Raptors fall to Heat, home win streak snapped

Rudi Schuller

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Raptors fall to Heat, home win streak snapped image

The Toronto Raptors had their 12-game home winning streak snapped on Tuesday in a 90-89 loss to the Miami Heat.

Toronto was missing Kyle Lowry after the point guard suffered a bruised tailbone following a hard fall in Monday's 114-113 overtime win in Brooklyn, and it was clear from the start of the game that his spark was sorely missed by the tired Raptors squad.

Facing an aggressive Miami half-court defence, Toronto had few answers in the opening three quarters. The Heat built up an 11-point lead going into the halftime break and increased that advantage to 12 points after three quarters, but a late charge nearly stole the game for the Raptors.

Led by DeMar DeRozan's 25 points, Toronto managed to erase Miami's lead and grab a one-point advantage in the dying moments of the game, but blown defensive coverage by Pascal Siakam allowed the Heat to permanently reclaim the lead with just 0.3 seconds left. Miami became just the second visiting team to win at the Air Canada Centre this season.

Here are three takeaways from the Toronto Raptors' loss to the Miami Heat on Tuesday:

Deebo slowed, still effective

DeRozan is coming off one of the best stretches of his career, but on Tuesday the Eastern Conference player of the week was taken out of the equation for long stretches by the tough Miami defence.

Without Lowry available, even more of the focus was shifted toward DeRozan to create offence. Unfortunately for Toronto, the 28-year-old struggled in the opening half, putting up just eight points on 23.1 percent shooting.

As he tends to do, however, DeRozan heated up after the halftime break and led the fourth-quarter charge that fell just short. In the end, he racked up 17 points in the second half.

And while his scoring is an ongoing story this year, DeRozan also notched six assists in the loss.

At 34.5 percent for the game, DeRozan's field goal percentage was still lower than his lofty standards, but there was very little about Tuesday's game that was pretty for the Raptors.

Throwing hands

The Air Canada Centre crowd didn't have much to cheer about in the first three quarters, but Serge Ibaka and former Toronto player James Johnson gave the fans a little bit of a sideshow early in the second half.

With the Raptors making a run to start the quarter, Ibaka and Johnson got tangled up at the top of the key during a Toronto possession. Some pushing and shoving ensued before the players appeared to take a swing at one another.

Both players were ejected, with Ibaka's dismissal putting more pressure on DeRozan to shoulder the offensive workload.

The Long Weekend

With Ibaka's time on the court truncated, Lucas Nogueira saw 15:17 of playing time on Tuesday night.

The scrappy nature of the game suited the big Brazilian just fine, with Nogueira accounting for four of the Raptors' 12 blocks on the night.

He even finished off an alley-oop that brought the crowd to its feet during Toronto's ill-fated fourth-quarter charge.

Rudi Schuller