Despite narrowly escaping South Beach with a win, the Toronto Raptors could not hide their troubling defensive deficiencies.
On the surface, the Raptors took care of business with a 107-104 victory over the undermanned and fading-fast Miami Heat. Toronto did just enough to retain its current post as the third seed in the Eastern Conference standings and clinch home-court advantage in the first round, while Miami's playoff hopes suffered a potentially crippling blow.
But if Raptors fans were looking for some inspiration in this contest, there wasn't a lot to be found.
Louis Williams had one of his hot nights (29 points on 9-of-18 shooting), but his volatile track record suggests he can go ice cold at any time. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry managed a combined 36 points, but they needed 31 shots to reach that mark.
As uninspiring as those last two numbers are, things looked considerably worse at the opposite end.
The Heat reached triple digits for only the third time in their last 12 games. Dwyane Wade (30 points), Goran Dragic (22) and Hassan Whiteside (16) feasted on Toronto's interior, a ...
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Article written by Zach Buckley
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April 11th, 2015 by Zach Buckley Leave a reply »
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