The Raptors’ Eastern Conference road trip continued Tuesday night with a game in Orlando against the surprising Magic, winners of seven of their previous nine games. With the Raptors bench still beat up, with OG Anunoby, Norman Powell and CJ Miles all once again out of action, and another game on Wednesday in Atlanta, the goal for the Raptors in this one had to be getting out of this one quickly and as healthy as possible, while limiting minutes for their starters if possible, and they somewhat succeeded on that front, with no one playing more than 34 minutes in the victory.
The Raptors jumped out to an early lead with the starting lineup at the Amway Center, leading with their defense and holding Orlando to just 5 of 17 shooting in the first frame to get out to a 12-point lead after one, led by 8 points from Serge Ibaka and with Lorenzo Brown contributing 5 off the bench, playing in place of some of the injured guys. However, in the second quarter the Raptors bench ran dry and couldn’t find much in terms of buckets, matched by the struggles of Orlando’s second unit as well, as the Raptors carried a ten-point lead into half-time with no one in the game scoring in double digits in the first half.
In the third quarter, however, Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic combined for 22 points as the Magic stormed back to take a slim 2-point lead going into the final frame. The Raptors defense gave them too much space, and Orlando capitalized, while the Raptors got 9 points from Pascal Siakam in the quarter. This looked like the Raptors team that had dropped three games in the previous week, with them not quite finding enough answers and playing too much individual basketball while not helping enough defensively and struggling to find answers to the shots the opponent was knocking down.
In the fourth quarter, however, it was a struggle for both teams. The Raptors had 8 turnovers while the Magic couldn’t find a shot from anyone aside from Fournier, who remained hot and hit some huge shots towards the end, and the game slowed to a crawl. Neither team was able to hold a lead larger than three points in the quarter, but it wasn’t due to execution as much as mutual struggling.
As the game winded down though, It was Danny Green, Serge Ibaka, and Kawhi Leonard, each of whom had a pair of buckets in the closing minutes, who came through just enough times to close the game out. Ibaka hit a big mid-range jumper off a Kyle Lowry pass to establish a two-point lead with 44 seconds to go, followed by an Evan Fournier three-point miss, which lead to Kyle Lowry missing a long-ball of his own. A Raptors defensive breakdown let Fournier get to the rim for a dunk to tie the game up, which lead to this:
"Danny Green for the win… YES HE DID!"
The @Raptors newcomer nails the GAME-WINNER to improve to 14-4 on the season! #WeTheNorth pic.twitter.com/7BKDyA9qlz
— NBA (@NBA) November 21, 2018
Fantastic end-of game playcall from Nick Nurse to free up Green for the midrange shot to win it, and Danny delivered for the Raptors to get the win. Orlando was worried enough about Kawhi getting a good look that they gave Green just enough space to grab a great pass from Kyle Lowry and put up the shot, which closed out the game.
This one maybe wasn’t as clean as the Raptors would’ve wanted, and certainly wasn’t a perfect outing from the team, but it was enough to improve their league-leading record, and with the guys they are currently missing, holding on to the ones they can get is important right now. Orlando showed themselves to be a tough team that doesn’t let go of games, and despite struggles from both teams to make shots at times, this was a fun game.
