Raptors tear up Wizards

By Guillaume Mahot

Harry Potter blown up by Jurassic Park. The magic wand crushed by the teeth of the velociraptor. Last night in Toronto, Raptors (fourth in the East) got rid of Washington (twelfth) by 140 points to 111. Nick Nurse’s team was getting back Pascal Siakam (Cameroon) and Marc Gasol (Spain), missing for a while. With an appealing starting lineup and three African representatives inside (Serge Ibaka, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby), the locals imposed the pace and won the four quarters to finally win the game with about thirty points more than their adversary of the day.

No one was ever doubting Toronto would beat Wizards who are still deprived of key players like Japanese Beninese Rui Hachimura and John Wall (even though Bradley Beal and Thomas Bryant are back on track), but the way it was done was clean and filled up with hopes, three months before the beginning of the payoffs. Toronto dominated everywhere, especially in assists (35 to 19!) with seven players scoring more than ten points, an evidence of the collective skills of a team that does not so bad without Kawhi Leonard, gone to the West.

Ibaka had 15 points, Siakam had 12 and Anunoby 18. Marc Gasol (20), Kyle Lowry (11) and Norman Powell (28) were not to blame. The DC players painfully responded to Toronto’s team game: Bradley Beal, accustomed to being the best scorer of the team, was for instance limited to 14 points last night. His center, French Beninese Ian Mahinmi, had 5 points and 7 rebounds in 19 minutes.

If playoffs should happen today or tomorrow, the Raptors would be facing the Indiana Pacers of still missing point guard Victor Oladipo. In the very homogenous Eastern Conference, except for Milwaukee, things are tight and merely two victories are standing between the second (Miami) and the sixth (Philadelphia).

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