struggling bench — it seems backwards but that’s the Raptors — Dragic was having himself a quarter, scoring 16 points in seven minutes as the teams see-sawed back and forth.
But when Dragic checked out with five minutes left in the third, the Raptors flipped a switch. Lowry stole a rebound under the Heat basket and began a wicked series of ball movement that ended with a VanVleet three; DeRozan hit an acrobatic and-one reverse on a drive; and VanVleet hit from distance again after a terrific inbounds pass by Delon Wright.
In the blink of an eye, the Raptors went on a 21-4 run to finish the quarter (DeRozan alone had 19 in the third) and sprinted out to a 17-point lead.
And yet, Toronto let Miami charge back with 31 points in the fourth and make the score look far more respectable than it should have. For all their bending, the Raptors did not break. But they know they’ll have to be better in crunch time going forward.
"We’ve got to figure that part of the game out. We’ve had good times and bad times this season," VanVleet said. "And tonight was one of those times where we just didn’t execute enough. And coming down the stretch of the season is where you want to tighten those parts of it.
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"But give [Miami] some credit, too. That’s a tough team. They’ve played a lot of close games. They’re really good in the clutch. They were fighting back. And we just didn’t do a good enough job to keep them at bay. But we found a way in the end."
For most of the fourth, Casey turned to a not-recently-used unit — Lowry, VanVleet, Wright, DeRozan, and Valanciunas — to close it out. And although they allowed the Heat to make things a little more interesting than he would have liked — actually, way too interesting considering Miami clawed within three — the game still went down as the Raptors sixth win in a row.
It was an infrequently-seen off night for Toronto’s second unit. But the strength of this team is its depth. That’s usually a top-down proposition. Tuesday night, it ran bottom-up.
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