Boston who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4hvFiSXjiY
Kyle Lowry rises up in Raptors' time of need to clinch win over Celtics – Sportsnet.ca
Lowry continues to reign above everything
With 3:57 left to go in the first quarter, Nurse won a key challenge, overturning a call that would’ve earned Lowry his second foul on the evening, something he didn’t want to happen because the Raptors had jumped out to a fantastic start to the game, and Lowry was the catalyst for it.Up to the point of that challenge, Lowry had nine points and three assists, an early indication that he, once again, might be on one that night. Nurse appeared to sense that and called a very early challenge to try to put money where his feelings were, so to speak.
The gamble paid off. Lowry ended up finishing the quarter with 11 points as the Raptors closed out the opening frame with a 36-25 lead and never looked back. Lowry exploded for 30 points, bringing his scoring average since Gasol, Pascal Siakam and Norman Powell went down with injuries to 26.4 per game.
Lowry has always risen in times of need for the Raptors. Saturday night – and this injury-plagued period in general – is no different.
McCaw better than you’ve likely ever seen him before
This is likely sounding like a broken record, but maybe – just maybe – Nurse is onto something with Patrick McCaw?McCaw had, by far, his best game as a Raptor Saturday, finishing with a season-high 18 points – just one point off his career best – and a career-high eight assists.
Coming into Saturday, Nurse and the Raptors discussed how they wanted McCaw to be more aggressive looking for his shot and to get the ball in his hands a little more to initiate offence for others.
Raptors 'just don't care' as injuries mount, Kyle Lowry says; beat Celtics anyway
“We’ve got pros,” Raptors guard Kyle Lowry told ESPN. “We’ve got guys who don’t care what people say. We’ve got guys that kind of just don’t give a f— and just go out there and work.
“Like tonight, Oshae Brissett, no one knows who the hell he is and he comes in and steps up. Chris [Boucher] has been playing great. Freddy [VanVleet] had a rough start but finished strong.
“We have guys that just don’t care. We are going to go play. No matter what, where, how, we’re going to go play.”
The Raptors have had no choice but to adapt that mentality, as they have been dealing with one injury after another all season long. Toronto is currently without emerging star Pascal Siakam, starting center Marc Gasol and key reserve Norman Powell — three of the team’s top seven players — due to injuries that have them all out indefinitely.
The top eight players in Toronto’s rotation — those three, plus Lowry, VanVleet, McCaw, Serge Ibaka and OG Anunoby — have all missed at least one game, and all but Anunoby have missed at least five.
In total, the Raptors entered Saturday having lost 103 games to injury this season — tied for fourth-most in the NBA. The three teams above them — the Golden State Warriors, Washington Wizards and Portland Trail Blazers — all have losing records. The Raptors, on the other hand, sit in fourth place in the Eastern Conference, one game behind the Celtics in third and two behind the Miami Heat in second.
Raptors snap Celtics' five-game winning streak
This time Toronto, smarting from its nondescript Christmas loss to the Celtics, and still minus Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol, made good on its trip south. The Celtics’ five-game winning streak was thus snapped by Saturday night’s 113-97 loss to the Raptors.
And Brad Stevens foretold last night’s drop when, after Friday night’s win over Cleveland, he said, “If we play like we did (Friday) (Saturday) we’ll get beat. All I know is that when you give up layups it’s hard — it’s a good thing we scored 129.”
Clearly, he could tell, some vulnerabilities were being covered up by his team’s success down the other end.
Saturday night’s damage began when the Raptors got off to a 7-for-10 start, including eight points at the rim, ballooned into a 51.2% first half shooting performance, and put the Celtics in retreat for most of the night.
The Celtics were ultimately out-scored in the paint by a 52-46 margin and out-rebounded, 53-41, including 23 second chance points by the Raptors on 15 offensive rebounds.
