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Jay Satur - Raptors.com
It Was Over When....
We'll turn it over to Raptors radio play-by-play announcer Eric Smith, who had an up close view for one of the worst Raptors losses of the season against the Suns on Sunday to end their season-long six-game road trip.
Unlike Friday's blowout loss to the Warriors, the Suns wasted little time putting this one out of reach. With the Raptors ahead 13-11, the Suns went on a 25-7 run over the next 7:41 spanning the first and second quarters and the rout -- fueled by little defensive resistance and a whole lot of turnovers from the Raptors -- was on.
"We were flat as a pancake. No zip. No bounce in our step," said head coach Dwane Casey. "I don’t know, after the Portland game it seems like that game took so much out of us and then we went and played another tough team in Golden State and then we played a good team today. We just had no resiliency whatsoever on the defensive end. Offensively, you shoot 45 percent and score 109 points, that’s enough to compete to win.
The Game Changer
The Suns received a fairly balanced effort in Sunday' blowout, but Eric Bledsoe stood out for his strong offensive performance (20 pts, 7-12 FGM-A, 8 ast), coupled with a very solid defensive performance against Kyle Lowry -- who was denied his first performance of at least 20 points in a seventh straight game.
“He [Lowry] is a great player, he has been playing unbelievable," said Bledsoe. "I just tried to make it tough on him, you know, he was going to take shots and I knew he was going to make them. So I knew I couldn’t panic and just help my teammates out, you know, when they needed me.”
The Underrated Raptor
Tough to find much to praise after an effort like that to end the trip, but James Johnson deserves credit for providing his his usual spark off the Raptors bench (7-9 FGM-A, 17 points, 7 rebounds, 2 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk) in 26 minutes of action.
Johnson's ability to either overpower smaller defenders or use his deft footwork to get the rim were once again on display on Sunday. With DeMar DeRozan out, there's really not many other Raptors wing players with the ability or inclination to attack the basket like he does.
That's A Rap
"“I think we’re mentally flat. Some of the mistakes we’re making are just mental, flat mistakes. All of the yelling and screaming in the world is not going to change that. It’s just a byproduct of a long season, you’re going to have stretches like that in an 82 game season so there’s no room to panic or anything like that. We got to get back to Toronto and get back to the basics defensively. We’re going to start from scratch, we have to. But again, mentally we got to get rev back up again and turn it back on again and not let the grind of a NBA season grind us down.” - Head coach Dwane Casey, on a tough end to the trip for the Raptors
By The Numbers
30 - Suns points off 21 Raptors team turnovers -- tying a season high for Phoenix
251 - Points allowed by the Raptors in their last two games
64-48 - Points in the paint favouring the Suns
34-16 - Fast break points favouring the Suns
3 - Consecutive losses by the Raptors, a first since Dec. 1st - 6th, 2013
They Said It
"It's three games. Everybody loses games. We weren't going to go 82 and 0 and we weren't going to break the Bulls record at 72 and 10." - Kyle Lowry, on the Raptors' current slide
""We want to prove we’re one of the good teams. Unfortunately, we’re in the West. What are they in, first or second in the East? We could’ve won that game by 40 if we left our starters in, so They played great.” - Suns head coach Jeff Hornacek , with a rather blunt assessment of the Raptors
"We've got to get back to Toronto and get back to the basics defensively. We’re going to start from scratch, we have to. But again, mentally we got to get revved back up again and turn it back on again and not let the grind of a NBA season grind us down." - Dwane Casey<on getting the defence back on track
Up Next
The Raptors FINALLY return home for their first game at Air Canada Centre in 2015 and their first look at the Charlotte Hornets to open a six-game homestand (7:30 PM ET, Sportsnet, TSN 1050).