Wizards show Raptors some wrinkles
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Version 0 of 1. TORONTO — For two years, the Toronto Raptors were a baffling riddle to the Washington Wizards. They couldn’t figure them out in the District or in Canada, in overtime or in regulation. But they entered Saturday’s Game 1 against the nemesis confident that the past, seven losses in the last eight meetings, did not matter, that they could solve the puzzle. And on Saturday they did, utilizing a game plan unseen during the regular season to claim a 93-86 overtime victory. “You want me to give you the secrets that we’re going to have for Game 2 also?” Randy Wittman joked rhetorically. The confidential formula for Game 1 unfolded at raucous Air Canada Centre. Wittman used Paul Pierce at power forward for long stretches after utilizing the veteran there for just 4 percent of Washington’s regular season minutes. He played Marcin Gortat in the fourth quarter after Gortat was absent following the third period in the teams’ three regular season meetings. He elected Kevin Seraphin as his second man off the bench over Kris Humphries when Gortat encountered foul trouble, and he granted Otto Porter Jr. crunch-time minutes in his playoff debut one month after Porter was buried at the end of the bench. The unforeseen recipe morphed the Wizards into an unfamiliar unit designed to counter the personnel the Raptors have used to torment them the last two seasons, but it didn’t compromise their strength of stingy defense. The Wizards gladly engaged in a grotesque slugfest, holding the Raptors, who had the NBA’s third-ranked offense during the regular season, to 38 percent shooting, including a combined 8 for 30 from DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, and under 90 points even with the extra five-minute session while shooting just 39.4 percent themselves. “I said something before the game to them,” Wittman said. “You don’t know, first playoff game, this could be an ugly game, could be a pretty game, but if it’s ugly, then we have to be able to win it without our defense.” Washington is 6-1 on the road in the postseason dating from last year under Wittman, the first coach in NBA history to post such a mark in his first seven road playoff games. The Wizards seized home-court advantage from their opponent for the third straight series and will return to Toronto on Tuesday night seeking to bring a commanding 2-0 advantage back to Washington. “We’re going to try to get greedy,” Pierce said. “We didn’t come up here to try to get one game. We came up to take it one game at a time. We got Game 1, and now we’re trying to get Game 2.” The victory didn’t come without a frustrating letdown. Drew Gooden’s tip-in with 8 minutes 45 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter expanded Washington’s lead to 15 points, a seemingly insurmountable advantage as Toronto clanked shots off the rim. But the Raptors awoke with a 16-3 spurt, and Greivis Vasquez (Montrose Christian/Maryland) nailed a three-pointer to knot the game at 82. Washington had an opportunity to win in regulation, but miscommunication torpedoed the Wizards’ play coming out of a timeout and Wall was forced to settle for a long two that clanked off the rim. The Raptors then attempted an alley-oop off an in-bounds pass to Terrence Ross, but Ross’s tip fell short. Like last spring’s playoff opener against the Chicago Bulls, the Wizards overcame gruesome shooting displays from John Wall and Bradley Beal with the help of Nene and a late-30-something-year-old Los Angeles native. A year ago, Nene and Andre Miller salvaged Washington while Wall and Beal shot 7 for 25 from the field. On Saturday, the duo combined to shoot 11 for 41, but Nene (12 points, 13 rebounds) posted his first double-double since Jan. 9 and Pierce, the target of relentless jeering, netted a game-high 20 points. Beal finished with 16 points on 6-for-23 shooting, including 1 for 7 from three. “Sometimes you’re going to have bad shooting nights,” said Wall, who finished with 10 points on 5-for-18 shooting and added eight assists and six rebounds. “But our defense helps us win games when we shoot teams under 100.” Pierce did what he was hired to do last summer: emerge in the biggest of moments. In an article published on ESPN.com last week, Pierce opined that the Raptors didn’t scare him because they didn’t have “It.” The comment, along with his significant role in the Brooklyn Nets’ first-round series win over the Raptors last year, made him the target of constant taunting. He was booed coming out of the team hotel and at every possible opportunity throughout the afternoon. But he silenced the taunts in the second quarter when his move to power forward altered the course of the game. After Patrick Patterson terrorized the Wizards with seven of his 10 points in the period’s first four minutes, Pierce was put into the game at power forward with 7:14 remaining and the Wizards trailing by seven points. He then ignited a 16-4 run, scoring 10 points on his own, and re-emerged in overtime to drain a pivotal three-pointer to spark a 7-0 run, which included a Nene dunk and a floater from Porter. Without Lowry after he fouled out late in the fourth quarter, Toronto was held scoreless until DeRozan recorded an uncontested dunk with 29 seconds left. By that point the fans, clad in white T-shirts, were filing toward the exits, stunned. “As a unit, we’ve been here before,” Gooden said. “It’s nothing new to us. We know it can be done. We got that first one from them and now we got to taste a little bit of blood.” |