Raptors gain ground in East playoff race with convincing win over Heat

TORONTO — What’s real? 

That’s what these last handful of games are about for teams like the Toronto Raptors, or the Miami Heat. 

Neither are on anyone’s long list as title contenders. They likely aren’t on anyone’s list of teams that could win a first-round playoff series. 

But they’re in the fight. And so how they respond matters. 

“I always tell my team, in those situations, if you don’t step up, you really sink to the level of your preparation,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “And I’m very confident in our preparation, and all the work that we’re putting in over the course of the summer and whole season to be in this position. This is what we wanted, right? We wanted to be fighting for the playoffs and to play meaningful games. They have a saying in Italy, ‘You always wanted to ride a bicycle, and finally you have a bicycle, now you have to turn the pedals.’ You’ve got to enjoy the moment.”

Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena was a moment worth savouring then. The Raptors pedalled that bike like the wind was at their collective backs as they jumped all over the Heat for a surprisingly comfortable 121-95 win that was never really in doubt. 

The Raptors (44-35) won the first three quarters and took an 18-point lead into the fourth, which doesn’t always guarantee much, given the Raptors are one of the worst fourth-quarter performers in the league this season. 

Not against the 10th-place Heat (41-38), though. The Raptors pushed the lead to 24 midway through the fourth on a triple by Ja’Kobe Walter and coasted home. 

The win gave Toronto a one-game advantage over the Philadelphia 76ers for sixth place in the Eastern Conference with three games to play. Toronto hasn’t been in a playoff series since Scottie Barnes‘ rookie season in 2021-22.

They get a chance to improve to 4-0 against Miami on the season and further cement their hold on the last playoff spot in the East — and avoid having to qualify for the seventh or eighth seed in the play-in tournament — when the two teams meet again on Thursday in Toronto (7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+).

Immanuel Quickley — who played 18 minutes after missing nine games with plantar fasciitis in his right foot — spoke up in the Raptors locker room after the win and made the point that the two games are like a playoff series in that winning one game in whatever fashion has no impact on what may or may not happen in the next. 

But the Raptors can take some comfort in that they seem to have the right game plan or the right personnel to manage Miami. The Heat have been held under 100 points six times this season, and three of those times have come while playing the Raptors. 

The Heat arrive in Toronto as one of the NBA’s most potent offences after emphasizing a five-man out attack, based on dribble drives and kick-out passes, rather than more traditional pick-and-roll-based offences. It was a conscious decision after years of grinding possessions into dust offensively. The Heat entered Tuesday second in the NBA in scoring, putting up 120.8 points per game. 

The Raptors have spent most of the season as the NBA’s sixth-rated defence. Would that hold up against Miami? 

So far, so good for Toronto.

“We really focused on what our keys were (defensively) said Barnes, who led the Raptors with 25 points, while adding eight rebounds and five assists in 30 minutes. It was his highest scoring game since he scored 25 on Feb. 8. “We wanted to just help each other guard the ball and we did a great job of that and building out from there.

It will be interesting to see if the Heat adjust. Teams typically run more pick-and-rolls and hunt mismatches in important games and during the playoffs. Asked if the way he’s chosen for his team to attack will work in a playoff series or — in this case — a pre-playoff series environment, Erik Spoelstra, in his 18th season as Heat head coach and 29th with the organization, sounded determined to go down guns blazing. 

“I’d rather be able to score points than not score points,” Spoelstra said before the game. “We think you want to be able to lead the league in scoring or be second in the league in scoring. We do not like being 21st in scoring. I would rather be able to put up points.”

“(But) we do need to defend. That hasn’t changed, and we’ve felt some pain recently by not defending it at a high level.”

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Against the Raptors, the Heat did neither. The Raptors held Miami to 36.3 per cent shooting (12-of-44 from deep) while Toronto shot 49.5 per cent from the floor and made 12-of-28 from three. 

Toronto had four of its five starters in double figures — the exception being Quickley, who was on a minutes restriction and took just three shots. 

In addition to Barnes, Brandon Ingram scored 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting, including three triples on five attempts. Poeltl bounced back nicely from a poor showing in Boston as he added 17 points, six rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot in 25 minutes while RJ Barrett had 16 points and eight rebounds. 

