The Toronto Raptors won Game 3 on Saturday night to take a 2-1 lead over the Miami Heat, and while a 2-1 lead normally wouldn’t feel commanding, it might if Hassan Whiteside’s MRI comes back a certain way on Saturday. Let’s jump right into the post-game news and notes with that (and we’re going a little quickly because it’s 9 p.m. on a Saturday).
Whiteside set for MRI
The Heat center left the game in the second quarter after Luol Deng banged into his knee (he said it was Kyle Lowry but he is incorrect). He then seemed to bend it awkwardly while landing. He initially hurt the knee in Game 3 against Charlotte and tweaked it again in Game 1 of this series, and he’s been limited in shootarounds and practices as a result.
X-rays of the knee were negative but Whiteside is set for an MRI on Sunday, and the tweets from the (excellent, by the way) Heat beat writers don’t leave much room for optimism.
First thing that went through Whiteside’s mind when it happened: “Bad.”
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
Whiteside says while it’s the same knee that was bothering him. But not related, “My knee went 2 different ways.”
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
Whiteside walks slowly out of the locker room with a soft cast over his entire right leg
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
With free agency looming and a giant soft cast on his leg, I’d bet a lot that Hassan Whiteside’s season is done
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) May 8, 2016
Wade: “We are w/o one of the best players to ever play the game in Chris Bosh & now we don’t know about Hassan.” But says Heat can’t dwell.
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
Hassan Whiteside said he’s never felt anything like the pain he had in his R knee today.
— Jason Lieser (@JasonLieser) May 8, 2016
Outlook for Valanciunas sounds a little better
Naturally, with Whiteside out, the Raptors then lost their own center, as Jonas Valanciunas sprained his right ankle landing on Dwyane Wade’s foot contesting a layup. Valanciunas is considered day-to-day, X-rays were negative, and there are far fewer scary tweets about his potential status.
Valanciunas limping a bit in room. About to talk to us.
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) May 8, 2016
Valanciunas says he’ll wait and see how he feels.
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) May 8, 2016
Valanciunas was sorry to hear about Whiteside. Said doesn’t wish ill on him, just wants to win.
— Ryan Wolstat (@WolstatSun) May 8, 2016
Vintage Wade! Vintage KLOE!
It was a hell of a battle between Dwyane Wade and Kyle Lowry in this one. Wade dropped 38, while hitting some ridiculous degree-of-difficulty shots, and Kyle Lowry went full KLOE with a playoff-high 33 points, done so efficiently. It was awesome, and both players are a ton of fun when they have it going like this.
Lowry says it was a thrill going shot for shot with Wade down the stretch … But all that matters was the W.
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) May 8, 2016
Pat Patterson said once Lowry got rolling he started calling plays for himself and they just started working to get him the ball.
— Michael Grange (@michaelgrange) May 8, 2016
This is a good tweet:
says the guy who hit 4 threes after hitting 7 total in regular season https://t.co/3IPjSTHh4Y
— Joe Wolfond (@joey_doubleyou) May 8, 2016
It’s so good to have Lowry back. He sounds pretty relieved, too.
“I felt like the shot was there last game to be honest and I felt like it was just a matter of time for me to shoot the shots and for them to go down,” Lowry said. “I’ve been having plenty of encouragement from my teammates and the people around me so it was just a matter of time before the shots fell.”
Lowry on support of DeRozan: I’ve got a guy to my left, he’s probably my biggest supporter, and backbone to me right now.
— Holly MacKenzie (@stackmack) May 8, 2016
““A lot of people keep acting like I’ve never seen it before. Like this is my first time seeing it. That’s the Kyle I know,” DeRozan said, also joking that Lowry playing well makes it easier (to which Lowry responded with a very Ron Simmons-esque “Damn”). “I’m going to support him the same way even if he’s having a tough time.”
And here’s a great one from Lowry on going toe-to-toe with Wade:
“It was funny. That last possession when I hit the jumpshot, I looked up and he was guarding me and I was like, ‘Oh, okay, alright you’re going to put D-Wade on me. Alright then.’ Just the fact that you get the opportunity to go against a Hall of Famer and go shot for shot. At the end of the day, he did it for his team and I did it for my team.”
Assorted
*Notorious Raptor killer Joe Johnson had a tough night on Saturday and hasn’t been killing the Raptors nearly as much as everyone feared and expected. He even missed a wide open three in crunch time, one the Raptors completely botched their coverage on. He’s giving no credit to the defense for the job they’ve done.
Joe Johnson: “It’s nothing they are doing defensively. I’ve just got to make a shot.”
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
*This was dumb and weird. Both of these things were strange, actually.
Asked Spoelstra why he kept Goran Dragic on the bench down the stretch on offense and he offered no reason.
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 8, 2016
Since many have asked, Winslow is not injured. Didn’t know that he wasn’t going to play.
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
*Strange that the Heat won the rebounding battle. Both teams did a decent job protecting the ball. Then it comes down to making shots, right?
Wade noting how Heat got turnovers down and won rebounding. “They just shot the ball really well.”
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) May 8, 2016
*Gonna need him to comment on trying to cock that joint back and bang it on Scola., too.
Josh McRoberts on blocking Jonas Valanciunas: “Just trying not to get dunked on. Glad I was able to get to it.”
— Jason Lieser (@JasonLieser) May 8, 2016
*One more, because people seem to be pretty mad about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWIhq65KKdQ
