In addition to cutting Cleveland’s lead in the East for the top seed down to two games, Toronto could add confidence heading into the postseason that the Raptors beat the Cavaliers twice in Toronto this season.
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In their most recent success, a 114-105 home win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, emerging was the backcourt duo of All-Stars DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.
As positive, or jaded, as Raptors’ fans have been about this regular season, it is undeniable that the team has for the third straight season closed in on another franchise milestone.
“Pretty much just playing good basketball”, Frye said. DeRozan led all scorers with 21 points and four rebounds.
Reserve guard Corey Joseph scored 18 points and centre Jonas Valanciunas had 14 points and seven rebounds.
The Raptors victory spoiled Andrew Wiggins’ homecoming.
The Wolves are at New Orleans on Saturday night. Gorgui Dieng added 21. Only Golden State (19-3) and San Antonio (18-3) have better records over that span. However, they’ve faced just six winning teams and only one of them – the Blake Griffin-less Los Angeles Clippers – even come close to the calibre of Cleveland.
As of this afternoon, it’s still not certain whether or not Iman Shumpert – who’s missed the previous three games with a sprained left shoulder – will be able to go on Friday night in Toronto. Both the Cavaliers and Raptors have won seven of their last ten games.
Toronto was looking for payback, and led by as many as many 12 points in the first half, but couldn’t shake the young T’Wolves.
In just his second game with the Cavaliers (41-15), Frye connected on five of his nine shots from the field, including four of his eight attempts from three-point range on his way to scoring 15 points in the 114-103 win over the Charlotte Hornets at Quicken Loans Arena Thursday. There’s a lot of game in the summer time that we might say, we could have won this game and that game, specially this game tonight. “That’s not him, but we all have our days”.
“We just keep competing and we stick with our principles, making sure at the end of the day we stick with the things we know how to do defensively. People expect us to be top one or two and we expect it for ourselves, but now we have to look past that because it didn’t get us nowhere the last two years”. The Timberwolves, who knocked off Toronto at home before the All-Star break, helped the Raptors extend the gap over the No. 3 spot in the East by holding off the Boston Celtics 124-122 on Monday.
Minnesota was led by Wiggins’ 26 points, though he coughed up the ball 6 times.
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The Timberwolves (18-40) led by as many as nine points in the first quarter before the Raptors came back to finish the quarter on an 8-0 run to take a 37-28 lead. It has everything a team could need to develop and pamper its players – not to mention lure future free agents – luxuries such as two full-size courts, a locker room with individual TVs over every locker, an underwater treadmill, a full-service cafeteria and a sophisticated data and analytics centre.