Serge Ibaka (20 points, 10 rebounds) was young again. Kyle Lowry (30 points, five 3-pointers) was back in playoff form. And Kemba Walker, with 30 points, was a voice in the wilderness this time around.
“I haven’t felt we’ve been great on that end as much recently,” Stevens said of the defensive gaps. “Had our moments on defense but they destroyed us in transition, which was bad. Those transition layups — they got eight points that were uncontested on runouts. You can’t allow that. And then they were great in the pick-and-roll all night. They destroyed us. But I don’t think we were very good at it (Friday), either.”
Raptors named Canadian Press team of the year after historic title run | CBC Sports
Fans cheered on the Toronto Raptors from all corners of Canada, gathering around televisions in bars and living rooms and squeezing shoulder to shoulder in city squares for mass public viewings.
Masai Ujiri has long referred to the Raptors as Canada’s team — and for a few glorious weeks last spring, they truly were.
“The momentum of the championship run brought fans from all over the country, and it seemed like unification,” the Raptors president said. “Everywhere you looked — Montreal, Vancouver — you saw fans watching.”
“It’s what we’ve always said, it’s one team, one country, and if you can put it together that way and you’re good, there’ll be unified support. We saw that.”
Raptors need all hands on deck looking for their shot | National Post
Through the four games since that costly win in Detroit, the Raptors are 2-2. They are scoring at about the same pace they were before the most recent losses, but are giving up about seven points per 100 possessions more than they had previously.
Nurse isn’t sure that trend will continue.
“Not really what I expected,” he said, “but I don’t read a whole lot into that. You have to consider the competition and the frequency of the games and some of that stuff. But we have had a few more moments of our man-to-man defence not being where we would like it to be, which is probably why we spend a lot more time in zone and some of the other things in some of these games.”
The focus, though, is squarely on getting each and every Raptor a little more willing to expand their offensive threshold.
McCaw has heard the plea and he’s going to do his best to comply, but he admits it’s not something he does naturally. His first instinct is to create for others.
“That’s always been my game,” McCaw said ahead of Saturday’s morning shootaround. “I think just because I dominated the ball in college, me giving up the ball and distributing to teammates kind of freed me up for open shots. So when I had open shots or driving lanes I would take them. Here, it’s whenever I can get an open shot I almost have to take that shot because it might destroy the rhythm of the offence. It’s something I have to get adjusted to.”
Boston had gifted this same Raptors team a lump of coal in a Christmas Day win three days earlier. Saturday, thanks to Marcus Smart’s return from “hell,” the Celtics brought their core rotation together for the first time since opening night. It didn’t matter. This Raptors team turned the tables and smacked Stevens’ squad around from the tip in a 113-97 win.
“We came into their house on Christmas Day, a big game and won, and we knew coming into this game they weren’t going to take that lightly,” Smart said. “We just weren’t prepared.”
It was the comeuppance Stevens had been warning his team would arrive for some time. Still, it took a worthy adversary with a wire-to-wire win to truly drive home the coach’s message.
“All credit to Toronto. They came out and really turned up the intensity of the game and really set the tone,” Jaylen Brown said. “To be honest, to their credit, we haven’t faced that level of intensity defensively, so we needed that.”
It was apparent that Raptors coach Nick Nurse had been brooding over the holiday loss for a few days, as Nurse threw out some of his most creative plays early on. The play that truly set the tone earned Serge Ibaka the first of his game-high six screen assists — the Celtics as a team only had four, per NBA Stats.
Stevens had Jayson Tatum covering Kyle Lowry initially, but switching on screens by guards and wings. So the Raptors set up a high pick-and-roll with O.G. Anunoby to force a Brown switch, while Serge Ibaka sat just beneath the play. When Brown and Tatum made the switch, this somehow opened up a chance for Anunoby to fly to the rim.
Raptors vs. Celtics – Game Recap – December 28, 2019 – ESPN
Patrick McCaw and Fred VanVleet each added 18 points for Toronto, which avenged the loss on Christmas and sent Boston to just its second loss in 15 games at home this season.
