The Canadian Press
TORONTO–Yesterday morning, DeMar DeRozan sat down to watch footage of Michael Jordan’s magnificent final few minutes of the Chicago Bulls’ thrilling Game 6 win over Utah in the 1998 NBA Finals.
That night, DeRozan made some history of his own.
DeRozan scored a career-high and franchise-record 52 points as the Toronto Raptors opened the new year with a thrilling 131-127 overtime victory over the Milwaukee Bucks–their 12th-straight win at the Air Canada Centre.
“I remember being a kid and wishing to be in moments just like that,” DeRozan said of Jordan’s famous performance.
“So when you come out here and you are in those moments, you have to make the best out of it.”
The 28-year-old broke the previous franchise high of 51 points shared by Vince Carter (Feb. 27, 2000 versus Phoenix) and Terrence Ross (Jan. 25, 2014 vs. the L.A. Clippers).
“Tonight, DeMar DeRozan played like a superstar,” said Raptors’ coach Dwane Casey.
Kyle Lowry added 26 points while Fred VanVleet and Serge Ibaka finished with 11 apiece for Toronto (25-10).
Eric Bledsoe had 29 points to top the Bucks (19-16).
DeRozan had five three-pointers on the night, one shy of his career high, and his 21 first-quarter points were one short of the franchise record for a quarter, set by Lowry on Dec. 2, 2015.
In the post-game locker-room, teammate Jonas Valanciunas held a white piece of paper with “52” written on it behind DeRozan during interviews.
“You really can’t tell because you don’t pay attention to [points scored],” DeRozan said.
“You look up, you’re going to halftime, you may glance at [scoring] and say, ‘Damn, I got ‘X’ amount of points,'” he noted.
“You just feed off of that and understand it’s nothing but aggressiveness and going out there and wanting to win.”
If DeRozan wasn’t paying attention to his points, Casey could see something special right from the opening tip-off.
“He was playing with a lot of juice, oomph,” Casey noted.
Elsewhere in the NBA, Minnesota beat the L.A. Lakers 114-96, Brooklyn edged Orlando 98-95, and Portland topped Chicago 124-120 (OT).
