The Canadian Press
Lori Ewing
TORONTO—The Chicago Bulls continue to have Toronto’s number.
And moments after the Raptors lost for the ninth-straight time to the Bulls, a 109-107 decision last night, coach Dwane Casey was as visibly angry as he’s been all season in a tense news conference that lasted all of one minute, 22 seconds.
“We can’t go in assuming, I don’t who care who’s not playing,” Casey stressed.
“If we don’t dot our I’s and cross our T’s, we’re an average team—and we showed that.
“We were not focused going into the game after preaching and preaching and telling them . . . I don’t care who doesn’t play, it’s the same trap game,” he reiterated.
“And then there comes [Doug] McDermott out there and we allow him to get his rhythm in the first half, and it’s hard to turn a guy’s water off when that happens,” Casey added.
McDermott scored 29 points to top the Bulls (33-32), who were playing without Derrick Rose (groin strain) or Pau Gasol (swollen knee).
Kyle Lowry led Toronto (44-21) with 33 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists while DeMar DeRozan had 27 points.
Patrick Patterson chipped in with 13 off the bench.
The loss ended Toronto’s seven-game homestand at 5-2, and it was only the Raptors’ second loss at Air Canada Centre in their last 17 outings.
“They beat us, that’s one of them things where they have good players and they’re comfortable playing against us,” said Lowry.
“We don’t do anything to make them uncomfortable.
“They’ve got our number,” he added.
“For us to change that, whenever the next time we get to play them again, we have to beat them.”
More bad news for the Raptors came late in the first quarter when Jonas Valanciunas headed to the locker-room holding his left hand—the hand he broke early this season that sidelined him for 17 games.
The team said Valanciunas suffered a contusion, but that he would travel with the Raptors to Milwaukee to face the Bucks tonight.
Valanciunas—his hand wrapped in a brace and bandage—said the hand was swollen.
He’d injured it just getting “caught up in action.”
“It felt sore, and it was getting sorer and sorer, so I wanted the doctors to take a look at it,” Valanciunas noted.
The Bulls have been tumbling down the Eastern Conference standings, and they arrived in Toronto trailing Detroit by a game for the eighth and final playoff spot.
But it seems all bets are off when it comes to playing Toronto.
The Bulls have owned the Raptors with a winning streak that stretches back to 2013, including an historic 115-113 victory at the ACC on Jan. 3 that saw Jimmy Butler go off for 40 second-half points to break Michael Jordan’s franchise record.
“It does [matter] for me because they’ve spanked us every time we’ve walked on the floor,” Casey said pre-game on whether beating the Bulls was of particular importance.
“We’ve been here, we’ve been on a little semi-roll or whatever every time we play them, then they come and spank us.”
It was more of the same last night. Chicago led for most of the night, and led by seven points going into the fourth quarter in front of a capacity crowd of 19,800.
Some late-game heroics saw the Raptors nearly pull out a victory.
In a drama-filled final minute, Toronto pulled to within a point on a DeRozan basket with 20 seconds left.
DeRozan then answered a pair of free throws from Nikola Mirotic with another basket, but a Butler free throw iced the victory for Chicago.
“They’re a great team, even with a lot of key guys out for them,” said DeRozan.
“They understand how to move the ball, how to play well off each other.
“Everybody knows their role, and we just got up into them too late defensively,” he noted.
The Raptors didn’t have much time to lament the loss with tonight’s game against the Bucks.
“Just get back out there, go back out there and redeem yourself,” DeRozan stressed.
Elsewhere in the NBA, Phoenix shaded Minnesota 107-104, Dallas beat Charlotte 107-96, Miami topped Denver 124-119, and Houston bombed Memphis 130-81.
Oklahoma City dumped Portland 128-94, Washington routed Detroit 124-81, Golden State bounced New Orleans 125-107, and Utah beat Cleveland 94-85.