“I think it was internal. It didn’t sit well with me on Christmas Day,” McCaw said. “We definitely didn’t give it our best effort and I think tonight guys took it personally. It wasn’t talked about. Guys just went out and gave it their all.”
Kemba Walker led the Celtics with 30 points, and Jaylen Brown had 17 after getting consecutive 30-point games for the first time in his career. Brown had a career-high 34 in a win over Cleveland on Friday.
“We beat those guys two times already (this season), and obviously a few days ago on Christmas,” Walker said. “They definitely remembered that, of course. But those are the defending champs. They’ve got a target on their back, you know? They’re the team to beat. They came in like they were the defending champs tonight.”
Playing their first game since losing by 16 to the Celtics on Wednesday — the first NBA game in Canada on Christmas — the Raptors never trailed in breaking a two-game losing streak.
“I think we just wanted to go out there and kind of compete a little better than we did on Christmas,” Lowry said.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOQreNPlm7c
10 things: Pat McCaw and Oshae Brissett help Raptors exact revenge on Tony Brothers' Celtics
One — Revenge: The Celtics ruined the first Christmas Day game in Toronto, so the Raptors were hell-bent on payback. The Raptors raced out to an early lead and withstood every punch from the Celtics to finish with a blowout win. Toronto’s effort was night and day as compared to their previous meeting, which was borne out in the 53-31 advantage in rebounds. That’s the difference between playing on two days rest, and slugging it out at 12 a.m. after playing in the third game in four nights. Mix in the added motivation of playing after a loss, and it made for one of the Raptors’ finest wins of the season.
Two — Circumstances: It wasn’t enough that the Raptors won on the road without Pascal Siakam, Norman Powell, Matt Thomas and Marc Gasol. The Celtics also got a comical advantage in foul calls which made it nearly impossible for the Raptors to even field five eligible players. Boston enjoyed a 32-17 advantage in foul calls from Tony Brothers’ crew, and shot twice as many free throws as Toronto, and yet they still faded in the fourth quarter and lost by double-digits. That’s what made this win so, so sweet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBgiOC0eKzs
The Raptors were full of surprises in rematch victory over Celtics | The Star
The Raptors had wanted more ball-handling and assertiveness from spot starter McCaw and they got it and more. Running the offence in most halfcourt sets, McCaw set a season high with eight assists and also poured in a season-best 18 points in his best game as a Raptor.
“It gets Kyle and Fred (VanVleet) off (the ball),” coach Nick Nurse said of having McCaw run halfcourt sets. “It gets Kyle and Fred into the shooting slots a little bit. It’s a different rhythm and a different pace, usually.”
As much as McCaw was a revelation, Brissett playing and playing well came out of nowhere. The seldom-used backup was pressed into action when Anunoby and Hollis-Jefferson couldn’t stay out of foul trouble, and he provided six rebounds and four points in 15 strong second-half minutes.
After being hammered on the glass in a 16-point Christmas Day loss at home to the Celtics, Toronto hammered Boston 53-31 on the boards and turned 15 offensive rebounds into 23 second-chance points. They also limited Boston to just seven offensive boards and five second-chance points.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyL3-N-UsI4
4th Quarter: 24-18 Toronto. Game score: 113-97 Toronto
It was pretty clear in this quarter that Boston just didn’t have the juice to finish off the game. Where they had buckled down in prior games, the Celtics tonight turned the ball over and missed shots.
Notable things that happened: Both Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and OG Anunoby fouled out, but it didn’t matter. Also, the Celtics turned the ball over in the most appropriate way in this loss, with both Enes Kanter and Grant Williams going for an alley oop, neither getting it, and the Raptors coming away with it.
Final Stats: Kemba Walker had 30. Jaylen Brown had 17 on 5-for-12 shooting. Gordon Hayward shot 3-for-13 and finished with 13.
