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10 things: Raptors sweep Nets behind 100 points from their bench – Yahoo!
One — Sweep: The Raptors completed the first sweep in franchise history in emphatic fashion with their third blowout win in four games. Toronto had an overwhelming talent advantage, but it was also a case of will. Toronto was determined to kill the series from the tip in Game 1, and that focus carried them through the week. Brooklyn was just too small on the inside to guard against Toronto’s bigs, and when you add in the All-Star level contributions from Fred VanVleet, Kyle Lowry, and Norman Powell, this series wasn’t even close.
Kyle Lowry’s injury takes joy out of Raptors’ sweep, complicates Celtics series – The Athletic
To be honest, the matchup lost some of its prospective appeal when the NBA entered the bubble. Part of the beauty of a Toronto-Boston series is that both teams have among the best home crowds in the league, fan bases that would salivate at the thought of irking the other. Now, with the possibility of Lowry missing some or all of the series, the matchup takes a dramatic hit.
Yes, the Raptors and Celtics will finally play each other. Boston closed out the disappointing 76ers on Sunday afternoon, and the Raptors took Game 4 from the professional basketball players wearing Brooklyn Nets uniforms 150-122 in the evening. It is the first sweep in Raptors history, with Toronto exploding offensively in Game 4 after stifling the Nets through the first three games of the series. Led by Norman Powell’s 29 points, the Raptors became the first team in NBA history, playoffs or regular season, to get 100 points from their reserves. This series shouldn’t have been close, and it wasn’t. The Raptors wound up outscoring the Nets by 82 in the four games.
Nobody with the Raptors is feeling joyful about that. Lowry stepped on the foot of Nets guard Chris Chiozza in transition late in the first quarter, his left ankle rolling to the outside of his foot. He stayed on the floor after the timeout but asked out of the game one possession later. After the game, Raptors coach Nick Nurse said Lowry was having the arch of his foot, not his ankle, tested.
“He’s our leader,” Powell said. “He’s our focal point when we are out there, on and off the court.”
Though Boston will likely be without Gordon Hayward, who left the bubble after spraining his ankle early in the Celtics’ first-round series, this is not an equal one-for-one tradeoff. Hayward is definitely an important piece to what the Celtics do, and his size and versatility are part of what makes them a particularly difficult matchup for the Raptors. Lowry is arguably the Raptors’ best player, though, as well as their tone setter.
His offensive importance goes without saying. Pascal Siakam has struggled with the ball in the bubble, scoring inefficiently even when he has had bigger nights. (He had 20 points on 22 field-goal attempts in Game 4, although he had a career-high 10 assists, too.) Lowry’s ability to create late in the shot clock, particularly with his adeptness at involving both big men, is massive. The Raptors’ half-court offence is already their weakness, and Lowry is probably the Raptors’ most reliable player in that setting. His screening is also a big factor in freeing up Siakam late in close games.
Defensively, Lowry’s role shrinks a little because of Hayward’s absence. If the Celtics had Hayward, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Lowry likely would have had to guard one of them, giving up no fewer than 6 inches in any of those matchups. Lowry’s ability to defend bigger players, especially in the post, makes that size disparity far less important. The starting backcourt of Walker and Marcus Smart makes it much easier for the Raptors to start small with Lowry and Fred VanVleet.
Regardless, Lowry remains crucial because of his ability to defend without the ball, step into driving lanes and switch because of his skill defending bigger players. Norman Powell, who stepped into Lowry’s starting spot in the second half and surely would do the same against the Celtics, is taller than Lowry, but he’s nowhere near as intuitive of a defender.
Lowry’s injury casts uncertain shadow over Raptors’ record-setting night – Sportsnet.ca
The Celtics may have swept a talented Philadelphia 76ers team away like a dust bunny and may boast a starting lineup featuring four players taken in the top-10 of their respective drafts, but the Raptors — who don’t have a single player taken in the draft lottery — believe what they may lack in star power they compensate for with a pretty damn good collection of committee members who are willing the play like it.
Even with Lowry and VanVleet — their two-headed point guard — limited to 29 total minutes Sunday night, the Raptors set a franchise record with 39 assists on a record 59 made field goals.
“I feel like I’m like a broken record saying this, but I think we have such great confidence, each and every one of us who steps on the floor, and we work the offence, I don’t think it really matters who’s in the game,” said Powell, who has translated his breakout regular season into a breakout post-season so far. “You guys have seen that all year long that we’re able to execute and make plays and continue to win, no matter what it looks like.
