Raptors 101, Celtics 94 | Box Score | Quick Reaction | Reaction Podcast
When the Boston Celtics opened the game with a pair of Al Horford triples around a scrambling Pascal Siakam and then an Amir Johnson three over a closing Jonas Valanciunas, Friday appeared to have the makings of the type of game the Toronto Raptors dread. On the second night of an admittedly painless back-to-back, an opponent with stretchy bigs was threatening to spread the Raptors out, take them away from the glass, and take advantage of legs that shouldn’t have been all that tired.
For a half, the plan went swimmingly for Boston. Horford was slowed some by Patrick Patterson, but the Celtics around him torched the nets for 9-of-19 on threes, and Kelly Olynyk swung the rebounding battle Boston’s way, a rarity. The Celtics built an eight-point lead, then watched it swell to 14 in the third quarter. The Raptors seemed to have little answer defensively, and the torrid offense that has kept them in games like this so far this season was missing in action.
The thing about the Raptors, though, is that they are resilient. Annoyingly so. They’re also talented, and the combination of those two factors renders every lead potentially fleeting. The Celtics took their collective foot off the gas, gave the Raptors a slight window, and rather than using that crack in the window to breathe, Norman Powell and Kyle Lowry threw themselves through it entirely.
Powell continues to make the most out of a complicated situation. Stuck in a 10th man role he’s outgrown but with his playing time limited thanks to the presence of a pair of stars, a pair of quality backups, and DeMarre Carroll, who the Raptors will need in a major way in the playoffs, Powell’s path to the court is arduous and often circituous. He is deserving of more time, but rather than pout or complain or let it sink his game, he’s taken up the #StayReady call with aplomb. He is a professional, after all, and this is his job. There’s also the sense that once again having to fight for every scrap just fits the Norman Powell ethos, as it’s something he did for years at UCLA and embraced last season, too.
“It’s not new to me,” he said after the game. “I’ve been in this situation before and I approach it the same way. My expectations of myself and what I see myself able to do never changes. It’s about staying ready for my time to be called. When it’s my turn, I’m ready.”
Ready he was, supporting the team’s stars with 20 points of his own on just 10 field-goal attempts, keeping the ball moving by attacking off the catch and making the next pass, and generally being a pest, picking up five steals and five deflections, and contesting more shots (eight) than any other non-big in the game. He continues to command more run through his play, and while most understand why he’s not getting it, something may have to break at some point.
He and Lowry were terrific all night, Powell the lone Raptor looking even remotely willing to defend in the first half, while Lowry kept the offense at least partially afloat with a 13-point first-half. In the third, though, their combination of speed, active hands, and shooting gave Toronto the sustained lift it had lacked so far, helping key a 21-3 run that put them up seven by the time the third quarter was through. A lineup of Lowry, Powell, DeMar DeRozan, and the bench-big duo of Patrick Patterson and Lucas Nogueira even had a plus-14 stretch over just four minutes during that time, frustrating the Celtics into bad shots and quick turnovers, all while taking care of the glass more the way that was expected coming in.
Big division win. @npowell2404 stepped up big time. My dude always ready to hoop.
— Jared Sullinger Sr. (@Jared_Sully0) December 10, 2016
As the fourth began, the Celtics didn’t necessarily look defeated, but they looked weary. They had taken a long, hard shot at the Raptors, built an ample lead, and then watched it dissipate in mere minutes. When head coach Dwane Casey took the leap of faith to play a lineup without both Lowry and DeRozan to start the fourth – Casey rode Lowry’s hot hand longer than usual in the third, limiting his rest, a nice bit of flexibility feeling out the game flow – the writing was on the wall: The Raptors trusted their depth to get this done, because their depth had been a big part of their success to that point anyway. Stealing over four-and-a-half minutes with both stars on the bench without the lead shrinking is huge for the Raptors, and a unit of Powell with the four regular bench players was able to do just that (looking good enough in the process that Casey can probably feel comfortable experimenting with this a bit in the future to buy Lowry and DeRozan more rest, as needed).
As the stars returned, Boston made their final push, with Horford going to work and Casey opting to go small for a stretch with Patterson at the five to combat him (Jonas Valanciunas was not at his best in this one, though the Raptors also neglected to go inside to try to tilt the interior mismatch in his favor). What had grown to an 11-point lead for Toronto slowly fell to four before DeRozan, on a bit of a rough night that saw his streak of four assists or more snapped, stemmed the tide with a 17-footer. It got back down to four, and Horford fouled Lowry on a 3-point attempt with 30 seconds to play, essentially sealing the game.
The Celtics gave their final push and the Raptors withstood it, because that’s what they’ve come to do. Even on nights it looks like they don’t have it, they’ll find it.
“It says a lot about our team, scrapping in a back-to-back,” Casey said. “We knew we could be better defensively, and guys stepped up and gave it to us.”
It was a similar story at home against Minnesota on Thursday, and while the Raptors would surely like for the story to stop including chapters in which they can’t defend, sweeping a back-to-back while playing a total of three quarters of good defense is nice work if you can get it. Boston is a team that could struggle to score without the injured Isaiah Thomas, and Toronto was able to hold them to 34.1-percent shooting inside the arc and 28.6-percent shooting overall in the second half.
However they got there, the Raptors continue to roll, having won eight of their last nine and with five in a row on tape in which they should be favored. At 16-7 and with the league’s second-best net rating, the Raptors are quite comfortably insulated as the Eastern Conference’s second-best team. The Celtics took their first shot at that mantle, one they’ve been clear they want, and they came up short. There’s no accounting for the experience of having won those games before, and there’s no accounting for Norman Powell.
