Raptors finally get good game from Lowry, DeRozan
TORONTO — After putting together one of their best playoff performances in a must-win Game 3 on Saturday, the Toronto Raptors picked up where they left off in Monday's Game 4, with All-Star guards Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan finally teaming up for a complete performance.
Lowry (35 points) and DeRozan (32 points) shot a combined 28-for-43 for 67 points and became the first teammates in a conference finals series to score 30-plus points on 60% or better shooting since Charles Barkley and Dan Majerle for the Phoenix Suns in 1993, further proving that when the starting backcourt is on, the Raptors are extremely difficult to beat.
Those numbers are of stark contrast to the majority of the Raptors' first two playoff series, where both Lowry and DeRozan struggled mightily to deliver significant offensive production.
"One thing about us: We can take the bad with the good any day," DeRozan said. "It's life. You can't get too down when things not going your way, but you understand the work you put in all summer, all throughout the season, for moments like this. You've got to be ready. I always told this guy, when we were struggling, 'It's not about now.' As long as we got an opportunity to keep playing, we got an opportunity to make up for this. And I think that's where we at. Everything happens for a reason."
Lowry scored 20 points in the first half, then kept it going when the Raptors led by as many as 18 in the third quarter.
But it almost slipped away as the second half wore on. Cleveland battled back and even took a three-point lead late in the game. But a strong finish by the Raptors prevented them from being in a big hole for the series.
"We wanted to get stops, and then we wanted to make sure we got good looks down at the other end, and I think we accomplished that," Raptors coach Dwane Casey said. "They fell into a play that we had trouble with. We found a way at the end of it on the last possession after a timeout to kind of talk about it, and we got a stop and they went away from it."
Now the series shifts back to Cleveland for Wednesday's Game 5 at Quicken Loans Arena. The Raptors have had nothing for the Cavaliers on the road in the series, losing the first two games of the series by a combined 50 points.
The Raptors must win at least one game on the road if they have any chance of winning the series. Casey says that's a perfectly achievable goal so long as his team brings the same level of play from the past two games on the road.
"We got to meet the same intensity level, the same focus that we've had," Casey said. "We can't have as many droughts. We've got to play through some of the droughts that we had. Even though they were double-digit losses, I thought there were portions of the game where the game changed and we let it slip away. We got to cut those down and make sure we keep our poise in those segments of the game and not let them get away.
"We've got to match their scoring in those segments and not let them go on those big runs. That's going to be our goal to go in there with that and go in there with the confidence that we just won two games behind us."
Lowry shares Casey's optimism despite the team's poor play in road games. He says the Raptors now have an additional 96 minutes of court time against the Cavaliers to build and study off of since the last trip to Cleveland. Because of that, he expects different results.
"I think we're four games deep into learning, and vice versa," Lowry said after the game. "I'm sure they've figured out some things we've done, and we've figured out some things they've done. But it's a match. We've got to figure it out. You've got to tweak things. You've got to see things."