Toronto extracts a pound of payback from the Celtics

It’s the NBA. Most players aren’t sure what day it is. The carryover from game to game is next to nil just because there are so many of them.

But the Celtics went into Toronto on Christmas Day and led by as many as 22 before taking the admittedly injury-depleted Raptors down by a garbage-time depleted 16.

On national television.

The only NBA game in the window.

So the operative question heading into Saturday evening’s rematch was simply, considering the myriad factors and circumstances, is it possible to have a payback game? In today’s load-managed, don’t-worry-we’ll-get-the-next-one NBA?

Evidently so. The Raptors answered in the affirmative here, hustling their way to healthy leads and fighting off repeated Celtic challenges before cruising away to a 113-97 piece of redemption. The home team, possessor of quite an edge about itself, too, fell in their own gym for just the second time in 15 games this season.

The stage wasn’t quite the same as Christmas, but there was very much a quality of “See how YOU like it” to the Toronto effort.

The Celts didn’t roll over and play dead or anything, but the Raptors changed their coverages, got them off their spots and generally kicked sand in the face of the center court leprechaun. Brad Stevens told his guys they’d have to be even more aggressive than they were Wednesday, and they just weren’t. Not enough anyway.

Toronto outrebounded the C’s, 53-31, and had a whopping 23-5 advantage in second chance points.

It’s like the Raptors were mad or something.

“For sure, you lose to a team (and) you play them right back, you’re going to play a little bit harder,” said Raptor guard Fred VanVleet, who played hard enough to amass five steals. “They may have relaxed a little bit. But we had played three (games) in four (days), and they were playing a back-to-back tonight. It’s give and take a little bit there, but it was a hell of a win for us tonight.”

Raptor coach Nick Nurse took advantage of the chance for greater focus on the Celtics than he’d normally have when opponents are a moving buffet line.

“Yeah, I mean, that helps a lot,” he said. “We changed a lot of things in the game. We changed pretty much everything we were doing defensively and offensively that we weren’t very well prepared for on Christmas Day.

“And it was a sting. They had their fun with us on Christmas Day, and I thing it stung our guys a little bit. They’re pretty resilient and tough guys who bounced back and were pretty focused throughout the game.”

That’s precisely what Nurse was looking for. Asked before tipoff about the possibility the Raptors may play with a bit of malice based on what the Celts had done to them, he said, “Well, I hope so. I hope that they’re just not 20 points better than us right now. I guess we’ve got to play this game and find out.”

The early returns had to look pretty good to him. Nurse’s lads squeezed 16 points into the first 5:22, but even taking a five-point lead didn’t match the 10-0 start they had on the C’s three days prior.

But there were ominous signs for the Celts. Stevens had said after the previous night’s win over Cleveland that if his team played the same kind of defense here, they’d lose.

It’s fair to say the coach was hoping his team wouldn’t make him look so smart so soon. Toronto made 10 of its first 13 shots and went on to shoot 71.4 percent from the floor in the quarter to take a 14-point lead that was cut to 36-25 by Marcus Smart’s fast break pull-up 3-pointer at the buzzer.

As was the case when the Celts surrendered the first 10 points on Christmas, they went on to score the next nine and maintain their place in the discussion.

But make no mistake. The Raptors wanted this to be a brief talk. And they wanted the last word.

Less than an hour prior to the game’s start, VanVleet sat in a quiet visitors’ dressing room and didn’t play it cool at all with his crew’s desire to turn the tables.

“Yeah, for sure,” said VanVleet, who led the Raptors with 27 on Christmas. “They just beat us, and you want to beat them back. It’s not always that simple, but it gives us a little bit extra motivation to go out there and play a little harder and do things a little bit better and see what happens.

“Obviously these games mean nothing in terms of end of the season complications, but we take pride in every night we lace them up. So they got us the other day and they played well and we didn’t play well enough. So hopefully we fix that tonight.”

As was the case on Wednesday, it certainly hurt the Raptors’ case that Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol and Norman Powell were still out with injuries. The Celts, meanwhile, were closer to whole with the return of guard/Tasmanian Devil Smart, albeit in a limited role after eight games out with a nasty and dangerous eye infection.

Stevens had an idea of what was to come — particularly considering the opponent.

“I think every time you play a team with this kind of pedigree and with this kind of substance to it, you know that, if you were on the right side of it the other day, it’s going to be even tougher today,” he said. “You just know that. That’s just part of it.”

Also factoring in was that the Raptors hadn’t played since Christmas. The Celts were coming off a Friday crushing of Cleveland, but the Canadian club was already in town resting and readying.

“They’ve had three days, and I know how competitive those guys are and how good they are,” Stevens said. “So it’s going to be quite a challenge. We know that. It’s a heck of a team. I thought that we got the benefit of the schedule on the first one, and so I think that ultimately we’re going to have to play great tonight, and our guys are looking forward to the challenge.”

Maybe not enough.

Kyle Lowry denied there was any addition emphasis for his side based on Wednesday… but then he pretty much said there was.

“I think we just wanted to really go out there and kind of compete a little better than we did on Christmas,” he said after throwing in 30 points. “I think we wanted to come here and try to win the ballgame and play our game. You know, on Christmas we didn’t play our game. We all kind of felt the effects.”

One December 28th game may make no difference at all if these teams meet in the playoffs. But on the final full week of 2019, there was something at stake on Saturday night at the Garden.

And the Raptors were clearly more desirous of it.

 

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2MDlLFb