Now the Heat is struggling to survive Toronto in a 2-2 series after Monday’s 94-87 overtime home survival led by 30 points from – who else? “When the card is given in, we’ll focus on whoever our matchup is”.
Advertisement
The absence of both starting centers could determine the series.
The Toronto Raptors are on the road tonight in the NBA Playoffs, taking on the Miami Heat in Game 4 of the semifinals.
The Heat got even more bad news after suffering a 95-91 Game 3 loss Saturday.
Jonas Valanciunas hobbled around in a walking cast Monday morning, appearing like he won’t be back playing any time soon.
The Heat are surely hoping that Whiteside falls into the quicker category.
Spoelstra would not reveal who he planned to start in place of Whiteside, although veterans Amar’e Stoudemire, Josh McRoberts and Udonis Haslem are among the options.
Both Jonas Valanciunas and Hassan Whiteside were injured in game three. The weight of expectation is enormous for this team, and so far it’s crushed Lowry and DeRozan.
Whiteside had six points and no rebounds when left the game. “I’m going to be cheering, going to be doing what I can do to support them and hopefully they’re going to win this series and next series I can help them”.
Lowry broke out of his slump in a huge way in game three, dropping 33 points and five triples on 58% shooting from the floor. Biyombo is a decent player who makes a lot of plays based purely on effort: he isn’t the polished player that Valanciunas is, but he’ll sneak into the paint for some offensive rebounds and will play tenacious defense.
The first two games of this series went into overtime, and Game 3 was a one-possession game in the closing moments. Wade is the NBA’s 39th all-time regular-season scorer, up from No. 54 when this season began. In the third quarter the Raptors outscored Miami 27-16. For the postseason, he is averaging 15.0 points and 12.1 rebounds on 55 percent shooting.
Back-to-back baskets for Wade in between a miss from each of Toronto’s all stars stretched the lead up to eight points, 44-35.
The Heat need a more balanced attack.
In a somewhat coincidental twist of playoff misfortune, Miami big-man and defensive terror Hassan Whiteside also went down with an injury in Game 3 that’s left him listed as day-to-day. The Raptors allow just 97.8 points per game, ranking them fourth in the league. Deng has been quiet, averaging 8.7 points in this series. The team excelled despite these injuries and now in the playoffs they are once again put in a familiar situation.
And now the waiting game begins to see if he returns at any point in the series. They got a messy fallaway game-winner from Cory Joseph at the buzzer that didn’t come close. “They lost their rim protector (Whiteside) and we lost ours”. If the Raptors learned any lesson in the first round (aside from the fact that a superstar, in this case Paul George, can win an entire series by himself), it’s that giving the opposing team multiple opportunities to stay in a series can end your season in a hurry.
Raptors: Instead of dealing with the prospects of a 5 a.m. -ish arrival in Toronto, the Raptors were spending Monday night in Miami.
Advertisement
Nobody said things would be easy for the Toronto Raptors. But his more significant response came on Saturday’s Game 3 when Miami retook the lead. It’s also a chance for the Raptors to open up some breathing room, to not make things so hard for once.
