Raptors finish strong to top Magic
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Toronto, ON (SportsNetwork.com) - Lou Williams' 18 points and a strong second half enabled the Toronto Raptors to pull away for a 95-82 victory over the Orlando Magic at Air Canada Centre.
The Raptors stepped up on the defensive end to overcome a 52-44 halftime deficit, holding Orlando to a mere 30 points while forcing 12 turnovers over the final two quarters to earn their 10th straight win over the Magic.
Orlando shot just 37.1 percent in the second half after hitting at a 59 percent clip prior to the break.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You're not going to win too many games scoring 30 points in a half," Magic head coach Jacque Vaughn said.
Williams and Kyle Lowry each made big impacts as well, with the latter tallying 11 of his 17 points after intermission in addition to dishing out eight assists.
Tobias Harris led Orlando with 18 points but had only four in the second half. Ben Gordon finished with 16 points in the loss, with Nikola Vucevic posting 13 points and nine rebounds.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Despite their second-half struggles, the Magic had the score knotted at 63-63 entering the latter stages of the third quarter. The Raptors then got hot from the perimeter, putting together an 11-2 run to take control.
Lowry began the surge with a 3-pointer and Patrick Patterson buried two more to cap the stretch, which staked the Raptors to a 74-65 lead 1:37 into the fourth quarter.
"We came out more aggressive," Lowry said. "We had to keep our intensity up."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Threes from Evan Fournier and Channing Frye highlighted a 7-0 stretch that cut the margin to two, but the Magic then failed to score for nearly four minutes as Toronto put the game away with a 12-0 swing.
The tone of the first half changed after Fournier temporarily exited midway through the second quarter, the result of an inadvertent elbow to the nose from the Raptors' Tyler Hansbrough as the two battled for a rebound underneath the basket.
Hansbrough scored on the play to give Toronto a 42-36 lead, but the Magic recorded the next 10 points and ended the half on a 16-2 run to take a 52-44 advantage at the break. Harris accounted for the first eight points of the surge, with Gordon netting the next six.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Toronto regrouped following the break and hit four of its first five shots of the third quarter, starting a 12-4 flurry that evened the score at 56-56. Five straight points from Landry Fields shortly afterward had the Raptors up 63-58 with 4 1/2 minutes left in the frame, but a Gordon three and a Harris jumper quickly deadlocked things once again.
The Raptors were up by as many as 10 points early on, building a 24-14 lead late in the first quarter on the strength of a 14-2 spurt. Orlando then countered with a 13-4 push to close within one on Gordon's driving layup to begin the second period.
Game Notes
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fournier received several stitches for a lacerated lip but returned to the game with 5:29 left in the third quarter. He finished with 11 points ... The Raptors improved to 11-0 this season when holding their opponent under 100 points ... Toronto went 11-of-30 from beyond the arc, compared to a 4-of-15 display for the Magic ... With Williams and Patterson (10 points) leading the way, the Raptors' bench outscored Orlando's reserves by a 44-25 margin.