The Toronto Raptors have yet to get the full Miami Heat experience, and they may not for a while.
But they’ve already had their share of experiences against the Heat and in Miami, with Saturday’s night’s triple-overtime duel being the latest and craziest.
Kyle Lowry would have loved it. The character that he helped the Raptors foster was on full display as they grinded away, possession after possession, in a game that seemed like it might never end.
And the grit of the organization he left Toronto to join was evident as well, as Miami had answers at every turn, seemingly more comfortable the tougher and more tense it got.
And it got tough and tense.
[radioclip id=5282660]But for the second time in less than two weeks, the Raptors were in South Beach and once again, the Heat were without Lowry, the former Raptors star who hand-picked Miami as the place the 16-year veteran could best contend for another title.
Lowry missed his seventh straight game with the only reason given being ‘personal reasons.’ It’s believed he’s at home in Philadelphia and the details have been kept private.
“I think it’s always really important to realize basketball is second, third, if not around that area on people’s list of importance,” said Heat star Jimmy Butler, who was a big factor in Lowry going to the Heat in free agency, said on Friday. “You’ve always got to make sure the family’s good. … I miss him. We all miss him. We want him and his family to be OK.”
It’s long been expected that Lowry wouldn’t travel to Toronto to play his old team on Feb. 1 given there won’t be fans allowed at Scotiabank Arena.
The Raptors likely won’t have a chance to face their old teammate until the Heat play in Toronto on April 3.
How Miami has performed in the absence of Lowry and other key players in their lineup justifies Lowry’s decision. How the Raptors performed without Lowry proved that his influence is still being felt.
Lowry would have loved every minute of it.
And there were oh, so many minutes. It was the longest Raptors game in a decade and the first time they’ve won in triple overtime since 1998.
And they made history in a way that’s fitting: In a season where the Raptors starters have been logging some massive minutes, it was the first time since 1954 that all five starters played more than 50 minutes in a game, with Fred VanVleet clocking in at 54, Pascal Siakam at 57 and everyone else in between. They played 275 in total.
The Raptors didn’t make substation for the last 19 minutes of the game.
“Eight a.m. practice tomorrow,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse joked after the marathon was finally over.
The Raptors finally ended it when Siakam coolly knocked down a pair of three throws with 9.8 seconds to play in the third overtime period to — at last — give Toronto the 124-120 win.
The Raptors had chances to win the game at the end of regulation — though they were able to secure the tie thanks to a pair of clutch free throws with 2.9 seconds left — and at the end of both overtime periods, but finally got some separation when VanVleet made a pair of triples early in the third extra period and Toronto was able to survive what was a five-point lead with 2:17 to play, the first time either team had a lead of more than three points since the 5:15 mark of the fourth quarter.
“We tried everybody, everybody had their shot, nobody could find it, myself included, we played a lot of good basketball and then we just couldn’t make a bucket,” said VanVleet, who shot just 7-of-22 from the floor, though made five of his 14 threes, to go with eight assists. “So everybody had their chance once and it came back around to me again. And by that point, I’m gonna shoot those and if I miss ‘em we lose, if I make ‘em we win. And I made a couple and we were able to win.”
The Raptors were led by Gary Trent Jr., who had 33 points — his third consecutive game of 30 or more — and five steals while Siakam was a force on both ends as he ended up with 21 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four blocks and four steals.
The Heat were led by Jimmy Butler who had 37 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists in his 52 minutes as the Raptors otherwise held the Heat to 40 per cent shooting and forced them into 23 turnovers.
The Raptors improved to 24-23 while Miami fell to 32-18
It was a significant win for Toronto, even if Lowry wasn’t in the lineup for the Heat who are otherwise one of the deepest teams in the league.
The Heat are in first place in the East despite Butler, Lowry and Bam Adebayo missing a combined 54 starts through the first 50 games.
It’s a stretch to say they’re ‘plug-and-play’ but they do have a style, and more importantly, the depth required to remain competitive almost regardless of who is on the floor.
“It was nip and tuck and certainly could have went either way several times but we kept hanging in there and kept fighting and kept figuring it out,” said Nurse.
Leading the defensive charge was Siakam, his highlight being when he turned away Heat centre Adebayo twice at the rim with 2:30 left in the fourth quarter and the Heat leading by two.
“He’s been at an All-NBA level,” said VanVleet. “We’ll worry about the accolades later and however people choose to view him and the narrative that’s based around him. I’m watching him every day, I’m watching him in practice, I’m watching him in shootaround, I’m watching him in the games, he’s been at an All-NBA level for a while now. We’re gonna need him to continue to do that, he carries a huge load for our franchise and he takes a lot of heat when he doesn’t play well, that’s the way it goes, but he’s been playing at a really high level on both ends of the floor, we’re gonna need him to continue to do that.”
The Raptors’ energy was evident from the tip. It’s amazing what two days in the sunshine can do. It meant that VanVleet — who missed the Raptors last two games with a sore knee — was back in the lineup and generally, the Raptors seemed to have more bounce.
No one more than Trent Jr., who has picked up his rhythm after missing six games with a sore ankle. He was averaging 22.5 points a game and shooting 43 per cent from deep before he hit the ground running in the first quarter. He knocked down his first three and then mixed up his offence with some attacks on the rim when the Heat tried to run him off the line. His best play was when he came back hard and picked Adebayo’s pocket before taking it the other way for a lay-up. He finished the first quarter with 11 points and the Raptors were up 28-27.
His teammates joined the fight in the second quarter as Toronto sprinted out to a 23-9 run. If the Raptors could frame those eight minutes, they would. There was no point guard on the floor, but it didn’t matter. OG Anunoby and Scottie Barnes (22 points, nine rebounds) got things started with a pair of threes; Anunoby (20 points, 14 rebounds, six assists, three steals) made a steal and advanced the ball with a tough pass to a sprinting Precious Achiuwa, and then Dalano Banton got his six-foot-nine frame on the floor to pick up a loose ball.
That didn’t lead to a bucket, but when a flurry of Raptors blocked out the sun as Gabe Vincent was shooting, they turned the rebound into another Barnes three, another steal — Miami’s fourth turnover in as many minutes — led to another Raptors break and Toronto was up 11 on their way to a 15-point bulge.
But the Heat have one of the league’s most dominant players in Butler, and he wasn’t about to let Miami get blown out on their own floor. Butler scored 13 points — seven at the free-throw line — as the Heat finished the quarter on a 17-7 run that was punctuated by a dunk in transition by Adebayo set up by — you guessed it — Butler as Toronto’s lead was trimmed to 59-53 to start the second half.
All Butler needed was a little bit of help. It finally arrived late in the third quarter as the Heat got out on a 20-6 run that started late in the third quarter and picked up steam in early in the fourth when Max Strus — one of the lethal members of the Heat’s collection of three-point bombers — hit three straight threes to help pull Miami within two with 10 minutes left in regulation.
And that’s the way it stayed for the next 20 minutes. There were some questionable calls — a turnover for travelling by Anunoby near the end of regulation that looked like he’d been pushed by P.J. Tucker, but was more likely due to Anunoby catching the edge of his sneaker and his ankle buckling after the Heat had gone up two after Tucker hit a three that was set up by Butler.
The Raptors still had a chance to win at the end of regulation, only for Anunoby to miss a good look from three with six seconds left. But Barnes got his hands on the rebound, got fouled and made both free throws to force the first overtime.
It only got tenser from there, but the Raptors were up for it, and got the win and made some history along the way.
Lowry would have been proud.
