Game Rap: Raptors 90, Pacers 106

Holly MacKenzie - Raptors.com

Dwane Casey pulled his starters with 3:27 remaining and the Indiana Pacers leading by 25 points. The Raptors found themselves trailing after Indiana recovered from a sluggish start and they weren’t able to respond. Toronto suffered a 106-90 loss that wasn’t as close as the final score made it appear and fall to 16-10 with the loss.

The Raptors got off to a fantastic start against the Pacers, jumping out to a quick 26-5 lead. Thanks to turnovers and Indiana stepping up their energy on the defensive end, things quickly unraveled for Toronto and the Pacers reeled off a 22-0 run to get back into the game as part of a larger 39-4 run to blow the game open.

DeMar DeRozan scored 20 points on 7-for-18 shooting to go with five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot. DeRozan made two of three attempts from beyond the arc and four of five free throws in 38 minutes.

Bismack Biyombo scored nine points and hauled down 13 rebounds (five offensive) to go with a steal and two blocked shots against the Pacers. Biyombo shot 1-for-3 from the floor and 7-for-8 from the free throw line.

“It’s just one of them games. We came out with a lot of energy. After that it was a fight for us. It was a mental mistakes game. We couldn’t get rebounds, we couldn’t get stops when we needed to and we couldn’t score. A combination of everything, it’s very seldom we have nights like this and we’ve got to make sure nights like this don’t happen again.”- DeMar DeRozan on the quick start and then blowout loss

21… Turnovers for the Raptors, compared to 14 for the Pacers.48… Points in the paint scored by Indiana, more than doubling the 20 points in the paint scored by Toronto.37… Percent shooting for the Raptors, who played like they were on a back to back. The Pacers made 48 percent of their shots. The Raptors shot 55 percent in the first quarter, 20 percent in a dreadful second quarter, 32 percent in the third and 37 percent in the fourth.3… Toronto made just three of 15 field goals in the second quarter where they were outscored 25-13 as the Pacers took a 52-41 lead at the half.14… Fast break points for the Pacers, while the Raptors managed just three.

"We shot ourselves in the foot. We ran out of gas, but we can’t have 22 turnovers, one hand passes, playing in mud, not going anywhere, not being assertive. You can't beat good teams in this league playing that way.”- Dwane Casey on his team’s performance“It’s one of those games where it’s like that. It seems like no matter what you do, you’re still fighting, you tell yourself to fight a little bit harder, and it feels like nothing is changing. Everybody in the league has games like that, we’ve got to realize we’ve got a day off tomorrow, we’ve a practice day, we’ve got to get off our feet, get our rest and be ready for Charlotte.”- DeMar DeRozan looking ahead to Thursday’s game against the Hornets“We tried everything we could defensively, offensively. Those things happen. Taking care of the ball helps. Don't throw the ball away to them, throw it to your teammates. That would start a lot of it.”- Dwane Casey on how the team could have slowed the unraveling of the first quarter“Overall it’s a learning process. Mistakes are going to be made. It’s a long season. We’ll learn from it. Obviously, we’ve got a game coming up in Charlotte. We’ve just got to focus on the next one. The feeling is different when yowu lose a game like that from the jump. The way we started, and when things turned south we tried to get back into it and we couldn’t do it.”- Bismack Biyombo on learning from Monday’s mistakes, but looking toward what’s next

The Raptors head to Charlotte for the second game of their three-game trip to face the Hornets at 7 P.M. ET.