The Associated Press
NEW YORK—Hours after one of their best defenders had surgery, the Toronto Raptors got back to defending the way they know they can.
Jonas Valanciunas had 22 points and 11 rebounds as the Raptors prevailed 91-74 last night to hand the Brooklyn Nets their eighth-straight home loss.
Even without DeMarre Carroll, who could be out a while after arthroscopic surgery on his right knee across town, the Raptors held the Nets below 40 percent shooting and won easily even while missing 18 of their 22 three-point attempts.
“We’re going to have games where we’re not going to be able to score,” noted guard DeMar DeRozan, who had 15 points on the night.
“We’ve got to understand we’ve got to be able to win games in the 80s and keep teams, like tonight, in the low-70s, high-70s,” he said.
Kyle Lowry had 17 points, eight rebounds, and six assists.
He made all seven shots inside the arc but was 0-for-7 from three-point range as Toronto bounced back after giving up nearly 120 points per game in consecutive losses to Chicago and Cleveland.
Brooklyn is at the other end of the Eastern Conference standings, and its poor play at home is one of the reasons.
The Nets haven’t won at Barclays Center since beating Philadelphia back on Dec. 10.
“We need to work through some things,” said centre Brook Lopez.
“It hasn’t all gone as planned.”
Carroll is one of the Raptors’ best defensive players, but the Raptors had no trouble getting their defence back on track after their back-to-back losses.
They have won 15-straight games when holding opponents below 100 points.
“I thought overall we needed a game like that to show from start to finish we put our defensive imprint on the game,” said coach Dwane Casey.
And it helped on the other end to have a strong game from Valanciunas with their outside shots not falling.
“I think ‘JV’ just did a good job of being in the right spots tonight,” Lowry said.
“He was much more active and going against a true big like Brook, he just got up for the challenge.”
Lopez had 24 points and 13 rebounds for Brooklyn, which wore black uniforms reading “Los Nets” instead of its usual whites.
But the result was the same as usual at home, where the Nets heard a few boos as the Raptors led by double digits throughout the fourth quarter.
“It was just overall domination,” said Nets’ coach Lionel Hollins.
The Raptors outscored the Nets 16-2 to close the second quarter, then finished the third with a 13-4 spurt that gave them a 70-56 lead.
Toronto quickly pushed it to 18 to put it away.
Joe Johnson, battling a bruised left quad, finished with five points on 2-of-7 shooting.
He was scoreless until hitting a three-pointer in the third quarter, giving him a field goal in 919-straight games—the longest active streak in the NBA.
The Raptors next visit Washington tomorrow night.