“I think we’ve always had a fighting spirit and once you have that and everybody collectively is playing for one purpose, which is to win, it don’t matter who’s scoring or what it is, who has it going that night, we continue to work, continue to flow and trust one another, we’re able to play like that, so we can have guys who are in foul trouble or — knock on wood — injury or whatever, but we’re still able to play our brand of basketball, and continue to execute the game plan.”
The Raptors finish sweep of Nets without Kyle Lowry, but they’ll need him against Boston | The Star
The Boston Celtics are up next, and it would be hard without Lowry. He was just dribbling when he stepped on Nets guard Chris Chiozza’s foot. It was a nothing play, until it wasn’t. Lowry hobbled back downcourt and had to commit a foul to stop the pay and get off. He somehow managed to talk his way back onto the court after a timeout, which like many scams was both admirably executed and probably a bad idea.
Foot and ankle injuries are funny things. Dallas’s Luka Doncic sprained his ankle in Game 3 against the L.A. Clippers, hopped straight to the locker room, and came back to deliver an immortal 43-17-13 line in Game 4, capped by a step-back, 27-foot three-point buzzer-beater in overtime to win. Boston’s Gordon Hayward sprained his ankle and left the bubble, out four weeks. Toughness only goes so far.
“I won’t be very comfortable without Kyle out there, I would say that,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said. “He’s certainly a big engine for us. But I would say, I think we play a system and a style where lots of guys are involved. We’re going to miss all those great, great things Kyle does if he doesn’t play, but somebody else has got to take shots, and play defence, and play tough, and do the things that he does. Or we do it by committee. That’s probably a better way, right?
“(Missing Lowry) would hurt us a lot. I mean, you guys know how big a cog he is to this whole thing: he’s the most experienced, toughest leader we got. I don’t want to speculate a million questions about whether he’s playing or not until we know if he’s playing or not, but I imagine it’s going to be a hell of an injury to keep him off the floor.
“It’s not going to be a little thing. I mean, he played 16 straight playoff games last year with a totally messed-up left thumb. So it’s going to take something pretty serious to keep him out.”
Raptors’ smothering defence, VanVleet’s dominance bright spots from Round 1 – Sportsnet.ca
VanVleet has been hotter than the Sun
And speaking of VanVleet, he’s not only been a stalwart defensively, he’s also been the Raptors’ most potent offensive weapon thus far in the post-season.
VanVleet has been the Raptors’ playoff scoring leader, averaging 21.3 points per game with remarkable shooting splits of 52.7 per cent from the field, 55.9 per cent from deep and 80 per cent from the free-throw line all combining for an incredible 70.1 per cent true-shooting percentage during Toronto’s first-round series.
Among his many strong performances in the first round, VanVleet’s Game 1 stands out the most as he dropped 30 points on an astounding 8-of-10 from three-point range.
Outside of an off-the-mark 3-for-11 showing from deep in Game 2, VanVleet’s been an absolute marksman from distance and while this heater is unlikely to last forever, the Raptors should look to ride VanVleet’s hot hand for as long as they can against Boston.
The End: Raptors sweep Nets in the 1st round, 150-122 – NetsDaily
On the court, this is the second straight year the Nets have lost in the first round. This year’s sweep to the Raptors and last year’s 4-1 loss to the 76ers. They’ve made the playoffs five out of eight years in Brooklyn but have only made it out of the first round once.
They had their opportunities in the playoffs. They could’ve stole Game 2, but they squandered a 14-point lead. They never made it much of a competition in Game 3. Same goes for Game 4.
Oh well. It was, simply, not to be.
The Raptors fell in their own hole early, but it didn’t slow their pursuit of the franchise’s first series sweep. Fred VanVleet picked up three fouls in six minutes and Kyle Lowry exited the game in the first following an ankle injury. They still couldn’t get it done on the defensive side and allowed Toronto’s bench to score 100 points.
They went down by as many at 17 in the second quarter and gave up a franchise-worst 77 points in the first half. Caris LeVert did all he could with 26 points in the first half and 35 on the night, to go along with six rebounds, six assists and two steals.
Still, the Nets hung around and trailed by only nine at half, but Toronto adjusted and went on a 17-2 run to start the second half, which gave them a 24-point lead. It only went up from there — a 39-19 advantage in the quarter and 29-point lead entering the fourth.
Game over.
