Raptors stave off extinction thanks to Lowry, Powell

Raptors stave off extinction thanks to Lowry, Powell

Raptors stave off extinction thanks to Lowry, Powell
NBA

Raptors stave off extinction thanks to Lowry, Powell

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Canada’s dinosaurs are not extinct yet. it took six quarters of tense, heart-stopping basketball, but Toronto forced a Game 7 of a thrilling series against the Boston Celtics 125-122 on Wednesday night in Orlando.

Franchise icon Kyle Lowry delivered many of the biggest plays of the game, including a turnaround jump shot over Kemba Walker with 11.2 seconds remaining and scored 33 points in all, helping make up for another tough offensive night by fellow all-star Pascal Siakam.

“He obviously made some huge ones, right, especially the last one,” Raptors head coach Nick Nurse said of Lowry’s clutch dagger. “Holy smokes, that was a tough one … That’s what great players do.”

Norman Powell added 23 points off the bench for the Raptors, including a clutch three-pointer and a crucial layup with 38.8 seconds remaining in double overtime, and Fred VanVleet had 21.

Powell had 10 points in the second overtime after missing a potential winner from three-point range at the buzzer of the first overtime.“He saved us, he saved our season, and it’s kind of his trademark now, you never know when it’s going to happen but it always happens at some point in the playoffs,” said VanVleet of Powell, who has risen to the occasion in the past at key times against the likes of Milwaukee and Indiana.“Obviously Kyle was steady the whole night, but Norm really gave us a boost there, we started the second overtime with three turnovers and couldn’t get a stop, and Norm was able to get a big steal, an and-1, couple free throws, big three, so he was huge, man, he gave us that spark that we needed to get over that hump.”

But while it was Powell’s night, it also was another feather in the cap of Lowry, helping to cement his Hall of Fame case.

Jaylen Brown scored 31 points for Boston, Jayson Tatum had 29, Marcus Smart 23.

Siakam played a Raptors playoff franchise-high 54 minutes, Lowry 53. VanVleet and OG Anunoby also played at least 50 minutes.

Siakam went 4-for-18 before finally hitting a shot to tie the game in the second overtime and that seemed to spark his teammates, who followed with the consecutive three-pointers before Powell scored his layup while being fouled.

Much earlier, a game after starting a horrid 3-for-17 on three-point attempts, Toronto misfired on 11-of-13 from behind the arc before finally finding the range. Hitting five of the next nine three-point tries allowed Toronto to stay within range of Boston through two quarters.

The Raptors had lost the second quarter of every game in the series, but actually played the Celtics even in this one, meaning they went to the break still down by four points.Once again the Raptors were at their best in the third quarter, with Marc Gasol at the forefront of the surge.

After missing his first 11 three-point tries of the series, getting roundly outplayed by Daniel Theis and starting this game poorly, Gasol was so angry after being removed from the game early that he pulled on his jersey and walked to the back to regain his composure.Whatever Gasol did worked, as the big man blocked Celtics superstar Tatum on the first play of the second half and followed up with a three-pointer. Gasol added another jumper and then an additional three-pointer as Toronto took its first leads since the opening minute.

Earlier, backup centre Serge Ibaka had picked Gasol up big-time with a number of blocked shots and, more crucially, three made three-pointers in a row at a time when all of his teammates appeared to be way off.

But five fouls on Gasol and perhaps Ibaka’s sore ankle convinced head coach Nick Nurse to go small for much of the final stages of this long game. That meant Siakam at centre.

Toronto didn’t score for over three minutes toward the end of the fourth quarter, but after a Siakam missed layup Kemba Walker, one of the great closers in the sport dating back to his time in the NCAA, drove for an attempted winner but was deterred by the Raptors. Toronto tried to call a timeout, and after a review, was given 2.2 seconds to set up a potential series-extending shot.

The play was to get Anunoby a shot at the rim and Tatum was called for a foul while trying to defend Anunoby. But Boston had a foul to give, so Toronto had 0.9 seconds to try again and Siakam’s desperation attempt hit glass, but didn’t fall.The first overtime was a back-and-forth, high pressure five minutes that saw Toronto come away with a chance to try to win. The Raptors let Powell create a shot to close the quarter, but his three-pointer wasn’t close and the game went to a second overtime.

Toronto had lost two of its previous three games when facing elimination, both during sweeps at the hands of LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The win was courtesy of Kawhi Leonard’s shot against the Philadelphia 76ers.

The series finale will go Friday, with the winner advancing to face the Miami Heat in the conference final. But first this classic has to find itself a winner.

“Well, I would have thought that at the start of the series — or I don’t know at the start of the playoffs even before you would have thought if Boston and Toronto got on a collision course it was going to be a hell of a series,” Nurse said. “We almost didn’t make it one because of our play a couple of times. And obviously we won a couple of close ones. But we got a good series. We got a game 7. Let’s see what happens.”