“I thought he (Powell) responded well”, Casey said after the game.
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Carroll wound up picking up two quick fouls, Terrence Ross left the game for precautionary reasons – he’ll be reevaluated tomorrow – and DeRozan was ineffective, and so Powell wound up playing 22 pretty terrific minutes, anyway. George scored a team high 33 points in Saturday’s 100-90 victory over the Raptors.
Jonas Valanciunas scored 23 points and hauled down 15 rebounds as the Raptors bounced back from a awful Game 1 to throttle the Indiana Pacers 98-87, evening their post-season series at one game apiece.
Lowry shot 4-for-13 from the field but still managed to produce 18 points, nine assists and seven rebounds while making all 10 of his free throw attempts. The team looked scared to move the ball and didn’t want to fall into more turnovers, so they forced the issue a lot of the time. Those types of plays have become synonymous with how Lowry can lead his team on nights when the shots aren’t falling down.
It’s time for Pacers fans to learn to say that name because he’s quickly emerging as the second best player in this series. “It’s been like that all season”. The Toronto Raptors are shooting 24.3 percent from beyond the arc and 77.8 percent from the free throw line. “I don’t know if you can look at a guy’s stat line and just tell some of things he’s contributing”.
After a frustrating game 1 that saw him record 12 points and a franchise-best 19 rebounds in 21 minutes before fouling out, Valanciunas stayed out of foul trouble and played almost 31 minutes in Monday’s win to put up another double-double.
After entering the game in the second half, Joseph remained on the floor while DeRozan sat for the entire fourth quarter.
“They’re trying to take me and DeMar out of the game”, Lowry said in his NBATV walk-off interview. “But again his teammates picked him up, (and) he’ll come around”.
Less than 3 minutes later, DeMar would again get an advantage on PG.
“Some days I felt great, felt like I could have started that night”, George said in the presser after Game #1. He has experience too.
There may not be an easy adjustment to get DeRozan going against Indiana’s ferocious defense.
“Everyone wanted that kid to be a superstar when he got here”.
“He’s been there before”, Casey said. Ellis and Ian Mahimni have choreographed their pick-and-roll combination into one of the league’s most effective schemes. He’s grown, he’s developed, he’s worked his behind off and I’m really proud of him. He’s not a finished product. I’m going out there and battling. Laying off breaking balls that takes more will than you or I could possibly imagine. We all have to step up. “It’s not an individual sport”. That wasn’t enough for the Pacers to keep things interesting however, as both Cory Joseph and Patrick Patterson scored in double figures. If the Pacers have an off-night beyond the arc then the door is open for Toronto to potentially win big. They could not afford to fall behind two games as they headed to Indianapolis, and the way they played Monday night reflected that.
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The Raptors came out firing, ready to make up for the loss in Game 1 on Sunday. “It happens. We really shot 38 per cent. And we still had a chance to win”. “It’s been a long road for him [George] in terms of actually getting back to the court but before his injury, we were in the conference finals”. The rookie has shown no signs of stage fright and was 4-of-5 shooting during just 16 foul-plagued minutes.