Brooklyn’s Season Ends as Raptors Sweep Series – The Brooklyn Game
There is no way around it: The Raptors are a great team, and the Nets’ bubble roster was simply outmatched. Game 2 was Brooklyn’s best chance to steal a game, with a late-game turnover proving costly, but a series sweep was largely expected with the number of adjustments the Nets had to face in the bubble.
The Nets have nothing to be ashamed of with their bubble performance, as they exceeded expectations with a 5-3 record in the seeding games–including victories over the Bucks, Clippers and pushing the Trail Blazers to the brink. Brooklyn earned their No. 7 seed, but the reigning champion Raptors had the weapons needed to take the series sweep.
Game 4 saw the Nets compete early, but they ultimately fell apart in the second half. The Raptors out-scored Brooklyn 39-19 in the third quarter to take as large as a 33-point lead, powered by 55.4% shooting.
The high-scoring game by Toronto was another example of Brooklyn’s defensive struggles in the series. The Raptors scored 100 bench points–yes, 100!–showcasing the team’s depth, something the Nets could not counter. Brooklyn also fell short in the rebounding battle once again, with the Raptors recording the 57-44 edge on the boards.
Raptors 150, Nets 122: Season Ends for Brooklyn Against Toronto | Brooklyn Nets
Tyler Johnson had 13 points, Dzanan Musa had 12, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot scored 11 and Garrett Temple finished with 11.
The Nets trailed 77-68 at halftime after Toronto shot 59.2 percent in the first half.
LeVert had 26 points at the break, the highest scoring half of his career, and scored 11 of Brooklyn’s first 22 points. But after Johnson’s 3-pointer put the Nets up 25-23, the Raptors closed the quarter on a 16-9 run and led 39-32 going into the second quarter.
Toronto pushed that lead to 17 points, going up 64-47 midway through the quarter. But that Nets cut into that with a 14-4 run that jumped off with a Temple 3-pointer. Luwawu-Cabarrot had five points in the burst, and Allen’s two free throws brought Brooklyn within 70-63 with 1:37 to go in the half. After Luwawu-Cabarrot answered a Toronto 3-pointer to keep it a seven-point game, the Raptors took a nine-point lead into the break.
The Raptors burst out with a 16-2 run to open the second half, making six of their first 10 shots, including three of four 3-pointers, with Fred VanVleet’s 3-pointer putting Toronto up 93-70 five minutes into the half. A 13-3 run had the Raptors up 110-83 after back-to-back Serge Ibaka 3-pointers, and Toronto took a 116-87 lead into the fourth quarter.
“I told them in times like these, me as an individual I lean into gratitude, and that I was extremely thankful for opportunity to coach them, thankful to our performance group for getting those guys ready to play, thankful for each and every person in that locker room, from whether they made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, whether they got a uniform ready, whether they made a free throw,” said Vaughn of his message to the team after the game.. “That we don’t know what’s going to exist in the future, and so I hope that they’ve learned one thing is that you take advantage of the now.”
To the Nets credit, a hot shooting start for Caris LeVert and Tyler Johnson kept them within striking distance in the first half. LeVert would finish with 35 points, but his supporting cast petered out over time.
The one blow to Toronto in Game 4 came late in the first quarter, as Kyle Lowry twisted his ankle stepping on Chris Chiozza’s foot in transition. After briefly attempting to play on it, Lowry left the building for further testing — he didn’t return and reports on the injuries severity have yet to come back.
Even without Lowry, though, the Raptors would build their lead beyond a Nets comeback in the third quarter. Powell made two great takes to the rim, including the dunk you see above — just part of 13 points in the frame to help Toronto outscore Brooklyn 39-19.
The fourth quarter was a formality after that, as thoughts turn to the second round and the Boston Celtics. It’s a matchup we’ve yet to see — a bit surprising considering both teams have been good for quite a while — and one where both squads should come in well-rested. No word on when the Game 1 tip will actually go, but reports have it as early as Thursday.
Raptors ride bench to sweep of Nets, first playoff series with Celtics – ESPN
“Well we certainly could use a little bit of rest, these games are coming really quick,” Nurse said. “That was a fast first round for both teams really. A lot faster than normal. That first round usually goes so slow.”
The rest will also give Toronto a chance to possibly have Lowry ready for Game 1. Nurse said Lowry was getting an MRI done on the arch of his left foot following Sunday’s game.
Nurse has been using a shorter rotation in the playoffs and played his starters along with Ibaka and Powell the most, typically rotating in a separate eighth man each night — whether that was Chris Boucher, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Matt Thomas or Terence Davis.
Keeping those guys fresh is another reason the bench was able to go off for 100 points against Brooklyn, but managing minutes is something Nurse will have to look at throughout the rest of the playoffs.
