Warriors outshine Raps on Drake Night
TORONTO – With a lead and a few minutes until halftime the Raptors seemed secure, but never sleep on the Warriors.
Golden State ended the half on a 21-4 run to open a 13 point advantage and never trailed again edging Toronto 127-121.
“Sometimes great scoring teams can get in that mode and the only thing we can do is try to control the tempo,” said Raptors head coach Dwane Casey postgame. “We lost our focus defensively.”
The Raptors did indeed look a little lost at times Wednesday night. With all the hoopla surrounding Drake Night at the ACC and this game coming on the second night of a back-to-back series against Cleveland and Golden State their attention to detail suffered.
Tired legs couldn’t keep up with Golden State’s pace and spacing when rotating on defence and transition stops were hard to come by.
Steph Curry scored 35, Durant added 30 making this the first time they’ve each topped 30 in the same game. It seems like KD is fitting in just fine.
“The thing about him is he wants to really fit in and he’s been really unselfish – he could shoot more actually,” said Warriors guard Andre Iguodala. “There’s only two or three guys where they could shoot any time and it’s always going to be a good shot.”
DeMar DeRozan led the Raptors with 34 points, maintaining his league-leading scoring average and continues to solidify his case for “Greatest Raptor of All-Time.”
Kyle Lowry added 24, Cory Joseph notched 14 off the bench and Pascal Siakam nearly nabbed a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds.
Toronto found it difficult to play their centres against a Golden State lineup that trotted Durant out at the 4 or 5 spot and was forced to play small, but were then blocked often under and around the rim by long arms and solid team defence of the Warriors.
Next up – Toronto @ Denver, Nov 18, 9PM
P.S. – Tonight’s game set a regular-season attendance record of 21,050 surpassing the previous mark set in 2003. Pretty sure the ACC hasn’t gotten larger so maybe someone could enlighten me how this is possible?
