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 That was not enough to stop the surging Toronto Raptors, however.
With guard DeMar DeRozan scoring 33 points, the Raptors extended
their season-best winning streak to seven games on Friday in their
101-81 victory over the Heat.
"Everybody wants to be out there for the other guys," Heat coach
Erik Spoelstra said. "Guys are playing through a lot right now.
Everybody understands that we need whoever we can get out there. We
just want to make sure Dwyane is not taking steps back but he had a
great day of rest and therapy (Thursday), the whole shoot around and
afterwards he worked on it. And all afternoon he got some more
treatment and felt like he could give it a go."
As well as Wade played, the night again belonged to DeRozan. It was
the third straight game that DeRozan scored 30 or more points and
the second time in his career that he has accomplished that.
"The game is coming slow to him," Raptors coach Dwane Casey said.
"He's now shooting the 3-ball and the teams are going to run out to
him now. He's got an opportunity to get into the paint. He got four
3s up, he went 4-for-5, so again that's another evolution of his
game that he's getting into."
"It felt good, I just decided to shoot them tonight," DeRozan said.
"If it's there, I'll shoot it. I'm not going to come out like a Ray
Allen or anything but if it's there I'm going to take it."
Guard Kyle Lowry added 15 points, forward Terrence Ross 13 off the
bench and forward Luis Scola 12 for Toronto. Center Jonas
Valanciunas had 13 rebounds and nine points.
Forward Chris Bosh led the Heat with 26 points and forward Justise
Winslow contributed nine points and eight rebounds.
Wade said the injured players want to get back into the lineup but
they also have to be careful not to rush back.
"That's the toughest thing is players, one, you want to be out there
competing," Wade said. "And, two, you see you're brothers struggling
out there and going through this you want to get out there and,
three, you never want anybody to come out there and go right back
out. So it's always a tough position to be in."
The Raptors (28-15) had not won seven games in a row since March
22-April 9, 2002, on their way to a franchise-record nine-game
winning streak.
It was the fourth loss in a row for the Heat (23-21).
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The Raptors led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter before
the Heat cut the lead to nine in the fourth quarter.
"They had very good confidence shooting the ball," Bosh said. "They
must have had a really had a good talk or something before the game
because everybody was shooting. For us defensively and offensively
we didn't execute in anything. It's really disappointing. Because
we've got to the point where we should be able to execute simple
things and we're not doing that at all. We're close but far at the
same time."
DeRozan scored 15 points in the first quarter to pace the Raptors to
a 31-20 lead.
Scola hit a 3-point shot beat the buzzer with a 3-pointer from the
corner for a 60-44 Toronto lead at halftime.
The Toronto lead reached 20 points when Scola hit two free throws
with 6:57 left in the third quarter.
The Heat cut the lead to 11 with 2:27 to play in the third quarter,
which ended with the Raptors leading 80-67.
Bosh made a layup with 4:07 to play to cut the margin to nine
points, but Toronto forward Patrick Patterson responded with a
3-pointer.
With 2:53 left, Bosh made two of three free throws to reduce Miami's
deficit to 10. Valanciunas answered with a layup and Lowry scored on
a layup and added the free throw to boost the Raptors' lead back to
15. DeRozan's 3-pointer put Toronto up by 18 points.
"We're just out there playing with confidence," Lowry said. "We're
sticking with our principles. We're maintaining our principles and
we're maintaining our composure."
(Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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reserved.]
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