“I’m running a pretty short rotation here, as you know,” Nurse said. “Those guys, we all know, from Chris to Rondae to Matt and Terence, obviously Serge and Norm … the seven guys I’m playing are wanting to play more. It’s hard to kind of manage it all sometimes.”
While Toronto is hopeful it will have Lowry for the series, Boston will be without forward Gordon Hayward as he rehabs his ankle sprain. Celtics coach Brad Stevens said Sunday that Hayward returned to Boston to begin his rehab.
Toronto Raptors sweep Brooklyn Nets but Kyle Lowry injury spoils party – TSN.ca
At this point it would be foolish to count the Raptors out, regardless of who they’re missing, even against a team of Boston’s calibre. However, they need Lowry in order to play their best basketball, and given how well the Celtics are playing, they may have to be at or close to their best to get past them.
“I won’t be very comfortable without Kyle out there, I will say that, he’s certainly a big engine for us,” said Nurse.
“It would hurt us a lot. You guys know how big a cog he is to this whole thing. He’s our most experienced, toughest leader. I don’t want to speculate and answer a million questions on whether he’s playing or not until we know whether he’s playing or not, and we’ve got a few days for that.”
Suddenly, that’s become the biggest benefit of getting through the first round quickly. Lowry will have three full days to rest his foot, as well as most of Thursday, assuming an evening start time for Game 1.
One thing we know about Lowry, though, is that if he can play, he will play. For at least a third of last year’s championship run – including all of the NBA Finals – he was dealing with a thumb injury that required surgery during the offseason. He’s almost playing through something – bumps or bruises, aches and pains, and occasionally something more serious. If his tests come back clean and he’s cleared to play, if it’s just a matter of pain tolerance, you can bet he’ll be out there to start the Boston series.
“I would imagine [it would have to] be a hell of an injury to keep him off the floor,” Nurse said. “It’s not going to be a little thing; he’s going to try to figure it out.
He played, I don’t know how many playoff games last year with a totally messed up left thumb, running through the Finals last years. It’s gonna take something pretty serious to keep him out. You guys know how tough he is.”
The team should know more about the severity of Lowry’s injury over the coming days, as should we, and until then they’ll be crossing their fingers and hoping for the best.
“I know we say it a lot, but he’s very important for us,” said Ibaka. “He’s our motor. Hopefully he can be ready for the first game, because we need him big time, man. We need him big time.”
Raptors complete the sweep but Lowry injury has everyone a little nervous | Toronto Sun
As good as Powell and Ibaka were, the Raptors bench as a whole deserved a ton of credit in this one. It scored 100 points with contributions and scoring from all eight reserves that took the floor — a Raptors and an NBA record.
The old playoff mark was 86 set by Dallas. The all-time mark for bench points from a team in a game was set by Golden State with 94 in 1977.
The Raptors win sets up the much-anticipated second-round matchup with the Boston Celtics who themselves completed the sweep of the Philadelphia 76ers earlier in the day. The two Atlantic-division foes have never met in the playoffs.
The Celtics lost guard Gordon Hayward with an ankle injury of his own earlier in the playoff round but they still boast a tough lineup with Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kemba Walker, and now likely Marcus Smart joining the starting five with Hayward out.
Already this season the two teams have played four highly entertaining games with the Celtics winning three including one since the re-start.
The Raptors Polished Off A Sweep Of The Nets To Setup A Showdown With Boston – Uproxx
There is some reason for concern for the Raptors despite the impressive showing, as Kyle Lowry left the game in the first quarter after rolling his left ankle and was taken to the Bubble’s MRI machine off-site. The hope, of course, is that he’ll avoid a serious ankle injury and will be able to be at full strength when they tip-off their second round series with Boston, who likewise finished off a sweep on Sunday afternoon.
The Lowry injury put a damper on an otherwise spectacular performance from a Raptors team that continues to roll right along, looking as cohesive a team as there is in the Bubble. Now they’ll face a stern test in a Celtics team that is likewise playing excellent ball and will throw a perimeter trio at them that is arguably as good as any three-man unit in the league with Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown, and Jayson Tatum. The Raptors boast their own triumverate on the outside with Lowry, Fred VanVleet, and Siakam, and the battle of those stars figures to play heavily into the series outcome.
However, even if those six players wash each other out, Toronto is banking on the fact that their role players can get the job done and keep the train rolling along on both ends to be the big difference in a series with Boston. On Sunday we got a reminder of just how deep their bench goes and what those guys are capable of when called upon, and this second round matchup figures to be a must-watch battle between two terrific teams.
