“We have enough guys that are confident in the team and ability to get the job done”. This was the Lowry that helped carry Toronto to a franchise-record 56 wins in the regular season, even if the team hasn’t necessarily gotten him in every contest.
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But the Raptors opened the third quarter with a 17-4 run and when Ross was fouled on a three-point attempt with a minute-and-a-half left in the quarter, his three free throws put Toronto up by six.
The Toronto Raptors defeated the Miami Heat, 99-91, in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference playoff series on Wednesday at the Air Canada Centre.
“This is that time of year”, said Raptors’ coach Dwane Casey. “We told ourselves if we continued to be aggressive, it was going to come back around”.
Most NBA teams are better when their best players are playing like their best players. We get paid a lot of money for a reason.
That aggressiveness was on display right from the get-go.
The Heat scored just four points in the first six minutes of the game, indicative of an abysmal Miami offense for much of the night. Kyle Lowry, who has had his struggles during the playoffs, drilled a long three-pointer with 52 seconds left to give the Raptors a 93-87 advantage. Without Whiteside and Valanciunas, it will be up to the likes of PG Goran Dragic/SG Dwyane Wade and PG Kyle Lowry/SG DeMar DeRozan.
DeRozan made two free throws with 21.3 seconds left and made two more with nine seconds remaining to increase the lead to eight points and clinch the win.
DeRozan was asked about his thumb injury and commented “It just felt like a blowtorch on my hand, that’s all”. “But I think we know what we have to do, and I think we’re focused on what we have to do”.
“No disrespect at all from me”, Wade said. Clank. That’s the shot he’s paid to make. He’s had a lot of looks that he normally makes that would go in.
“That (DeRozan and Lowry) wasn’t what beat us tonight”, Wade commented in postgame remarks. “Getting down big early, down 10 at the end of the first, from then we played great basketball”.
DeRozan went 11-for-22 from the field and 11-for-11 from the free-throw line.
The Heat won Game 1 largely due to their shooting from three (72 percent), however, Miami’s touch has faded as this series has progressed.
Biyombo had eight points in the second, electrifying the crowd by sandwiching a pair of dunks around a huge block on Wade.
The Toronto Raptors’ best post-season performer to date was offered a chair to sit on when he spoke with the media at shootaround on Tuesday morning, and he refused it.
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Carroll was in obvious pain, writhing on the floor before being taken directly to the locker room still holding the damaged left wrist. X-rays came back negative. And in Game 5, starting forwards Luol Deng and DeMarre Carroll both left the game with respective wrist injuries.
