Quick Reaction: Raptors 122, Bulls 120

Serge kept the Raptors in it early, when almost everyone else couldn’t find their shot and the Bulls were hitting everyone.

The story for him though, will be getting dunked on by Paul Zipser and then elbowing Robin Lopez, which resulted in Lopez punching the ball out of Serge’s hands(possibly injuring Ibaka’s wrist), then punches being thrown. A suspension is almost assuredly coming, we’ll see how long.

It’s not that DeMarre was necessarily bad tonight, in fact he hit his shots for the most part and did what was asked of him. But PJ was so much better at what they both bring to the table that DeMarre definitely looks worse in comparison.

Jonas hit an early bucket over Robin Lopez, and then mostly disappeared after that, both in terms of minutes and on-court presence. Not his night, which is fine.

There are two stories here, one is that Cory gave a great offensive performance for him, on a night the Raptors needed it, and that’s fantastic. The other story, however, is that he let Rajon Rondo score 19 first-half points and looked awful defensively, and it’s hard to let that slide when that’s a huge part of his role on the team.

If you wanted to nitpick his game tonight, you could say that 37 shots to get 42 points isn’t that great in terms of efficiency. I’d rather talk about a huge clutch block on Joffrey Lauvergne at the rim, and 8 assists, and impressive crunch time play when the Raptors needed it including tough shot-making.

He was awesome tonight, and the Raptors needed him to be.

As good as DeMar was, PJ was the player of the game for the Raptors. Once again, he simply imposed his will and the team followed his example in terms of toughness on the defensive end. He had some brilliant stops on Jimmy Butler late, and just overall continues to be one of the most important players on this team.

Pat woke up late in this one, coming to life in the fourth quarter and overtime with some rim protection in small lineups where he was asked to play center with Ibaka out, as well as a timely putback late in the game. It was good to see a little of the old Pat back.

Early in the fourth quarter, when it looked like the Raptors had no shot of getting back in this game, Fred kept them alive with a timely steal, transition bucket, and another score in the halfcourt. He was an important part of the comeback and win for the team.

It’s hard to grade Norm too low, because he was part of the comeback late and had some nice plays including key buckets, but he continues to struggle at the rim and just wasn’t good on the defensive end tonight. Has to be better, or he’ll see PJ eat up most of the minutes that’d otherwise be his in the playoffs.

Jak had some great offensive rebounds, but the story of his night was mostly an active whistle where the refs repeatedly called him for ticky-tacky fouls. Again. It’s hard not to feel like he doesn’t get a chance to impact the game with the way he’s called.

Delon really wasn’t good tonight. Struggled to accomplish much on either end of the floor, and didn’t look like the composed player we know he can be.

There were a lot of issues, especially defensively, for much of the game. But when Ibaka was forced out due to the ejection, he had to improvise and made some great calls to help the team get back in it.