And now they go from a walk to a sprint, with only three days in between. Three days to figure out what’s wrong with Lowry, how long he’ll be out with arch problem, from the foot he injured Sunday night. Three days to game-plan, but really I have to assume the Raptors staff has been game-planning for weeks, knowing it was much pretty much certain they could face the Celtics in Round 2. And Nurse knowing it’s the great Celtics backcourt against the great Raptors backcourt.
Which makes Lowry’s status all the more significant.
They won without him in Game 4 because of who they were playing in Game 4. They won without using VanVleet much because they didn’t want one guard out and one guard fouled out. The Raptors strength Sunday night was their wild bench. But if Lowry’s out and Norm Powell is suddenly starting, then the starting lineup is weakened and the bench is weakened and Nurse has to game-plan no matter his roster might look like.
If there was any hidden beauty to come from the stopping of the NBA season and the return more than four months later, it came from health. All season long, somebody on the Raptors was beaten up. Somebody was limping. Somebody wasn’t right. And then everybody got healthy as the Raptors locked themselves up in Orlando.
And you had to wonder what this team would be like when everybody was together.
You can’t tell much from a series against Brooklyn. You can’t tell much when you win games by 24 and 25 points.
You can’t tell much when there aren’t any last second Luka Doncic take your breath away moments — and how great was that? — when games aren’t on the line, when the last few minutes mean everything.
This was as much an exhibition playoff series as it was a triumph of any kind. Now with a giant gulp. You know this much about Lowry: If there’s any way he can play, he will play. He’s always done that. But against the Celtics, they’re going to need him at the top of his game, not limping, doing the multitude of things that have made him a special NBA player and just as special an NBA team leader.
But the coach is a Nurse, not a doctor in this case and he won’t know much about Lowry’s status until late last night or early this morning.
“I wouldn’t be very comfortable without Kyle out there,” the coach of the year said.
NBA free agency: Knicks should pursue Raptors’ Fred VanVleet – New York Post
There will be point guards aplenty available in the draft, starting with Ball, but the most intriguing one that seems most likely to drop to the Knicks at No. 8 is Cole Anthony.
Anthony might well be worth the futures bet, a city kid (Archbishop Molloy) who would be a Knicks legacy (his old man is Greg, an NCAA champ at UNLV and a member of the ’94 Knicks Finalists). But it is a gamble. He had an injury-plagued and disappointing freshman year at North Carolina, he struggles as a shooter (.380) and his assist-to-turnover ratio was 4.0/3.5.
For the Knicks, the smarter play is finding an established point guard and making him an immediate part of that building-block foundation — freeing them to either take the best player available at No. 8 or turn into more assets for their deep pile of same. And assuming the Knicks have been paying reluctant attention to the Nets’ adventures in the NBA bubble, they have to be thinking seriously about making Fred VanVleet an offer he can’t refuse.
VanVleet emerged in last year’s playoffs for the Raptors and this year has blossomed into a just-below-elite-level point guard who can score (17.6 ppg), shoot (39 percent from 3), distribute (6.6 assists) and play defense (his 1.9 steals per game are double his previous high). He also has played in the kind of winning environment his whole career that Thibodeau wants — and needs — to create here.
Is he a no-brainer? He isn’t. He’s smallish (6-foot-1), and while he’s young (26), even with him you’re talking about 2-3 more years before the Knicks are playing the kind of big games with regularity that Toronto plays now. VanVleet has said he wants to remain in Toronto, which makes perfect sense on a lot of levels, and that means the Knicks will have to pay for the privilege.
The Toronto Raptors Embody the Intersection of Sports and Racial Justice – Deadspin
It all makes sense when you think about it. The Raptors have been constructed by Masai Ujuri, a Nigerian who is the lone Black team president in the NBA. And of the 17 players on their roster in The Bubble, 15 of them are Black, including players from Canada, Saint Lucia, and a few from Africa.
Blackness, in all its forms, engulfs the Raptors.
“Basically we’re trying to do more than have statements,” Raptors Head Coach Nick Nurse told the Washington Post last month. “We’re really trying to come up with some plans of action and get out there and move, and I’ve been impressed as hell with these guys.”
Nurse, the league’s newly anointed Coach of the Year winner, has joined the rest of the coaches in the league by wearing “Racial Justice” pins during each game. He’s also the only head coach in the league that leads a team that’s been at the center of so much racism.
