DeMar DeRozan on fire as Toronto Raptors decimate Houston Rockets 116-98 – NBA Recap
On Wednesday night Houston Rockets' trip to Toronto ended in yet another defeat, taking their losing streak to 5 games. The fatigued Rockets, who were playing back to back were handed a 116 – 98 decission by the Toronto Raptors.
Raps, who have now improved to 7-13 at home, and were comfortable throughout the night. They were marshalled by DeMar DeRozan as he tallied a game high 23 points. He was delighted with effort.
"Always feels good to get a win, especially how we've been losing these close games lately that we definitely should be pulling out, but we needed this one tonight. Especially with Drea (Bargnani) coming back and try to get things
rolling."
Linas Kleiza collected 19 coming off the bench while guard Jose Calderon had 17 points and 12 assists. Reserve Leandro Barbosa chipped in with 15 while Amir Johnson recorded 14 points in Toronto’s 13th victory of the
NBA season.
Chandler Parsons led the Rockets with 19 points and Kyle Lowry had 16. Samuel Dalembert and reserve Goran Dragic collected 14 apiece while Patrick Patterson recorded 13 points for Houston, which has all of a sudden taken a nose
dive.
Toronto clicked early and shot 0.684 percent from the floor in the 1st stanza; connected on 8 for 10 from the charity stripe and chipped in with .400 from 3-point line. The opening frame however was a closely contested
one. Midway through the quarter, the Raptors managed to get a 20-13 lead, and stretched it to 24-17 before the away side went on an 11 – 4 run to cap off the segment at 28 apiece.
The fatigue slowly took over the Houston side as they went ice cold in the 2nd frame; netting only 18 points. Deep down that period, Toronto had augmented their lead to 47-40 and they didn’t face any difficulty to stretch
it to 58-46 by halftime.
Early in the 3rd, after 2 freebies from Kevin Martin, Raptors came up with 8 unanswered points and claimed a 64-48 advantage. Toronto were still leading by double-digits late, but Houston reeled off a 9-3 run to trim
it down to 82-76.
Rockets started the final period aggressively and managed to get as close as 91-87 with 7:44 in hand. The Raptors however raced off to a decisive 22-4 spurt making it 113-91. Houston didn’t have much left in the tank afterwards
and the Raptors cruised through, claiming a 116-98 victory.
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