Canada Sports News

The Toronto Raptors have defeated the Washington Wizards tonight with 122-118, appearing without three of their starters. Pascal Siakam, Marc Gasol, and Norman Powell missed this game all due to respective injuries picked up over the last few days.

However, one guy was back on the court, and his name is Fred VanVleet. The Raptors’ X-Factor during their championship run was more than willing to help his teammates, ending the game with almost a triple-double performance. Van Vleet posted 18 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists, all that in 34 minutes on the court.

“I tried to get back out there and give our guys a better chance to win. I’d like to think I increased our chances of winning tonight regardless of how ugly it was.”

The Raptors almost lost what seemed to be a won contest.  After dropping 40 points in the first period and allowing 23, they slowed down, especially in the last minutes of the game. Instead of knocking out the shaken Wizards who weren’t able to adjust to the tempo on the court, Toronto sit back and allowed the guests from DC to slowly claw their way back into the match,

Because of that, Washington tied the result to 107-all 5:21 before the end, with Ish Smith hitting from downtown to silence the Scotiabank Arena. In a tight finish, VanVleet scored the last four points for his team from the foul stripe in the ultimate 10 seconds, securing the 20th win of the season for the NBA champions.

Coach Nick Nurse talked about the fact that his team played two totally opposite halves.

“We were flying around pretty good. We had 25 deflections in the first half, which is a huge number.  But in the second half, we never got into a rhythm at either end.”

Toronto played with nine players, and six of them scored 10 or more points, with all the guys from the starting five ending with double-digit figures in the scoring column.

Kyle Lowry had a team-high 26 buckets, with 9 assists, but with 5 turnovers. Serge Ibaka replaced Marc Gasol and he did it pretty well, scoring 23 points and grabbing 10 rebounds, with three blocks as well.

OG Anynoby scored 18, while Patrick McCaw ended the night with 11. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson had a solid role of the bench, with 14 points and 4 assists.

On the other side, Bradley Beal was tremendous with 37 points, 7 boards, and 6 assists.

“I feel like we should have won,” Beal said. “We had enough flow and juice to win.”

Ish Smit was fantastic off the bench with 26 buckets and without a single missed shot, including the free throws. He was 5 of 5 for two, 4 for 4 behind the arc, and made all of his four attempts from the foul line.

Isaiah Thomas added 13 buckets.

Up next the Wizards, (8-19) are on the road for three more matches. The first is against the Philadelphia 76ers already tonight, while the other two are against the New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons.

The Raptors (20-8) play vs. Mavericks also tonight. The Mavs will appear without injured Luka Doncic.