10 things I saw from Raptors-Wizards (Game 3) – The Defeated – Medium
Response: The Wizards are nothing if not absurdly prideful and they came out with their best effort. Marcin Gortat and Bradley Beal finally woke up, and the Wizards played with more desperation. The game was manageable through 2–½ quarters before a no-call led to a huge run for the Wizards that sealed it.
Raptors Post-Game: Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan – April 20, 2018 – YouTube
Raptors lose to Wizards in Game 3, lead series 2-1 – Sportsnet.ca
“That’s the ball game,” a surly Casey said. “Some of it was self-inflicted, making passes that weren’t there, soft passes. But a lot of it was their intensity. We knew they were going to come out in a desperate mode, I thought we met it in the first quarter, but after that we didn’t.”
DeMar DeRozan scored 23 points to lead the Raptors on a chippy night, while Kyle Lowry had 19. Jonas Valanciunas finished with 14 and OG Anunoby had 12.
The Raptors, who were swept by Washington on the same court in the opening round of the 2015 playoffs, never led by more nine points, falling behind for good early in the second quarter. And when Ty Lawson drilled a three with less than a second left in the third, it sent the Wizards into the fourth with a 101-82 advantage.
Washington Wizards, Toronto Raptors called for five technical fouls in ‘chippy’ Game 3
Ain’t nobody fighting out here,” Lowry said. “It got physical, but ain’t nobody fighting. I mean … it was heated. It was a heated moment, but that is the game of basketball. It gets competitive, and we’re all grown men. We know what it is.”
Teammates, referees and team officials then intervened as players were separated. Technical fouls were assessed to Anunoby and Morris.
“It sounds crazy, but sometimes we need that,” Gortat said. “We need that. The crazy part is that it’s always [Morris]. It should always be someone else. Personally it should be me. I don’t have too many technical fouls. I don’t have too many of those situations, but I should, and he did that for us, and he took a big hit today and foul trouble. He sacrificed himself for the team.”
Raptors Post-Game: Dwane Casey – April 20, 2018 – YouTube
It took three minutes for the Wizards and Raptors to get into a Game 3 altercation
It didn’t take long for playoff basketball to escalate in the nation’s capital.
Less than three minutes to be exact.
On only the fifth possession of Game 3 between the Wizards and Raptors at Capital One Arena, Wizards forward Markieff Morris and Pacers forward OG Anunoby got tangled up and let their emotions out.
Raptors lose chippy Game 3 to Wizards | Toronto Sun
“When they play at that level, they are really good,” Raptors’ point guard Kyle Lowry said of the Wall-Beal tandem. “They are the heads of the snake, and we gotta cut them off.”
The Raptors also came in expecting the Wizards to come out swinging, looking to set the physical tone that the Raptors had owned through the first two games.
The first-quarter shoving match between Markieff Morris and OG Anunoby after Anunoby had already been called for a foul was the start. Both players were given technicals, but that just set the stage for a chippy game.
Raptors Post-Game: Jonas Valanciunas – April 20, 2018 – YouTube
There was plenty of ugly for the Raptors. Repeated mistakes — Toronto had 19 turnovers — led to Washington baskets in transition, and opened the door for John Wall and Bradley Beal to fill up the stat sheet. Each of them had 28 points. It was exactly the kind of performance a reeling Wizards team needed from their best players, but the Raptors might have survived it if they hadn’t troubled their opponents so little.
Turnovers had not been a particular problem for the Raptors in the first two games at home and they weren’t at the start of Game 3, either. Toronto, thanks to more strong play from their starting unit, built up a nine-point lead in the first 10 minutes on Friday night, leading to much muttering from the Washington crowd.
Raptors Post-Game: Jakob Poeltl – April 20, 2018 – YouTube
Raptors disappear in lopsided loss to let Wizards back in series | CBC Sports
Trailing Toronto 2-0 in their the opening-round playoff series, the Washington Wizards came out swinging Friday night. Siakam’s lip, with three stitches thanks to what he believed was an errant Kelly Oubre elbow, spoke of just a little bit of the carnage.
“They came out and punched us and we allowed them to,” coach Dwane Casey summed it up.
Bradley Beal and John Wall scored 28 points apiece and the Wizards roughed up Toronto 122-103, cutting the Raptors’ lead in their first-round playoff series to 2-1.
Bradley Beal bounces back in Wizards’ Game 3 victory – The Washington Post
Brooks, according to Beal, even went so far as to apologize for contributing to some of the off-guard’s shooting woes, underscored by a Game 2 performance in which Beal went 3 for 11 with nine points and a plus/minus rating of negative-34.
By halftime of Friday night’s 122-103 victory at Capital One Arena, Beal — to the delight of a packed house — had reclaimed the smooth shooting stroke that elevated him to 13th in the NBA in scoring and resulted in the sixth-year guard’s first all-star selection.
Raptors Post-Game: Pascal Siakam – April 20, 2018 – YouTube
Raptors lose Game 3 and cool in Washington | The Star
Dwane Casey cautioned his team to prepare for it: “We’ve got to play this game like it’s 0-0,” said the Raptors coach. Kyle Lowry talked about the importance of “staying the course” and “staying cool” when Washington brought its inevitable onslaught.
“The intensity of the playoffs, every single game gets raised,” Lowry had warned on Friday morning. “With them being home, they’re going to be confident. They’re going to come out aggressive and come out swinging.”
Raptors’ Fred VanVleet to miss Game 3 with shoulder injury – Sportsnet.ca
Toronto took the second game of the series as well, earning a 130-119 victory over Washington. They’ll look to repeat that performance on Friday, but will once again be without one of their top bench performers, who averaged 8.6 points per game in 2017-18 while shooting 41.4 per cent from three-point range.
With a 2-0 lead in the series going into Friday’s game in Washington, the Raptors are holding VanVleet out to give his shoulder time to heal, head coach Dwane Casey told Sportsnet’s Michael Grange.
Toronto Raptors on Instagram: “They fixed it. #WeTheNorth | #NorthOverEverything”
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Toronto Raptors’ Kyle Lowry took a step back to help his team move forward – SBNation.com
Lowry didn’t have to worry about modernizing his game this season like the rest of his teammates, who added some combination of playmaking, shooting, defense, and slashing. He represented the side of the Raptors’ problems that couldn’t be fixed on a practice court, problems he’s been picking at for years: fatigue and mental fortitude.
His task, then? Fewer minutes, fewer shots, and less time with the ball, a difficult ask of a player who made a career of stretching his body to its upper limit.
It’s what we’ve done all year. I trust everybody that’s under contract,” Casey said on Friday morning as his team prepared for Game 3. “I’m willing to use everybody under contract. Because I’ve seen what they’ve done, I see what they do in practice. I saw what they’ve done in training camp. I saw what they did the few games that they played in the G League.”
The coach makes it sound like no big deal when he puts it like that, but one only has to look at his lineup deployment from previous seasons to understand how much of a departure this has been from what Casey himself used to do. In his first visit to the playoffs with the Raptors, in 2014, Casey played DeMar DeRozan for more than 40 minutes per game, and Kyle Lowry just under 39 minutes. Four more players averaged more than 27 minutes.
Toronto Raptors on Instagram: “The love is real T.O! See you at the tailgate Sunday. #WeTheNorth”
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