Raptors 101, Heat 81

Miami Heat All-Star Dwyane Wade played through his shoulder soreness to score 22 points in a losing effort, 101-81, in Toronto.

Asked about DeRozan’s performance, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was quick to include Lowry.

“We’ve been playing smaller to try to get more offense and our defense has slipped”.

Lowry had 15 points on the night, with the crowd chanting MVP as he went to the line in the final minutes.

DeMar DeRozan hasn’t officially been minted as an All-Star, but at this point it’s just a matter of time – six days to be precise – that he’ll be join Kyle Lowry, named an All-Star starter for the second straight season, on the Eastern Conference squad.

It marks Toronto’s longest winning string under coach Dwane Casey and the franchise’s longest run of victories since a nine-game stretch in 2002. He’s got an opportunity to get into the paint. Yet the pair was able to briefly turn the tide Wednesday, and judging by Stevens’ comments, it seems likely he’ll go back to that well in the near future.

“Our profession is so tough, I have no idea what’s going on in Cleveland and it’s none of my business”, Casey said.

“It should give us some confidence to know that those other guys helped them get that”, Casey said after the Raptors’ shootaround ahead of Friday night’s game with the injury-riddled Miami Heat.

“It’s hard to win in this league, full lineup or not”, Wade said. “When you’re consciously trying to become a better player every single year you look at the things you can clean up on, get better on”.

It was the fourth loss in a row for the Heat (23-21). “We were just getting beat to balls left and right”, Stevens said. “Both of them are pick-and-roll players and what allows them to work well is DeMar has really improved his pick-and-roll game where he can find Kyle spaced out on the weak side. We can win defensively, and tonight was an offensive game”. As far as moments in time go, this is a pretty good one to be a Raptors fan. His breakaway dunk towards the end of the second quarter gave the Celtics their first lead of the game.

The Heat cut the lead to 11 with 2:27 to play in the third quarter, which ended with the Raptors leading 80-67. Kristaps Porzingis shot even worse, going 4 for 17 while finishing with 13 points and eight rebounds. “But I thought in the first half we let them do what they wanted to do to us”.

“We’re just out there playing with confidence”, Lowry said. We’re maintaining our principles and we’re maintaining our composure. After a Raptors miss, Bradley tied the game at 105-105 on a 19-foot pull-up jumper with 3:20 to play. As a review: Luol Deng (eye), Goran Dragic (calf), Hassan Whiteside (hip), Josh McRoberts (knee), and Chris Andersen (knee), are all out. Needless to say, this team is in trouble. For a third straight game, they had no answer for being severely undermanned. The Raptors play the fourth game of seven in a row at home Sunday against the Los Angeles Clippers…. They don’t put their stamp on games; they don’t make the opposition play up to them; they don’t take complete control anywhere near as often as he’d like.