Pascal Siakam was mid-sentence, speaking to the media in Toronto’s post-game locker-room Sunday, when DeMar DeRozan rushed in and wrapped Siakam in a big bear hug.
DeRozan had just played spoiler in Siakam’s return from injury — and exacted a bit of revenge against his old team. The 30-year-old scored 22 of his 25 points in the second half to lift San Antonio to a 105-104 victory over the Raptors, his team for nine seasons before he was traded to the Spurs in the 2018 off-season for Kawhi Leonard.
“It says a lot especially against a great team,” DeRozan said of the Spurs’ comeback win.
Serge Ibaka had 21 points and 14 rebounds to top Toronto (25-14), becoming the third Raptor in history to record a double-double in eight straight games, along with Chris Bosh and Donyell Marshall.
WATCH | WATCH | DeMar DeRozan drops 25 points against former team:
DeMar DeRozan dropped 25 points against his former team in San Antonio’s 105-104 victory in Toronto. 1:44
Normal Powell, who returned after sitting 11 games with a shoulder injury, finished with 20 points, while Siakam, who’d been sidelined with a groin injury for 11 games, had 15 points and scored the game’s first basket just 47 seconds in when he posted up DeRozan.
The Raptors are still missing Marc Gasol — who wore a T-shirt that read “There is no planet B” — and Fred VanVleet. Both are out with hamstring injuries.
Raptors spiral in 4th
The Raptors led for most of the night, and had cobbled together an 18-point advantage by midway through an entertaining third quarter that saw Kyle Lowry and Derrick White go crashing out of bounds battling for a loose ball. Lowry landed inches from his young son, and gave his son a quick kiss before running back onto the court.
The Raptors led 82-69 to start the fourth, but it was virtually downhill from that point.
“We stopped playing,” said Lowry, who had 16 points and 15 assists. “We stopped being aggressive. We stopped being assertive. They got more aggressive. They got faster and we missed shots too … A lot happened and it was all spiralling downhill.”
A pair of DeRozan free throws capped a 21-5 Spurs run that gave San Antonio a three-point lead with 5:31 to play. The Spurs would go up by nine before Lowry, Powell and Ibaka responded with back-to-back-to-back three-pointers to tie the game with 1:17 to play, whipping the Scotiabank Arena crowd into a frenzy.
But Marco Belinelli knocked down an open three with 28 seconds left, Siakam missed on a layup, then DeRozan sprinted downcourt chased by Lowry, who fouled his friend and old backcourt partner. DeRozan connected on his two free throws, but Lowry drained a long three with four seconds left to cut the Spurs’ lead to a point. LaMarcus Aldridge breathed a bit of hope into the Raptors when he missed two free throws, but there were no last-second heroics as Siakam’s long shot at the buzzer bounced off the glass.
DeRozan receives standing O
DeRozan arrived in Toronto playing some of the best basketball of his career — he’d scored 20-plus points in each of his 10 previous games, becoming the first Spurs player in history to do so.
It took him until 1:25 left in the first half to score on Sunday.
“You always want to start off fast, but they threw a different look at me that no one threw this year, kind of corralling me, trapping me, so it’s kind of like Floyd Mayweather: first couple of rounds you feel it out and attack after that,” DeRozan said.
It was his second game in Toronto since the blockbuster trade that also sent Jakob Poeltl to the Spurs. The Raptors beat San Antonio 120-117 last February in Toronto when Leonard stole the ball from DeRozan and scored on a go-ahead dunk. Leonard drained two free throws in the dying seconds while the Toronto crowd chanted “M-V-P!”
Raptors fans gave DeRozan a standing ovation during a tribute video Sunday night.
WATCH | Raptors hold moment of silence for victims of Flight PS752:
The Toronto Raptors held a moment of silence for the victims of Flight PS752, which was shot down in Iran, before the team’s game against the San Antonio Spurs. 0:47
“I don’t know anybody who gets two tributes in a row. Find somebody else,” DeRozan joked. “It’s amazing to be able to get that much recognition. It never gets old.”
DeRozan’s teammates were happy for him.
“He’s a great teammate, man,” Aldridge said. “He’s very unselfish, he wants to win, plays the right way. I was happy to see them give him that video [tribute] again because I feel like he definitely played his heart out, he gave everything he could to this city and I think he honestly deserves it. To come back here, play great and get a win, it just feels good.”
Siakam was clearly happy to be back on the floor, smiling widely when introduced in the Raptors starting lineup. He then went to work, connecting on his first four shots for nine points before the game was five minutes old. His three-pointer put the Raptors up by 12 midway through the quarter. Toronto took a 28-21 advantage into the second.
“I feel like I kind of lost my rhythm a little bit,” Siakam said on his second half. “I wasn’t able to get back into it. It’s just going to take a little bit, I’m sure. . . I felt I could have been way more aggressive.”
Powell’s three midway through the second saw Toronto go back up by 12, and the Raptors went into the halftime break up 51-43.
Toronto shot just 32 per cent from long distance in the first half, but San Antonio was even worse at 20 per cent.
The Raptors head to Oklahoma City on Wednesday then return home to host Washington on Friday.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — DeMar DeRozan scored 27 points in a record-setting performance and the Sacramento Kings beat the Toronto Raptors 122-107 on Wednesday night.
Domantas Sabonis added 17 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds for his third triple-double of the season for Sacramento. He shot 6 for 6 from the field and 5 for 5 at the free-throw line.
Keegan Murray chipped in with 22 points and 12 rebounds, and De’Aaron Fox scored 21.
