“It’s been ugly”, he said. “I feel like I was always going to be able to play, even though sometimes it didn’t look like it”.
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Lowry, sitting next to his teammate on the podium, chimed in. Patrick Patterson wanted his point guard not to deviate from his path or try anything new. “I thought our offense was poor. I’m going to live and die with Kyle on any day”. Lowry has already been playing banged up, and now DeRozan is playing through a sore right thumb he suffered late in Game 1.
His numbers in Game 2 do not indicate a turnaround in Lowry’s shooting struggles. “These last two games were not two of our better ball movement games, which we’ll have to correct”.
Over the past three seasons, Toronto has gone 35-15 when Valanciunas scores 17 or more points and 51-28 when he gets 10 or more field goal attempts. Ross tied it with a jumper at 2:01.
The Raptors have been profoundly disappointed by its backcourt throughout this postseason.
For the Raptors, it’s the fourth playoff series in a row, dating back to 2014, when they’ve ceded home-court advantage to their opponents by losing Game 1.
“There’s going to be games where you’re going to get down, teams are going to make a run, so you have to have a balanced approach”.
“You’re spotting a good team like this roughly 20 possessions”, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. We had our chances. “They’re accountable for their shots and some of the tough shots they take”. As the Heat took better care of the ball, they slowly chipped away at the Raptors’ lead, eventually building a fourth quarter lead of their own.
Leading the way for Toronto was forward DeMarre Carroll who tallied 21 points, five rebounds, one assist, and four steals.
Lowry had 18 points, including two clutch baskets in the final minute of regulation, just two nights after what had to be one of the worst games of his career.
“There’s a lot of different ways to win a game”, Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
By now, you know about the Raptors’ issues with motion in the offense. Toronto rode that to a 29-19 lead after one frame, and more importantly the beleaguered Kyle Lowry scored seven points.
“He’s still not a finished product”, Casey said. “He’s doing a heck of a job as it is. It’s probably what he’s going to get”. They played almost that entire quarter without Goran Dragic who got his 4th foul.
The Heat slowed down the pace and used Toronto’s aggressive switching defense to their advantage: consistently using guard/wing screen combinations to get favorable match-ups along the perimeter.
“I look at Alex, I told him he’s like my granddad, he kind of likes that”, Carroll said. “Every time he gets it, he’s scoring”. The Toronto Raptors have split their last 10 road games. Hassan doesn’t need anybody to say anything to give him motivation.
Since returning from a 41-game absence, DeMarre Carroll has been focused on the defensive end of the floor. That’s what we have to do. “It was a must win game”. It was too late to recover.
“And, like Tuesday”s Heat overtime Game 1 victory, it was down to the wire from there. But when he did get some plays called for him, he made some plays.
Being 34, Miami has reduced his responsibilities, avoiding reliance on an old jump shooter who frequently doesn’t make jump shots. He played the most important role as the leader on the team as usual.
That’s precisely what they did, and it wasn’t just up to DeRozan and Lowry this time around.
Toronto All-Stars Lowry and DeRozan continued to struggle with their shooting.
“Hopefully, he has a breakout game and that would be huge, but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t”, Skeets said. “There’s a lot areas to grow and he will grow, but we’re very pleased with his progress”.
And the guys they would normally expect to bring them back? No, the criticism of them is completely from a basketball perspective, because the on-court versions of those two are putrid. Around the leagueTwenty-two teams are home watching the playoffs. “They got to beat us three times, we got to beat them three times”. They came out and blitzed us early.
The Raptors acquired the gritty defender and solid scorer in the off-season, but his much-anticipated first year with Toronto was derailed by injuries nearly from the outset. That led to Toronto taking 14 more shots.
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Both players had great regular seasons.
