An insidious 12-0 run killed the Raptors

Boston’s insidious 12-0 run was broken up by a timeout and break between quarters.

Payton Pritchard touched the paint and scored. Then, Pritchard did the exact same thing, but this time, dished to Hugo Gonzalez for the paint two. Raptors called timeout. Scottie couldn’t get the dunk to go down, and Dick ate Baylor Scheierman’s dust as he stampeded a catch from the perimeter and scored. Scottie set Walter up, but the latter couldn’t finish. Scottie got beat off Pritchard’s dribble, yet again, and the latter scored another paint two (Pritchard went a perfect 6-for-6 in the paint in the third quarter – yikes!). The end of the third quarter.

But the Celtics were only up three points at the start of the fourth quarter, so perhaps, the urgency to stop the tide from shifting in Boston’s favour wasn’t actually felt. This was a game with 14 lead changes, and so the Raptors may have thought they could even the score or believed they were within earshot of making that 15.

But the Celtics are led by a head coach that believes in winning on the margins as strongly as he does in God. Two quick buckets pushed the Celtics’ lead to seven, capping off a 12-0 run. And that was the beginning of the end.

The Raptors abysmally lost the fourth quarter, 29-16 (they only won the second quarter). On a night where Derrick White went 4-12 from downtown, his two 3s & and-one play pushed the Celtics’ lead up to 10, 13 (then, the Raps couldn’t score for two minutes), and 12, respectively. 

With just over six minutes left, BI’s jumper put the Raptors within 10. On a night where the Celtics shot just 12-for-39 from downtown, White, Pritchard, and Gonzalez all missed their 3s during the late-game stretch (even Pritchard missed a step-back middy). It was just a sheer matter of luck that none of those went in, and if they had, the game would have been over much sooner. 

Scottie rightfully seemed pissed when Walter blew the lay-up, and had his WTF hands up in the air when a defensive misread allowed for an easy Gonzalez drive. 

When the game seemed salvageable, there was cosmic chaos, not celestial duality. Scottie was forced to foul when a DHO attempt to BI went awry. That would result in Neemias Queta grabbing an offensive board and laying one in – one of Celtics’ 17 offensive boards – after Pritchard bullied IQ inside the paint but missed the shot.  

Then, Scottie’s post-entry pass into BI got tipped out by Gonzalez. The ensuing dunk made it a 12-point game with 3:14 left. Then, Raptor killer Payton Pritchard hit a step-back jumper to push the lead up to 14. It was hard knowing that Torontonians were watching this live at Scotiabank Arena. 

BI was a shining light, though, as he hit back-to-back jumpers (four of his 24 points) late in the game. When they looked elsewhere, not even Scottie had answers on the offensive end – after calmly catching the ball with Queta guarding him, Scottie surveyed the offense, threw a pump fake and shot a middy, but it was just good old bricks. 

The Raptors lost the rebounding battle 61-48 – 21 of those came from three of their ‘diamond-in-the-rough’ bigs: Sam Hauser, Quetta, and Luka Garza. Three guards – Pritchard, White, and Gonzalez – combined for 22. 

This game only highlighted what we already know and pointed to Toronto’s glaring weaknesses. A win against the Brooklyn Nets tonight may not mean much, but a loss would certainly be gut-wrenching.

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