The 35-year-old DeRozan has scored at least 20 points in each of his first eight games with the Kings, breaking a franchise mark established by Chris Webber when he reached 20 in his first seven games with Sacramento in 1999.
DeRozan spent the past three seasons with the Chicago Bulls. The six-time All-Star also has played for Toronto and San Antonio during his 16-year NBA career.
RJ Barrett had 23 points to lead the Raptors. Davion Mitchell scored 20 in his first game in Sacramento since being traded to Toronto last summer.
Takeaways
Raptors: Toronto led for most of the first three quarters before wilting in the fourth. The Raptors were outscored 33-14 in the final period.
Kings: Fox played strong defense but struggled again shooting from the floor as he is dealing with a finger injury. Fox went 5 for 17 and just 2 of 8 on 3-pointers. He is 5 for 25 from beyond the arc in his last three games.
Key moment
The Kings trailed 95-89 early in the fourth before going on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for good. DeRozan started the spurt with a jumper, and Malik Monk scored the final seven points.
Key stat
Sabonis had the eighth game in the NBA since at least 1982-83 with a triple-double while missing no shots from the field or foul line. The previous player to do it was Josh Giddey for Oklahoma City against Portland on Jan. 11.
Up next
Raptors: At the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday night, the third stop on a five-game trip.
VANCOUVER – The Vancouver Whitecaps are one win away from moving on to the next round of the Major League Soccer playoffs.
To get there, however, the Whitecaps will need to pull off the improbable by defeating the powerhouse Los Angeles FC for a second straight game.
Vancouver blanked the visitors 3-0 on Sunday to level their best-of-three first-round playoff series at a game apiece. As the matchup shifts back to California for a decisive Game 3 on Friday, the Whitecaps are looking for a repeat performance, said striker Brian White.
“We take the good and the bad from last game, learn from what we could have done better and go to LAFC with confidence and, obviously, with a whole lot of respect,” he said.
“We know that we can go there and give them a very good fight and hopefully come away with a win.”
The winner of Friday’s game will face the No. 4-seed Seattle Sounders in a one-game Western Conference semifinal on Nov. 23 or 24.
The ‘Caps finished the regular season eighth in the west with a 13-13-8 record and have since surprised many with their post-season play.
First, Vancouver trounced its regional rivals, the Portland Timbers, 5-0 in a wild-card game. Then, the squad dropped a tightly contested 2-1 decision to the top-seeded L.A. before posting a decisive home victory on Sunday.
Vancouver has scored seven goals this post-season, second only to the L.A. Galaxy (nine). Vancouver also leads the league in expected goals (6.84) through the playoffs.
No one outside of the club expected the Whitecaps to win when the Vancouver-L. A. series began, said defender Ranko Veselinovic.
“We’ve shown to ourselves that we can compete with them,” he said.
Now in his fifth season with the ‘Caps, Veselinovic said Friday’s game will be the biggest he’s played for the team.
“We haven’t had much success in the playoffs so, definitely, this is the one that can put our season on another level,” he said.
This is the second year in a row the Whitecaps have faced LAFC in the first round of the playoffs and last year, Vancouver was ousted in two straight games.
The team isn’t thinking about revenge as it prepares for Game 3, White said.
“More importantly than (beating LAFC), we want to get to the next round,” he said. “LAFC’s a very good team. We’ve come up against them a number of times in different competitions and they always seem to get the better of us. So it’d be huge for us to get the better of them this time.”
Earning a win last weekend required slowing L.A.’s transition game and limiting offensive opportunities for the team’s big stars, including Denis Bouanga.
Those factors will be important again on Friday, said Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini, who warned that his team could face a different style of game.
“I think the most important thing is going to be to match their intensity at the beginning of the game,” he said. “Because I think they’re going to come at us a million miles per hour.”
The ‘Caps will once again look to captain Ryan Gauld for some offensive firepower. The Scottish attacking midfielder leads MLS in playoff goals with five and has scored in all three of Vancouver’s post-season appearances this year.
Gearing up for another do-or-die matchup is exciting, Gauld said.
“Knowing it’s a winner-takes-all kind of game, being in that kind of environment is nice,” he said. “It’s when you see the best in players.”
LAFC faces the bulk of the pressure heading into the matchup, Sartini said, given the club’s appearances in the last two MLS Cup finals and its 2022 championship title.
“They’re supposed to win and we are not,” the coach said. “But it’s beautiful to have a little bit of pressure on us, too.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
Each PWHL team operated under its city name, with players wearing jerseys featuring the league’s logo in its inaugural season before names and logos were announced last month.
The Toronto Sceptres, Montreal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, Boston Fleet, Minnesota Frost and New York Sirens will start the PWHL’s second season on Nov. 30 with jerseys designed to reflect each team’s identity and to be sold to the public as replicas.
Led by PWHL vice-president of brand and marketing Kanan Bhatt-Shah, the league consulted Creative Agency Flower Shop to design the jerseys manufactured by Bauer, the PWHL said Thursday in a statement.
“Players and fans alike have been waiting for this moment and we couldn’t be happier with the six unique looks each team will don moving forward,” said PWHL senior vice president of business operations Amy Scheer.
“These jerseys mark the latest evolution in our league’s history, and we can’t wait to see them showcased both on the ice and in the stands.”
Training camps open Tuesday with teams allowed to carry 32 players.
Each team’s 23-player roster, plus three reserves, will be announced Nov. 27.
Each team will play 30 regular-season games, which is six more than the first season.
Minnesota won the first Walter Cup on May 29 by beating Boston three games to two in the championship series.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
