Six hundred days after they’d played a meaningful game in Toronto, the Raptors finally made their return.
For some of them, coach Nick Nurse suggested, the emotion might have been too much.
“It seemed to me we weren’t fully engaged and something was there, and it probably was that it was a pretty big moment,” Nurse stated.
Bradley Beal scored 23 points, Montrezl Harrell had 22, and the Washington Wizards spoiled the Raptors’ long-awaited return to Toronto with a 98-83 triumph on Wednesday.
Fred VanVleet and Scottie Barnes had 12 points apiece to top Toronto in what VanVleet said felt like a “playoff atmosphere.”
“We let the crowd down, that was a hell of a crowd,” he said.
OG Anunoby had 11 points and 10 rebounds, while Goran Dragic and Montreal native Khem Birch each had nine points.
Anticipation had been sky high ahead of Wednesday’s opener, but the rebuilding Raptors, without veteran Kyle Lowry for the first time in a decade, struggled from the opening whistle.
They trailed by 20 points in the first half. The gap grew to 29 in the third quarter.
VanVleet, who wasn’t pleased with his own game, particularly his 1-for-9 three-point shooting, said his message in the locker-room to his young teammates was: “I told you so.”
“I’ve been telling them for a month now, a month and a half. You can get all the pats on the back and all the hype and everything that you want. Pre-season was great, training camp was great. It does not matter. There’s different lights out there [when the regular season starts],” he said.
“Nerves and all that come in a lot of different forms and fashions,” he added.
A spirited comeback attempt, sparked by rookie and Toronto native Dalano Banton, finally gave fans a reason to cheer. Banton entered the game with 25 seconds left in the third, and promptly knocked down a buzzer-beating three from 49 feet out to slice the Wizards’ lead to 81-59 with one quarter to play.
Toronto shot a horrible 30.9 per cent on the night, 20.6 per cent from behind the arc. Washington, meanwhile, shot 45 per cent from the field.