“This is the time of the year where we can show who we really are,” said Barrett. “It was a quality win, but like Quick said, we’re looking at this like a playoff series. Winning Game 1 has nothing to do with Game 2. They’re going to come out more energized and play even harder. So we have to be ready.”

The Heat were led by Toronto-area star Andrew Wiggins, who finished with 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting.

But perhaps as important as anyone on the floor for the Raptors was rookie Collin Murray-Boyles, who continues to show a rare ability to change the texture of the game with his level of defensive activity and some timely offensive punch. It’s hard to nail down exactly why or how, other than he seems to have a very rare combination of physicality — teammate Sandro Mamukelashvili keeps trying to get the nickname ‘CM Bruiser’ into regular rotation — and a knack for reading the flow of play. He gets places on time and makes things happen, basically. 

He was in the middle of the Raptors’ first surge, which came late in the first quarter. The game was tied when Murray-Boyles chased down an offensive rebound and kicked it out to Walter (3-of-8 from deep) for a three. He then made rugged Heat wing Jaime Jaquez Jr. disappear while defending a drive and grabbed the defensive rebound, leading to a fastbreak lay-up by Barnes. The burly rookie grabbed another defensive rebound, sprinted his six-foot-seven, 250-pound frame down the floor and finished a pretty passing play by Barnes and Jamal Shead to put the Raptors up by seven. He then swallowed up Jaquez — a leading sixth man of the year candidate — again on another drive at the end of the quarter. 

He only scored six points and grabbed eight rebounds (along with two blocked shots, a steal and who knows how many deflections), but somehow his impact was much more significant. 

“He changes games,” said Barnes. “His physicality, rebounding the ball, being able to guard. Our defence gets better when he steps on the floor. He does a great job of setting screens and rolling and putting pressure on the rim … I think he does an exceptional job out there and I can’t give him enough credit. He’s out there over-performing.”

The Raptors defence seems very real — against the Heat certainly — and Murray-Boyles is a big reason why. The Raptors get to test those theories again Thursday. 

Grange for three

Norm! 

It’s been a season in two parts for Norman Powell, the popular former Raptor who was traded for Gary Trent Jr. at the deadline during the 2020-21 ‘Tampa Tank’ season. Prior to making his first all-star team at age 32 and in his 11th season, he was putting up 23 points a game on 61.6 per cent True Shooting.

But it’s been a different story since the All-Star break. Powell has only played 10 games due to injuries, including missing three recently due to an ‘upper respiratory’ illness. In that relatively limited action, Powell has averaged 18.1 points a on 58.5 per cent True Shooting, mainly as his three-point shooting has slipped from 39.6 per cent to 32.3.

Powell will be an interesting name to watch in the off-season. Not a lot of players of his standard — a 41-per cent three-point shooter over eight seasons — make it to free agency, but Powell will after the Los Angeles Clippers and now the Heat decided they didn’t want to extend what was a five-year contract for $90 million.

I ran into Powell in the hall before the game Tuesday and asked if he had plans to break some (Raptors) hearts in Toronto this week. “I’m going to try,” he said. He’ll have to do a little more on Thursday, as he finished with 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting in his 24 minutes. Coming into the game, Powell’s 17 points per game average against Toronto was his second-highest among the 30 NBA teams he’s played against. His highest is against the Clippers, at 17.8 points. Norm never forgets. 

It’s only a thumb

Murray-Boyles first hurt his left thumb playing against the Heat on Dec. 23. He hurt another part of his thumb when he was hard fouled by Luka Doncic on Jan. 18. He still requires a heavy wrap on it and often seems to be in pain when he reaches into crowds to come up with the ball. But he’s not going to change his approach to try and protect it. “I wouldn’t be playing if I did that,” said Murray-Boyles. “That’s my identity, being aggressive, being a defensive pest out there, being active. That’s how I made my name out there, so I have to do it.“

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If Murray-Boyles ever doubts himself, he can always just dial up this quote from his head coach after he scored six points and was 3-of-7 from the floor: “I have the utmost respect and trust in that guy and how he competes,” Rajakovic said. “He just thinks about how to help a team. He’s playing basketball with no agenda. He’s just playing basketball to win. He’s going to be guarding ones, he’s going to be guarding fives, he’s going to be rebounding, he’s going to be running in transition every single time. He does so much for us.”

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