WASHINGTON – The Toronto Raptors have advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals for the third consecutive season.
Kyle Lowry scored 24 points and the Raptors beat Washington 102-92 on Friday, winning the opening-round playoff series four games to two.
DeMar DeRozan added 16 points for Toronto, while Jonas Valanciunas finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds, and Pascal Siakam scored 11 off the bench.
Bradley Beal had 32 points to top the Wizards, while John Wall added 23.
The home team had won each of the first five games of the series, the Raptors taking a 3-2 lead with Wednesday’s 108-98 victory the Air Canada Centre.
But Toronto was intent on preventing a Game 7.
The Raptors, who wore their black and gold, Drake-inspired alternate jerseys, trailed by 12 points early, but maintained their composure before finally taking their first lead of the game – 65-64 – midway through the third quarter when Lowry, like he’d done so many times in the regular season, tossed up an alley-oop lob to DeRozan.
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Trailing 78-73 with one quarter to play, the Raptors’ “bench mob” which had been among the best in the league in the regular season, opened the fourth with a 15-5 run, punctuated by a Pascal Siakam dunk with 6:51 left that gave Toronto an 88-83 lead. Siakam took flight for another dunk that stretched the Raptors’ lead to 96-88, then four consecutive points by Lowry made it a 10-point game with 1:55 to play, sending disappointed Washington fans pouring toward the exits.
In his pre-game availability, Raptors coach Dwane Casey had talked about the stress of playing a big Game 6.
“It’s probably like a duck. You know how a duck is on a pond? You’re probably not from the country,” he joked with a reporter. “You look at a duck, he’s all calm on the top, and underneath he’s paddling like hell. That’s probably how I feel right now. There’s no easy close out game.
“In every championship round . . . it’s never easy, no matter what you are favoured or who you’re playing against, closing out a series or winning a series is one of the hardest things to do in sport, in any sport.”
Fred VanVleet had five points, four rebounds and four assists in just his second appearance of the series. The backup guard injured his shoulder in the season-finale at Miami, and tried to play in Game 2, but last less than three minutes.
The towel-waving crowd at Capital One Arena once again included pockets of Raptors fans. A moment of silence was held prior to tipoff for the lives lost in Monday’s van attack in Toronto that killed 10 people.
The Wizards made seven of their first nine shots of the game, including three consecutive threes, to take an early 12-point lead. The Raptors, who’d been the better team in the first quarter in the previous five games, shot just 35 per cent in the first quarter, and didn’t go to the line once, and Washington took a 30-20 lead into the second.
VanVleet fed Siakam for a dunk as part of a Raptors’ 9-2 run that cut Washington’s lead to just a point early in the second. The Wizards led by 10 twice more in the quarter before Toronto closed with a 8-4 run. Washington was up 53-50 at halftime.
The Wizards were missing Otto Porter Jr. (leg injury). Porter had a procedure earlier in the day to prevent permanent damage due to compartment syndrome.