Toronto Raptors Take Advantage of Tired Boston Celtics

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Jose Calderon Shines with 17 point and 14 assist effort

A win is a win.

In a season like the one the Toronto Raptors are currently mired in, the team needs to pick up W’s any way it can. Especially, since the team is without its leading scorer Andrea Bargnani and now guard Jerryd Bayless. On Friday night, the Raptors took advantage of its young legs and wore down a tired Boston Celtics team to pull out an 86-74 victory.

The fact that the victory came against the Celtics – who in recent history seems to always have the Raptors number – made it all that much sweeter, especially after losing two games in Boston earlier this season by 23 and 36 points. The win snapped a five-game losing streak to the Celtics and three-game overall winless skid.

“It feels great every time you win, even a little bit more when you beat a team like Boston,” said point guard Jose Calderon. “I don’t even remember the last time we beat them. I think we beat them one time in their arena but it’s been tough. They are always beating us. We lost last time by like 30 or 40 points, so it’s always on our mind.”

The Raptors (9-19) received inspired efforts from all its starters on Friday night. Calderon had an especially great night finishing with another double-double – his 11^th of the season – a game-high 14 assists and 17 points as well as zero turnovers.

DeMar DeRozan had a game-high 21 points while the Johnsons brought energy and toughness against Kevin Garnett and the rest of the Celtics. James Johnson hustled and dunked his way to 14 points and seven rebounds while Amir Johnson battled for a 12 point and game-high12 rebound effort. Aaron Gray was inserted into the starting five as Toronto went big and he used his size to haul down a season-high 11 rebounds as well.

Boston (14-12), who lost a hard fought overtime game against the Los Angeles Lakers the night before, did not get into Toronto until very early Friday morning and the fatigue was evident all game. The Raptors jumped out to another fast start to run all over the Celtics and held a 26-14 lead after the first quarter.

“It was big,” said forward Amir Johnson. “We knew they had a back-to-back with the Lakers game. We all watched the game and our strategy was to just come in and hit them in the mouth.”

After losing to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, Head Coach Dwane Casey thought his team lost pride in playing its defensive game. But that all changed against the Celtics and he thought his team responded well and got back to playing defence he expected.

“I thought we had a good bounce-back,” said Casey. “I thought the guys took it to heart and they had pride, they remembered how they spanked us down in Boston and bounced back from it. The resilience that we showed was impressive…this is a growing process that we got to have each and every night.”

No Excuses

The Celtics had four players reach double digits led by Garnett who finished with team-highs of 17 points and eight rebounds. Paul Pierce had 12 points, Brandon Bass 10 and Mickael Pietrus added 11 off the bench. Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen had sub-par evenings and combined for a total 11 points and 10 assists.

Despite making runs to inch closer, Boston looked too fatigued to make any serious threat of a comeback. The Raptors led from beginning to end and frustrated the Celtics with its quickness and by playing good defence.

“We just didn’t come out with the energy you need for a game like this. We didn’t match their energy from the jump. They came out getting offensive rebounds and getting dunks. We just didn’t make the second effort I thought all night, we were late.

“It was just one of those games where you have to be mentally ready after a long draining loss the night before you come back into a back-to-back situation and it has to be more mental than anything. We just didn’t show the mental toughness tonight.”

Celtics Head Coach Doc Rivers wasn’t buying any excuses of his team being tired from the overtime loss on Thursday.

“If they want to use the overtime last night, then we are not mentally tough enough to be a winner,” said Rivers. “If you are tough, you come in and you grind this one out and win it to. If you are not, then you use last night as an excuse.”

Pierce showed his frustration and voiced clearly that this game was one his team was supposed to win.

“We feel so close to being the team that we want to be. Then come here the last couple of nights and take a couple of steps back is definitely frustrating,” said Pierce.

“We were supposed to win due to their injuries, not having Bayless, not having Bargnani these are games we have to have and we just didn’t get it.”

Bayless sat out the game due to re-injuring his strained left ankle on Wednesday and is listed day-to-day. There is still no timetable for Bargnani’s return who is still out indefinitely with a strained left calf.

The Raptors won’t have too much time to enjoy and relish its win with Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers coming to town on Sunday afternoon. Tip-off is at 1 p.m. at the Air Canada Centre.