The Toronto Raptors stole a win in Game 3 to get themselves back in their second-round series against the Boston Celtics.
But what would they do with their loot?
Double-down and shift the pressure entirely over to the Celtics? Or squander it and end up with a steady diet of elimination games, down 3-1?
The Raptors went Wall Street as they invested their good fortune gained from OG Anunoby’s unlikely game winner into a Game 4 victory.
Unlike Game 1 when the Raptors were never in it down the stretch, Game 2 when they fumbled the game away or Game 3 when they had to rely on Kyle Lowry threading the needle to Anunoby for his game-winning three with 0.5 seconds left, in Game 4 the Raptors were surgical in the close of their 100-93 win as they evened the series 2-2 with Game 5 scheduled for Monday.
Lowry wouldn’t have it any other way. He started the game with a bang and ended it with a scalpel down the stretch as he knocked down a key three, forcing a pair of turnovers – including a crucial one with 30 seconds left as the Raptors led by five — and assisted on a couple more key hoops. He finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists while backing up his 47 minutes in Game 3 with 44 minutes in Game 4, again playing the entire second half without a break.
Lowry wasn’t alone. Fred VanVleet was 5-of-10 from three for 17 points to go along with six rebounds and six assists on a night when the Raptors as a group found some rhythm from deep. Pascal Siakam contributed 23 points while Serge Ibaka offered 18 points and seven rebounds in 23 minutes off the bench as Toronto held Boston to 7-of-35 from deep while shooting 17-of-44 themselves, the difference in the game.
The Raptors took an 81-73 lead into the fourth quarter that looked as fluid as it has all series. Siakam took advantage of Jaylen Brown in the paint, VanVleet found his three-point stroke and Lowry orchestrated with four assists including three straight triples – two by VanVleet and one by Ibaka – that helped Toronto gain some breathing room, which has been hard to come by for the Raptors.
The big question coming into Saturday night’s game was how the Raptors would follow up on their unlikely win in Game 3.
“I guess we’re gonna find out a little bit,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said before the game. “We hit a big shot to beat Philly in Game 7 last year and we had to get on a plane the next day and go to Milwaukee. I was really, really worried that we were gonna be really flat in Game 1. And we didn’t, we played amazing in Game 1. We were really, really, really – at least two reallys – unlucky not to win that first game in Milwaukee [Raptors lost 108-100]. I mean, we really outplayed ’em. So, we came off that jubilation and really momentous series clincher pretty good. So, I’m hoping we can do the same.
“But I think more importantly we’re just playing better. I mean I still think we, you know, when we come out of a game and say ‘man we played good,’ you go up and down the line and everyone contributes and everybody plays at least average if not above average or really well or whatever and we just haven’t had a ton of that yet where we’ve come out of a game and said ‘he was good, he was good, he was good,’ you know, all the way down the line but we’re getting there, hopefully. (It) feels like we’re getting there and hopefully we just play better.”
Lowry was ready respond. One of the knocks against this edition of the Raptors is that they don’t have the singular superstar to answer the likes of a Jayson Tatum with Boston or even maybe Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat – the likely opponent for the winner of the Celtics-Raptors.
That was Kawhi Leonard’s job.
Well Lowry would like to have a word. There’s an argument that Lowry’s 31-point, eight assists masterpiece in Game 3 was the best performance of his 93-game playoff career and he came out with the intent of following it up.
In his first 10-plus minutes of Game 4, Lowry continued to attack – he had a career-high 20 points in the paint in Game 3 – and scored 11 points to lead all scorers and got to the line for six attempts. That along with the lid coming off of the baskets from behind the line helped Toronto get off to a good start – the Raptors were 6-of-13 to start the game after shooting 28.3 per cent through the first three games.
No one was shooting it better than Ibaka, who put the Raptors up 31-27 at the end of the first quarter with his first triple. He pushed the lead to seven with his second three to start the second quarter on his way to 11 points and five rebounds in nine first-half minutes.
Series-long trends kept following the Raptors early on. After an early burst from deep, Toronto was just 3-of-13 in the second quarter with Siakam as the worst offender; the Raptors regular-season leading scorer was 1-of-8 from deep for the half. Similarly, Norman Powell failed to pick up from the glimmers he showed in the second half of Game 3. His only contribution was a trio of free throws from when he got fouled on a three, otherwise the source of so much bench scoring in the regular season was unnoticeable in 11 first-half minutes. With no one other than Ibaka helping out Lowry, the Raptors were lucky to be tied with Boston 49-49 at halftime.
They’re not lucky to be tied in the series, though. They earned that in Game 4.
