The Toronto Raptors will seek their fifth consecutive home victory on Thursday night when they face the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The first and fourth victories in that home streak were against the Indiana Pacers. The Raptors defeated the Pacers 130-119 on Nov. 18 and again on Tuesday, 122-111.
They will have to deal with a tenacious defense against the Thunder, who have won five of six after defeating the visiting Utah Jazz 133-106 on Tuesday. Oklahoma City used a swarming defense to score 45 points on 29 Utah turnovers.
Scottie Barnes and RJ Barnett will be expected to lead Toronto’s offense again. Barnes had a career-best 35 points on Tuesday and Barrett added 29. Jakob Poeltl (17 points, 10 rebounds) had his 13th double-double of the season. Toronto shot 54.3 percent from the field.
The Raptors believe they are learning how to close out games despite watching their 24-point, third-quarter lead melt to two points with 6:36 left in the fourth quarter.
“We got really focused on us, how we’re executing on the offensive end and defensive end,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said. “I thought that our execution down the stretch in the last four to five minutes was really, really good. I think we’re getting better in that aspect.”
Said Barrett: “I think we’re just starting to figure out how to win some of these games at the end. We’ve also been doing a good job from the start and giving ourselves a lead, so that even when teams make a run, we’re still OK, instead of just going all the way down.”
Barnes said the club picked up the intensity in the final period.
“That fourth quarter, we did a great job locking in, getting stops, the stops that were really needed,” Barnes said. “We weren’t fouling as much as we were in the third quarter. When it came down to really trying to get a stop and focus and lock in, we know we got it done.”
The Raptors improved to 6-4 at home but are 1-11 on the road.
Toronto committed 21 turnovers against the Pacers on Tuesday and will be hard-pressed to do better against the Thunder.
“Everybody’s just hunting the ball and trying to get the ball,” said Cason Wallace, who had 12 points and was one of four Thunder players who had three steals each on Tuesday.
“We did a good job from the start of our game having physicality and I think that set the tone,” said Jalen Williams, who had 28 points and three steals. “When we can do that early, we’re usually really good at maintaining that through the whole game.”
The Thunder finished with 18 steals. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 26 points and three steals and Aaron Wiggins had 16 points and three steals.
The Thunder shot 52 percent from the field.
“We just played with great looseness — in a good way- up the floor, sharing the ball and really fed off each other’s energy,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “We were fast with the ball in terms of passing it up the floor, and then we were forceful on the finishes. That’s what we want to look like in a game where we have a little bit of a feeding frenzy with the turnovers.”
The Thunder are 7-3 on the road.
Oklahoma City won both games against Toronto last season with one of the victories coming in overtime.
–Field Level Media