Raptors Use Hot Start To Survive Late Scare from Bulls

The Toronto Raptors finally broke through with a big first half and rode it to their first in-season tournament victory over the Chicago Bulls on Friday

It turns out an early lead can come in handy.

The Toronto Raptors have seemed almost allergic to hot starts this season. They came into Friday ranked as the league’s seventh-worst first-half team and had fallen behind by 10 or more points in seven of their last nine games. Sure, they’ve climbed out of a couple of those holes, but that’s not a sustainable way to live in the NBA.

So what happens when you’re the aggressor early?

Suddenly there's wiggle room for mistakes.

It's how Toronto survived three minutes without a field goal in the fourth quarter and a late 10-0 run from the Chicago Bulls and managed still to escape with a 121-108 victory on Friday night, the team's first in-season tournament victory of the year.

What was the difference on Friday?

Nobody has really been able to say. It certainly helped that the Bulls aren't some juggernaut, but the Raptors have been searching for reasons why their first halves have been so disappointing this year. 

“There is a theme that maybe we don't start the game with the focus and energy that we need to have. And we're finding it over the course, during the game,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said pre-game. “Our conversations every day are how do we prevent those?”

For a while, it looked almost easy for the Raptors. Toronto’s offense looked as effective as ever, running the exact kind of system the Raptors have been looking for this year. The team recorded assists on each of their first 11 field goals as the ball whizzed around the court and Toronto jumped ahead by as many as 15 in the first quarter.

"We were hoping to get 60 assists but we fell off after that start," Rajaković joked. "Obviously that first quarter was high-level basketball and we really moved the ball and we were finding each other in that first half. ... I thought we did a really good job there."

It helped to have Gary Trent Jr. back looking like his old self. After a nearly disastrous end to Wednesday’s game, Trent asserted himself early and often for the Raptors. He connected on his first four field goal attempts, racking up 13 of his 16 points in the first half, and showed improved defensive intensity, stripping Alex Caruso and scoring in transition for Toronto’s first unassisted bucket of the night. 

“He was efficient, taking great shots," Rajaković said of Trent. "I prefer we as a team are always aware of finding him and getting him good looks because he is such an offensive threat and he really helps us. I thought he did an outstanding job today."

Pascal Siakam played distributor early, collapsing Chicago’s defense and throwing kick-out passes to his teammates dotting the three-point line. Four of his first six assists resulted in three-pointers for Toronto with OG Anunoby being the biggest beneficiary of Siakam’s early charity work. 

A pair of technical fouls on DeMar DeRozan and Andre Drummond allowed the Raptors to climb ahead by as many as 20 in the first half. 

It’s not often a team goes wire-to-wire with that kind of lead and the Bulls certainly weren’t going to make it easy on Toronto. A pair of three-pointers from Alex Caruso and Coby White allowed the Bulls to whittle that lead down to 12 and a slow start by the Raptors to start the second half had things looking dicey for a moment. 

But the early lead gave the Raptors the kind of margin for error they'd been lacking all year. In the span of three possessions, Toronto was right back up big after a three-pointer and transition dunk from Anunoby stuck the Raptors back to a 17-point lead. 

"If you watch every single night it’s happening around the league like this league is the best players in the world. I don't think that you can go into a game and have a 15-point lead and keep it the whole game," Rajaković said. "But I’ve never seen the 48 minutes of a perfect game that everything goes easy."

Zach LaVine did his best to keep Chicago around in the fourth. He showed why he's the kind of offensive weapon a team like the Raptors would be interested in. He can nail three-pointers from anywhere and can create offense out of seemingly nothing. It's how he racked up 36 points, pulling the Bulls to within seven after Toronto went three minutes without a made field goal in the fourth before a three from Anunoby gave the Raptors some breathing room.

Anunoby’s defense on DeRozan helped keep Chicago at bay. The Bulls All-Star was limited to just 19 points on 7-for-16 shooting. Anunoby, meanwhile, chipped in with 25 of his own, nailing five three-pointers for Toronto. 

DeRozan was strangely ejected in the final second when Siakam attempted a late three-pointer up 12 with three seconds. Had the Raptors not already been eliminated from the in-season tournament, it would have made sense to play for the point differential, but by the time Friday's game tipped off the Raptors' tournament fates had already been decided.

"I don’t care about no In-Season Tournament points, none of that," DeRozan said. "Just respect for the game. If the score was flip-flopped and I had the ball, hold it."

For what it’s worth, Toronto looked great in the first half against the Detroit Pistons not too long ago and it seemed like maybe these issues were behind the Raptors. It turns out, the Pistons are just terrible and while the Bulls aren’t quite that bad, they’re not too far ahead. But you’ve got to start somewhere and stringing together solid first halves against even some mediocre teams should help Toronto build better habits for the season.

Up Next: Cleveland Cavaliers

The Raptors will hit the road again for a Sunday night matchup against the Cleveland Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m. ET.